DAILY PROMPT RESPONSE
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
— Edmund Burke
For years, I stood for what I believed couldn’t be broken: humor, integrity, truth. It’s not the kind you post about, but the kind you lose sleep over. The kind you keep when it costs you something.
I stayed steady. I didn’t cut corners. I thought it would mean something if I just held the line long enough. That my convictions would carry weight. They’d hold the chaos back, even if only a little while.
But then came the choice.
It wasn’t dramatic. No burning building, no lives on the line. Just a conversation in a quiet room, a decision no one would see. And we told ourselves it was for the greater good. That by bending, we could protect more.
The cost was one truth I didn’t speak. One silence I allowed. It didn’t feel like a betrayal at the time. It felt strategic. Efficient.
But the lie lived on, and others paid for it.
The nameless suffered the consequences for what I didn’t expose. Integrity fractured, honor destroyed. I started to look at myself differently—not with anger but with confusion. We told ourselves we were the good guys, but were we?
“The intention is nothing without the action. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but their social being that determines their consciousness.”
— Karl Marx, Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)
And maybe we still are. But not without damage.
Because the most challenging part isn’t the decision—it’s living with what it took from you. You go home. You look in the mirror. You wonder if the person staring back is still you.
And then, today, it happened again.
Another quiet moment. Another conversation behind closed doors. A shortcut. A lie I could’ve told. No one would’ve known.
But I did something different.
I said no. My voice cracked, but I held the line. I walked out knowing I’d made things harder for myself. But I also walked out, still able to breathe.
I’m not who I was before the compromise. I don’t think I ever will be. But I haven’t gone completely. There’s still a part of me that recoils at the easy road. A part that still whispers: “Not this. Not again.”
I fight for that voice now.
Not to be redeemed. I’m long past chasing purity. I fight to guard what remains intact—to protect the sliver of soul that refuses to rot.
Because if I let that go, I’m no longer making hard choices for the greater good. I’m just protecting myself. And that’s where corruption truly begins.
That whisper—fragile as it is—is still mine.
And for that, I fight.
Because if I can keep that alive, I haven’t lost everything.
Memoirs of Madness 