TOD 10.03.07

I recently had the opportunity to be selected for jury service. Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t picked, but, in the process, I experienced a sensation of great reverence for the legal system. Having seen many courtroom dramas enacted on television, I’ve been an imaginary juror for serious crimes hundreds of times. But sitting there observing a real trial for a simple misdemeanor, I found myself pondering the deep gravity of deciding to take away another person’s liberty.

See, it’s easy at a distance to “know” what you would do. But when you are personally responsible, you think about it differently. And that’s why I try to remind myself of just how tempting it is to second-guess the decisions of other people when I have neither the authority to make them nor the burden of living with them afterwards.

It’s not that I don’t want to think and talk about other’s decisions. I just want to remember that it’s always a lot easier to say what I would do when I don’t have to actually do it myself and live with the consequences.