What??? I'm being mugged?........

Suddenly, someone grabbed my right arm and swung me around.

Facing me was a man wearing a balaclava and holding a very large knife in his hand.

He lifted the knife and then pressed the blade against my throat.

I'm being mugged? Really? Right in front of the Hotel and barely 50 meters away from the Police HQ? What do I do? Resist? No, my sensei told me that if someone with a weapon threatened me, don't engage, just give them what they want. Very inappropriately, I suddenly felt the urge to laugh, but instead I asked him what he wanted.

The mugger motioned me to hand over my bag in which I had my wallet, mobile phone, and sheet 

music.
Damn, why tonight of all nights! For once, my band has been paid before the gig so now I won't be able to pay the guys. ''Hang on, if you move your knife then I will be able to get my wallet" I said to the mugger and wondered if those words were going to be the last words I would ever utter.

Still silent, the mugger proceeded to move the knife from my throat to instead pushing the tip of his knife into my shoulder. He slowly pressed the tip through my jacket until I could feel it piercing my skin. He is serious, this is a serious situation, potentially life threatening. I slowly put the bag on the ground and pulled out my wallet. Still wordless, just two eyes staring at me through the holes of the balaclava, I could sense the mugger becoming impatient. Where the hell are all the people? 7:30 pm in a big city, on a Saturday night, 50 meters from the Police HQ, in front of a major Hotel, and nobody can see this going down?

I found the wallet and demonstratively pulled out all the bills and handed them to the mugger. Thank God I kept the guys money still in the envelope! The mugger wont see it and if I survive this, at least I will be able to pay them.

As soon as the mugger had the money in his hand, he took off and seemingly just vanished. Just as he had appeared out of nowhere, he disappeared the same way. The whole thing probably only lasted a few minutes, but in my experience, some minutes can seem much longer than others.   

Man, the gig, I'm on stage in 15 minutes!!!

Though my legs felt a little rubbery, I managed to run across the road and in to the Hotel. A few of the guys were sitting in the lobby chatting but as soon as they saw my face they knew something had happened. 

To cut a long story short: the gig was a very important gig because the band consisted of the very best jazz musicians in the country, we were playing my compositions, the place was jam packed, not to mention that dispersed through the audience were some very famous and respected jazz musicians, and the gig was only one hour long. I had to get it together. So I did something I have never done before and have not done since, I went up to the bar and said: "A whiskey, and make it a double."

Out of all the gigs I have performed through my time as a jazz musician, this one stands out.

For once, I played with absolutely no fear, no nerves, just reckless abandon and with a total focus on the music. After we finished, the trumpet player came up to me and said with a twinkle in his eye: "You should be mugged before all your gigs, I have never heard you play better."

Only in my car on the way home did it hit me just how close I had been to potentially have been killed, a victim of murder. But, there was an upside, and the upside was that the experience cured me of stage fright.

Thinking we know how we would deal with life threatening situations and how we actually deal with them, are often very different things. It can be easy to become judgmental and view other's reactions to difficult situations as foolhardy and "weak", but until we are actually in those difficult situations ourselves, I believe we can't really know how we would respond. 

"If I would have been in that situation I would have......" works in theory, but in actuality,... often not so much.

"If I was homeless, I would.... if I was a refugee I would.....if I was being held up I would......if I was bullied I would.....etc.etc."

I can't help but wonder if in today's society we do not often tend to engage in victim-blaming.

Do we sometimes focus more on victims' behaviours rather than on asking questions of perpetrators why they continue to commit acts of violence?

Do we subconsciously believe that some people "deserve" their suffering? 

I think we do, not because we are heartless and un-caring but because the alternative is harder to get one's head around: we do not live in a fair world. Bad things sometimes happens to good people.

Occasionally we may need to let go of the "why" and instead focus on the "how" when it comes to people in pain as in: How can I help you?

"Laws of nature do not make exceptions for nice people. A bullet has no conscience; neither does a malignant tumor or an automobile gone out of control. That is why good people get sick and get hurt just as much as anyone." (Harold S. Kushner)