The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Doing what’s right

In a world where there’s no more rules, like in The Walking Dead, there will be enough monsters around. If WE don’t do what’s right, we’ll just be more monsters to add to the pile.

I’ve spoken before about the nature of choice in a zombie apocalypse, and how important our choices are. The most important of those choices is when we’re presented with the option to do what’s right.

Though I shouldn’t really have to explain it, I will for the purposes of clarity: “What’s right”, in this case, is the most selfless, least violent (For the circumstances) thing you can do whilst harming the smallest amount of innocent people possible. The nature of what the “right” action is can vary depending on the situation, obviously, but, you get the idea.

The point is, if we find ourselves in a zombie apocalypse, we need to do what’s right.

Having said that, what’s “right” is not inherently easy (Not that it ever traditionally has been, but, it’s worse in the apocalypse).

Look at Tara. While The Group had, effectively, taken Dwight in, she still wanted revenge for his murdering of Denise.

This forced her to have to struggle with her desire for revenge, while The Group wanted to keep him alive.

Tara failed to kill Dwight, and it was a good thing, too, because he saved The Group by misleading some Saviors on the hunt for them. Despite knowing at least a couple people in Rick’s group wanted him dead, he chose to risk his life to help them escape The Saviors.

Sometimes, as I just showed, the right thing and the most difficult thing to do is to trust someone. Often, the difficulty comes in that the person you have to trust is a person that, traditionally, you wouldn’t trust. You need to realize that, in the face of a zombie apocalypse, people can change, even the ones you’d least suspect could.

When your choice is trusting a person you don’t like or certain death, the right thing to do is suck it up and trust them.

But, before we move on, let’s stick with Tara’s desire for revenge for a minute.

Remember what I said earlier about the right thing being the “most selfless” thing? Well, frankly, getting revenge on someone can often prove to be the complete opposite of that.

What if Tara had killed Dwight? Then what? Sure, she’d have avenged Denise, but…she would have doomed the rest of The Group just to satiate her rage. Doing the right thing means that sometimes, you have to do the opposite of what you want, for the good of your survival or the survival of your group.

And, with that in mind, sometimes, the right thing to do…may, in fact, be the thing that isn’t good for your survival, but, may be so for the survival of others.

Take Eugene, for example: Despite the fact he knows that Negan might brutally murder him for it, he chose to try stalling The Saviors’ assault on Hilltop by saying it would take a couple of days to make all the bullets he wanted.

You might think I’m reading too much into Eugene’s actions, but, considering how much he’s tried (In his own way) to spare lives since being taken by Negan, I think this is just another subtle attempt by him save people. Regardless, Eugene knows that, if Negan thought he was intentionally stalling him, Negan would kill him, yet, despite this, he does it anyway, even trying to convince Negan to use psychological warfare in lieu of killing people.

We need to do what’s right in a zombie apocalypse. It may not be easy, it may not be necessarily what we want to do, but, if we want to keep our groups breathing, it is what he have to do.

Next: The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Overcome your wrath

And that’s our survival rule of the week!! Hopefully, it will help you should you ever need it and give you that mental edge that will prove so crucial once the dead start eating everyone.

If you like this and want to find out more rules to survive the zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can get it on Kindle here and on iTunes here!