Life Teaches A Harsh Lesson

When I was in university, I had a friend who was in the same course and we noticed that a lot of people had trouble with a certain subject. He enjoyed being active with people, organizing things, taking part in student politics, and the like. Thus, he offered to organize an afternoon course for people who needed help with the subject. I also agreed to help, we booked a room, and he even managed to enlist one of the professors teaching the subject. He told everyone when the courses would take place and a couple of people said they’d come.

The date and time came and nobody showed up. My friend and I were rather confused, the professor was rather miffed, and we tried to find the other students. We knew they were likely still in the building since we had a course later that day. We found them in one of the computer labs, playing. Most of us had laptops, but the WiFi was terrible and very restricted.

When we asked them why they didn’t show up, they said they didn’t know it was serious and thought we were just asking if anyone was interested.

“We told you the times and you said you’d come,” my friend pointed out.

The response was general shrugging and comments that they didn’t remember that.

Adding insult to injury, the professor reprimanded my friend for wasting his time. “Next time, make sure to confirm with people when you organize something before wasting my time.”

Needless to say, my friend felt like he had been stabbed in the back and, once we were alone, he cried tears of rage. All I could do was to try and console him, telling him he wasn’t the one who wasted anyone’s time; they had wasted his, instead.

This was the last time he tried anything like this, deciding that people didn’t need or want his help, so why should he bother. He also retreated from some of the other activities he had participated in, feeling similarly disappointed, but for different reasons.