Sailing
I am a sailor. Not really, but for the purposes of this metaphor, I am a sailor. And I am on a boat all by myself. We all are, actually. Every one of us is a sailor. And in the vast expanse of lonely, open sea, we sometimes encounter each other. Only, I often encounter these other sailors in various states of distress. Some of them are bailing water out of their hulls. Some of them have lost their boats entirely and are drowning in salt water.
Let me tell you something about throwing people life preservers. It doesn’t matter how many you have or how good of quality they are or how skilled you are at pulling them in. Those traits are totally irrelevant to this sort of situation. The sailor must choose to take your life preserver and to continue to hold on until they’re on sure footing. You would be surprised to find how many people refuse to take a life preserver because they’re just so overwhelmed with the drowning. Or maybe they have other reasons.
The point is, I wish I could jump into the sea and drag their bodies to safety whether they liked it or not. But in the real world I am not a sailor and in the real world, I cannot save those people.
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