Some time ago Michael Garofalo produced a fascinating piece for NPR’s “Morning Addition” called “A Victim Treats His Mugger Right.” It’s the story of the encounter between 31-year-old Julio Diaz, a social worker in New York City, and a teenager who held him up at knife point.
Here’s what happened. Diaz made a daily commute to and from his home in the Bronx. On his evening commute, he usually departed the subway one stop before his home stop in order to eat dinner at his favorite diner. But one evening when Diaz stepped onto the subway platform, he encountered a teenage boy, brandishing a knife. Diaz promptly pulled out his wallet and handed it to the boy. But when the boy began to walk away, Diaz called out to him, “Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.”
The boy looked startled and asked Diaz why he would offer him his coat as well as his wallet. Diaz responded, “If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money.” Then Diaz asked the boy if he would like to join him for dinner. And so the two had dinner together in the diner where Diaz was a regular.
The manager, the dishwashers and all the waiters came by the table to say hello to Diaz. Surprised, the boy asked Diaz if he owned the place. He couldn’t imagine why else someone would be nice to all the diner’s employees. Diaz replied, “Well, haven’t you been taught you should be nice to everybody?”
“Yeah,” the boy countered, “but I didn’t think people actually behaved that way.”
When their dinner concluded, Diaz told the boy he’d have to pay for the meal, since he still had Diaz’s wallet. Without hesitating, the boy slid the wallet back to Diaz. Diaz paid for their meal and then handed the boy $20, asking for something in return – the boy’s knife.
The exchange was made and the boy went on his way.
Later, Diaz summarized his meeting with the would-be robber by explaining, “I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.”
Yes, it’s a complicated world, isn’t it? Most of us navigate through life’s complications, it seems, by employing fairly elaborate cost/benefit calculations in our treatment of others. Do I need to acknowledge that person? Should I express regret to this person? If I offer to do something for someone will others ask the same from me? If I allow this slight or this affront to go unanswered, am I inviting its recurrence? And so on and so on.
Diaz’s approach seems to cut through all that confusion to offer a behavioral pattern that’s infinitely repeatable, though deceptively simple. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? We’ve all heard it asserted that treating others as we would like to be treated is always a great way to behave. But is that behavioral pattern really meant to apply to ALL others? At ALL times?
Well, as Diaz points out, you can only hope that in treating others well, they will treat you well in return. It’s not a prefect system, perhaps, but in this complicated world, it has always been an awfully good one.