What do people often underestimate?

This is true. Violence is NEVER the answer unless your life is in clear and immediate danger. You punch a person, they hit their head on a hard surface going down/hit the pavement or whatever, and you can never rewind and take it back. You've just screwed both your lives up because dude is dead or brain damaged, and you're going to jail for the foreseeable. You've also just screwed up the lives of both families and everyone who ever loved you.

It's just not worth it. I can't imagine waking up hungover to hell in a jail cell and a cop telling me that I killed someone. The worst part must be not even remembering what the fight was about to begin with. I've seen a couple of fist fights and none of them are pretty. What a waste. The tragedy is that these things can escalate so quickly. Somebody in the group disappears, comes back from his car with a gun/knife. Then things get ugly very quickly, and it truly happens in seconds. The smartest guy is the guy who runs and doesn't stop running until he's at home. That's not cowardice, that's smart. If more people recognised that smell of danger in the air and acted on it, and used the 'flight' response instead of drunkenly using the 'fight' response, well, the world would be far happier to live in. WALK AWAY. It is not worth your future or somebody else's life. Just WALK AWAY. Even better, RUN AWAY and defuse the situation before it gets to the point of no return - because as I said, once things escalate in that situation bad things start happening VERY QUICKLY. Sometimes it's just too frikking late to say 'I'm sorry' or 'I acted like a douche bag and shouldn't have done that'. Avoid the heartache altogether and stay away from people who seem to always be in that situation. Sooner or later you'll get dragged in, and it will be deeply unpleasant.

/r/AskReddit Thread Parent