Just when is it ok to speak out against something you believe is wrong and when is it simply butting in?

I started to ruminate over this question -- this moral dilemma if you will, over and over again while I was living in London a couple years ago.

It began just after I watched a woman I'd never met verbally tare into her mentally retarded daughter on the tube while on my way home from work.

At the time I told myself, "If I say something, I'll probably just make this woman more angry and it will be worse for this kid when she gets home. Besides, it‘s really none of my business."

And while I vacillated in my mind as to what I might tactfully say or do to address the incident, the two eventually exited at their stop with me having said nothing.

While the moment was gone, a feeling of uneasiness remained -- I continued to question whether I should have spoken out or if that would have simply been butting in where I don't belong.

A few days later, I was again rushing home from a long work day when the busy sidewalk traffic came to a halt and I, with a hundred other people, found myself impeded by a confrontation.

A group of teenagers were harassing this one kid. The leader of the group had taken off his belt and was whipping the metal buckle of it in the direction of this lone kid, successfully striking him at times.

Again, my gut was to jump right in and do something -- to at least stand up and speak out!

"But I'm pregnant," I told myself. " And there's all these other people -- men J -- they should be doing something. I just got here. Who am I? Surely someone has already called the police."

Once again I found myself vacillating. I knew the police wouldn't be there anytime soon. With the narrow cobblestone streets that are often one way, I had learned that no one including the police ever make it anywhere very quickly in London. "Would anyone really strike a pregnant woman? This kid is gonna get hit again or worse!"

After looking on for a while still debating back and forth in my head, there was a man who attempted to talk to this group while the entire confrontation itself had also gradually begun to move down another side street opposite my path. I did not follow it but continued home on my usual route.

Again, I felt regretful and uneasy.

Not only did I wonder once more what had become of those involved and victimized in the incident, I began to really worry that my actions were evidence that I was becoming some spineless person who cared more about the possibility of others frowning upon my Butting In and boohoo not liking me -- you know, my own precious little neck, than the type of person with character and courage enough to Speak Out and get involved in a situation when something unjust is occurring to a fellow human being.

Now looking back, I know these incidences have their unique nuances and characteristics but it was that spineless thought that they triggered that became really unnerving to me at the time. I didn't like the prospect. I didn't respect it potentially being me. What I really wanted was to be the opposite no matter where I was.

Eventually, I made this conscious decision -- I committed within myself to Speak Out if and when one of these questionably Butting In / it's really none of my business things again stumbled onto my path.

In London, with everyone's use of public transportation and sidewalks, such opportunities for potential "Butting In" I came to find, actually come quite a lot.

Just a week or so later while I was walking alone on my way to visit a friend, I began to hear a woman yelling frantically. It initially made me nervous but also immediately caused me to remember my recently made inner pact. So I went towards the yelling cautiously all the while thinking what the heck am I doing?

As I came closer, I came to find that the yelling woman was alone. I approached her and asked her if she was OK and if I could help. She went on to tell me that her adult daughter had run away after stealing from her. She told me all about her daughter's drug problems and how she believed her daughter was hiding out in a flat in one of the surrounding buildings. Hence, she had been yelling her name in desperation -- wanting her daughter to come home and get help.

I tried to listen to her. I told her I was a Drug and Alcohol social worker working in another borough and what her options were for her daughter possibly getting help. I tried to empathize with her pain as a parent. I spoke with her other daughter who joined us as well. We exchanged numbers and I was really overwhelmed with her gratitude as she hugged me in tears with her thanks before we parted.

I left feeling really good! Everything about this incident and keeping my pact was totally not what I expected and it was thought provoking and encouraging to me.

Now other incidences of getting involved in other people's business and speaking out since of course have not gone quite so rosy. Sometimes they are quite the opposite as I originally expected. Like the time I spoke out against sexual harrassment at work for example, after being there only a few months, it did not make me very chummy with a particular male co-worker to say the least.

Or sometimes the results of speaking out are pretty benign and fruitless. Like when my hubby and I reported a woman who was soliciting men just outside of our flat. Nothing happened and we saw her again walking our street a few weeks later.

But I can say that there is a commonality to speaking out when I feel something is wrong no matter what the incident or the outcome is and that is that I never have that lingering uneasy crap feeling when its all said and done.

To varying degrees, I always feel good.

Even if I don't address it in the perfect way (which I'm prone to ruminate over for a while) I'm always glad I said something when I or someone else has been victimized or treated unjustly and though having other people perhaps not like me for it can be disheartening and uncomfortable to be sure, its never as bad as the crap feeling which I experience when I let a speaking out opportunity lapse usually for the sorry sake of some regrettable social fear. I've also found that eventually, most people come around.

So to the original question:

To Speak out or Not Speak out?

I say listen to your conscious. if you feel to proceed in a situation, get over yourself and say what you feel to say as tactfully as you can and then let the chips fall where they may.

At the least, you will gain an increased sense of your own personal integrity.

Best of Luck!