The ethical and moral decisions people make are what shape our future, but it is when these decisions are made without careful consideration that people tend to lead themselves down a path of destruction. In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and Joseph Whitehill's "The Day of the Last Rock Fight" the moral and ethical decisions made by the characters in the stories are conducted without due reflection. They choose to carry out these terrible acts based on things like blindly following tradition or even out of anger and end up paying the price as a result. Whitehill and Jackson both include people who make decisions without fully understanding the consequences that come with them. In Jackson's story, the decision made by the villagers to hold an annual lottery in which people end up dying is something they blindly follow without considering the unnecessary damage it does. Tessie Hutchinson willingly enters the lottery knowing the dangers that await her and doesn't seem to care. When she is chosen she exclaims, "It wasn't fair" and begins begging the crowd to let them do it again...