Each and every day, we made decisions as an individual.
- A driver slows and gawks at an accident on the other side of the freeway.
- A customer asks for a stack of plates to go with his Costco pizza.
- A couple decides to buy a house in Antioch despite a longer commute.
Decisions are made considering our circumstances, our feelings, and the effect on ourselves. We are not trained to think about the cumulative effect as many decisions are made under the same environment. We assumed the environment will stay constant as we change. Guess what? Our collective decisions change our environment!
- Drivers slow and gawk at an accident on the other side of the freeway - now we have a traffic jam on this side. Or worse, they are rear ended by others who were not expecting them to slow.
- Costco has instigated a 5-plate-per-pizza limit, or else they will have to raise the pizza price for everyone.
- Thousands of families made the same decision to buy their houses in Antioch. Highway 4 reaches capacity and the commute takes twice as long.
We, as a group, have changed what we thought to be constant. If the driver had known he would be rear-ended by slowing down, would he? If the customer knows the pizza price has to rise, would he ask for the extra plates when he can just pick up a bunch from Costco anyways? If the commuter knew the commute was 2 hours instead of one, would he buy the house farther away?
Once we make a decision, regret is pointless. So the question is, how come we don't think of our impact on the broader environment when we make a decision?
The simple answer may be that we are not trained to do so. As children, we a taught a curriculum. As adults, we work within a job description. Studies after studies have shown that exceptional people have a will (and the ability) to change their environment. Steve Jobs is famous for his "reality distortion field." But that vision sometimes motivates others to make that distorted version a reality after all.
It is not necessarily a good thing, however. Many teenagers believe that they can change the rules, only to get into trouble breaking the rules.
The majority of us muddle through life doing what we "are supposed to do." Like Elsa in Frozen, "be the good girl you always have to be." Is that satisfying?
Some of us are swept along by life and feel powerless to change. Some become bitter and hopeless...
Maybe I don't belong to the truly exceptional group. But I am also fortunate enough to have (or stupid enough to believe I have) some power to control my destiny, especially when I can work with a group of like-minded people. How do I transform my muddling self to something more?
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