I took a completely different message from the story.

To walk away from Omelas - to walk away from a paradise where you feel no pain - is to go to a place where things aren't as perfect, where your life will be worse in some way.

It is a conscious decision to shoulder some of the pain on yourself because you inderstand that it is morally wrong to dump your suffering onto others.

Everything in life has a cost. Sometimes, but usually not, that cost is in dollars. Usually it is in time, energy, physical or mental discomfort, or even pain.

The people of Omelas lived in a place where the cost of their happiness was paid for by someone else. To walk away is to recognize the inherent injustice of this, and to refuse to be a part of it.