Choices

The series The Walking Dead has gotten me to think about choices. In the series the characters are forced almost daily to make life and death choices . Most of the choices we make are much simpler what restaurant we are going to go to for diner. Are we going to go with the iPhone or Android. None of these choices are earthshaking. If we make the other choice in most cases it will make little difference. What happens though when the choices you make do make a difference. In 2002 Joe Paterno, head football coach at Penn State was told of sexual misconduct involving a former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky and a young boy. Joe Paterno at that point had three choices do nothing, reported to the incident to Athletic Director Tim Curley or report it to the police. He chose to report it to the Athletic Director , who then reported it to President Spanier. No one along the line chose to report the incident to the police.

They were not the only ones, reports of incidents go back to 1994. In 1998 an incident was reported to the police but was never prosecuted. Janitors working at Penn State were witness to another incident at the gym of Sandusky possible sexually assaulting a young boy in 2000. Again it was not reported to the police. All along the way men both in power and not made choices to either ignore what they saw or heard altogether or relabeled them as something acceptable such as horsing around. Had one of these men made a different choice at any time, they might have saved another boy from being a victim.  How many choices have we avoided making because they make us feel uncomfortable or it seems easier to ignore them.  The right choice isn't always the easiest one, but making it is the difference between being able to look one self in the mirror and not.