Where Does Your Moral Responsibility End?
A Testimony to a real life incident on Halloween night
Yesterday was Halloween. I got introduced to a new neighbor due to it. She came to knock at my door just as I was opening it to bring out some chairs for my husband and kid.
As I was talking to her, I got to know that she lived just a few houses down the street and her daughter was also 6 years old and going to the same school as mine.
I wondered if she went to my daughter’s class and if they knew each other already.
When I questioned her that, she said “my daughter is coming up the street” and shortly the little girl stopped by to get her candy pick from my home.
Then she and my daughter got introduced to each other. They were from different classes and hadn’t met at school yet.
Our neighborhood is a new one and so all of us are also new here and to the school that is nearby.
This incident reminded me of another Halloween night a long time ago when I used to live in New Jersey.
I was also going around the neighborhood with my boys then who were about this age. It was night time and we were going in big batches of adults and kids.
I was busy taking to my friend and suddenly one kid ran across the street and almost got hit by a vehicle that was oncoming.
My friend immediately yelled ‘Aarya stop!’.
Only then I realized that the kid that had darted suddenly was my boy. Luckily, he was saved from tragedy that night.
Today he is a freshman in college. And God has blessed us, him and me.
But I had been such an irresponsible mom that night, busily engaged in conversation with my friend, not even looking out for my own child on that fateful night.
The mother, this new neighbor of mine that had come to my door had been with her little one that she had wheeled in a wagon and so, she also didn’t know where her older daughter was when she got to my door as here also the neighbors were going around in batches: big groups of people moving from one door to the next.
Sometimes in our life, we are so caught up with somebody or somethings, Substack for example, that we end up missing out on life: the people, the responsibilities, the passions that really matter to us.
I have also been slipping out of life by engaging in Substack for a long time now.
Not that Substack itself is bad. There is a lot to learn from Substack. Almost every writer brings value to the platform.
And that is also why the distraction to keep scrolling is very real.and that is why, I have made a conscious decision to slowly fade away from Substack as real life has been beckoning to me.
What about you?
Has Substack or anything else distracted you from your moral responsibilities?
Think about this.
Peace ✌🏽
Shalini’s Where Does Your Moral Responsibility End? is more than a reflection it’s a confession wrapped in vulnerability. Her story begins with a simple Halloween encounter, but gently unfolds into something deeper: a moment of reckoning with herself. The memory of her son nearly being hit by a car is raw, and her honesty in admitting distraction is painfully relatable. She doesn’t hide behind excuses she owns the guilt, the fear, the gratitude. Her words feel like someone sitting across from you, eyes full of emotion, saying “I’ve been there too.” And when she speaks of Substack, it’s not just about a platform it’s about how easy it is to drift from what truly matters. This piece doesn’t preach it reaches out.