En Passant

Have you ever been in a classroom situation where the teacher asked a student to volunteer and answer a question, and you thought in your head, “someone else can do it”? If you have, then you might have En Passant syndrome or ‘Someone Else’ Mentality.

En Passant is my idea of a habit of a young person to be reserved (not necessarily shy) in public, causing him or her to bypass opportunity in situations demanding initiative. “Someone else can answer the question”, “Someone else will do it”, “Someone else will help them”, “Someone else will do better than me”, “Someone else can go first, and I’ll wait”.

Such thoughts leading to inaction can occur at both large and important circumstances as well as the most unnoticed and minimal everyday happening. Another good illustration of this “Someone Else” mentality is to picture yourself in a shopping centre. Everyone walks pass this obvious large piece of rubbish lying on the floor making everyone detour around it. Nobody picks it up. Are you the person who picks it up and throws it in the bin? Or the one who detours around it and pretend it’s not your business? Don’t feel sad if you’re one who detours, most people do!

When faced with these situations and you choose to be passive and allow someone else to do it, you may instantly justify your choice of action, “It’s not my business”, “I’m busy”, “I might look stupid”, “People will think it was mine”, “It might have germs”, “The person who dropped should throw it himself” etc. It is far easier to create such excuses than to just spend the extra 3 seconds to do the task. Often this mentality comes hand in hand with procrastination, which is another major problem in itself.

En Passant Syndrome has evolved into a culture where the majority of people born into and after the 80s are carriers of this mentality. Why is it such a problem? Isn't it good that not everyone is fighting to do everything? Yes, in a sense, as society will be able to depict its leaders and exceptional easier and more efficiently when everyone else backs off.

However there are many reasons why this mentality as a norm has negative impacts on the individual and society.

Isolation of leaders

The select few leaders will struggle to do everything by themselves. Even when leaders emerge, they will find extreme difficulty leading a bunch of people who keep giving way or waiting for someone else to offer to take responsibility of a role or task. For example, a leader may ask someone to organise the next meeting, and nobody puts their hand up because they all hope someone else will do it, leading to the leader just arrowing someone. This situation may not be serious, but if you are a leader and you find your team unable to voluntarily function, how would you feel? Leaders can over time become discouraged and might join this more comfortable position of giving way as well with their leader and the problem will propagate up the leadership hierarchy (if any) causing immense de-motivation to the highest ranks.

Disinterest

By always letting someone else do it, your interest in the task or project will gradually dissipate. As you have given up the opportunity to participate, you will have to accept the outcome of whatever happens, even if you know you could have done it better. This leads to less and less motivation to be involved, either because the project has reached a point you can no longer play a part, or because the project has gone in a direction you cannot follow. 

In the view of church ministry, often when we bypass the chance to serve when asked, and someone else takes it, that someone else tends to become the same person, because the collective majority is disinterested in the ministry, forcing the minority to continue serving, and this leads to a disparity in experience/competency for the tasks within the ministry, thus further reducing the likelihood they will want to join in.

Regret

For some, they may have passed to opportunity because they weren't ready or because they think they're not ready. They may have wanted to do it, but by not grabbing the opportune moment, they watch it go by and are filled with regret and they are tortured by the realisation that what could have been may remain an unknown forever.

Lets look at a more popular topic as an example; dating. This primarily affects those who have interest in someone else. Suppose you like someone, are you tempted to think that “I’ll let her ask me out.” Or “I’ll wait till she shows signs that she likes me too”? Obviously there’s a love-shyness factor too, but this is one of the greatest problem of En Passant. By not taking the chance, you miss out any potential benefits. You never know; she might say yes even if she didn't like you at first. Those who volunteer are appreciated, but those who stay silent are never known. Coupled with self-confidence issues, people who are used to the “someone else” mentality will almost never become that “someone else” that gets the girl.

So if you have En Passant syndrome, how can you be cured? If you think that someone can help you, then you’re in for breaking news: you’ll have to be determined and walk out of the square yourself and take the hot seat. Volunteer to attempt problems in class, be the one to pick up the rubbish on the road, speak you mind when you see something is wrong, be that someone else you always count on to do the job!