Category : Stories

Sub Category : Drama

As a young immature man, I never realized how deeply my actions could affect someone else's life. The reality is, I was only concerned about myself. I did what I wanted when I wanted, and the focus never really turned to anyone else but myself. As I grew and matured I realized how empty life was because of it. Being so completely self absorbed only furthered my loneliness. 

I spent years in prison. There were very few who reached out to me during my time in there. One girl I knew from the streets kept in touch with me. I met with her yesterday for the first time in 32 two years as a free man. As you can imagine, it was an incredible moment for me. My actions in the past had turned her whole world upside down. Over a meal, I listened as she opened her heart and shared a small glimpse of the effects my arrest, trial and conviction had on  her. I felt it deeply. Through all these years she thought it was her fault I had commited my crime. 

They say wisdom comes with age, though maybe as we grow the tides of our actions come in and go out with enough frequency that we learn to read the surf by the things happening around us. Listening to her story I couldn’t help but see how my actions had set in motion things I wasn’t even aware of. I committed a robbery where a man lost his life. It was a terrible crime and it wasnt her fault it happened, but she has lived with the guilt of it for so long my words of assurance meant nothing.

There is a ripple effect our actions initiate into the world and the people in the path of those waves either suffer because of them or become blessed by them. It’s up to me to be conscious that I am not an island to myself, but I am in an ocean of people. What I do does matter. Because good or bad, my actions will return to me in kind.