A man spotted a snake burning in a small bushfire. Most people would have kept walking. Snakes are dangerous, fires are dangerous, and the combination of both is a situation any reasonable person would avoid. But this man didn’t keep walking.
He reached into the flames to rescue it.
The snake, doing what snakes do when frightened, bit him. Hard enough that he dropped it, hand stinging, venom or bacteria or just pain radiating from the wound. Most people would have stopped there. Would have said “I tried” and walked away, shaking their injured hand, cursing their own kindness.
But he didn’t stop.
Undeterred, he grabbed a pole and pulled the snake to safety anyway. Used the tool to do what his bare hands couldn’t, refusing to let the creature’s defensive bite become a reason to abandon it to the flames. He saved the snake despite being hurt by it.
A bystander, watching this unfold, asked the obvious question: “Why would you rescue something that hurts you?”
The man’s answer became the kind of wisdom that stops you in your tracks: “The snake’s nature is to bite. My nature is to help. When others hurt you, don’t abandon your kindness simply because they wounded your heart.”
The photo shows the rescued snake on the ground beside charred grass and ash—a black serpent coiled tightly, alive because someone chose compassion over self-protection. The man himself is blurred in the foreground, face out of focus, because this isn’t about him seeking recognition. It’s about the principle he demonstrated.
There’s profound truth in that simple statement. We live in a world that teaches us to protect ourselves at all costs. To build walls when we’re hurt. To withhold kindness from those who’ve wounded us. To say “I tried to help and got burned, so never again.”
And those responses are understandable. Human. Probably even necessary sometimes for self-preservation.
But this man’s philosophy operates on a different frequency. He’s not saying let people hurt you repeatedly. He’s not advocating for allowing abuse or staying in harmful situations. He’s saying something more nuanced: that when you choose kindness as your nature, you don’t abandon it just because someone acted according to theirs.
The snake’s nature is to bite when threatened. That’s not personal. That’s survival instinct, fear response, the only defense mechanism it has. Understanding that doesn’t mean you put your hand back in striking range. It means you find another way to help, if help is what you’ve decided to offer.
The parallel to human relationships is clear. People hurt us—sometimes intentionally, often not. They act from their own pain, their own fear, their own survival instincts. And yes, we have the right to protect ourselves, to create boundaries, to walk away from situations that harm us repeatedly.
But this man is asking us to consider something harder: Can we maintain our essential kindness even when others don’t? Can we help in ways that protect both them and ourselves? Can we use the “pole” instead of the “bare hand”—the wisdom, the boundaries, the tools that let us act according to our values without making ourselves vulnerable to repeated harm?
“Don’t abandon your kindness simply because they wounded your heart.”
That’s not the same as letting people wound you over and over. It’s about refusing to let their actions transform you into someone you don’t want to be. It’s about recognizing that your nature—the person you choose to be—shouldn’t be dictated by how others treat you.
The snake didn’t become less dangerous because it was rescued. It would probably bite again if threatened. But it’s alive because one person decided that his nature to help was more important than the snake’s nature to bite. That his commitment to compassion mattered more than his injured hand.
There’s something deeply challenging about this philosophy. Because it requires us to maintain our values even when it costs us. To be kind even when kindness isn’t returned. To help even when help isn’t appreciated or is actively resisted.
But there’s also something beautiful in it. Because when you define yourself by your actions rather than others’ reactions, you maintain your integrity regardless of circumstances. You remain who you are no matter what others do.
The snake is alive. The man has a bite wound. Both of those things are true. But the man also has something the snake can’t take from him: his nature. His choice. His determination to be someone who helps, even when helping hurts.
“My nature is to help.”
In a world that increasingly tells us to harden our hearts to protect ourselves, this man pulled a snake from fire and showed us another way.