Your life is a trolley problem
There's a train coming and it's on the path of destruction.
You look ahead and bewilderingly, a group of people is tied to the tracks. The train is set to run over them.
But you're standing beside a switch. If you flip that switch, there's another track the train can follow. Someone else is tied to that track too. Just one person, thankfully.
There is no third option. It's one way or the other, and the train is moving full speed ahead. Therein lies the dilemma.
The trolley problem is an interesting way, however morbid, to model ethical decision-making and the role of free will. Many people, if given the option, would choose to flip the switch and take out that one person. Sure, it sucks to be him or her, but it's a necessary sacrifice to save many more lives, if you prefer the utilitarian approach. You could also turn a blind eye and remain a bystander as the train mauls multiple innocent people.
Usually, this problem is framed academically, but I think it has a real place in our daily lives.
We just can't help ourselves
When I was in high school, a civics teacher asked the class a simple question: "What is social responsibility?"
I smiled and eagerly raised my hand. "It's an excuse for other people to take advantage of you," I replied.
The teacher didn't take it well. Neither did the rest of the class. I've always been a shit-starter. I wasn't completely wrong, but the truth is somewhere in the middle.
We live in a society, which is a polite way to say our lives revolve around other people and responding to their wants and needs. As I've grown up, I've learned that no one lives in a purely individualist or collectivist sense. Even the most diehard libertarian has someone in their lives they must answer to. Living solely on your terms is lonely, and no man is an island. We rely on a community to survive.
More often than not, however, we make choices based on the community's whims. We do tricks so our master will give us treats. We get good grades, a degree, and a job in a respectable field, so the market will reward us with a living and our parents will be proud of us. And we work hard to prove ourselves in the workplace, so our boss might give us a promotion. When we follow these paths, we are living for the looking-glass self, how other people see us. Or so we think.
For the good of all mankind
Serving others can be a noble sacrifice. Even the most free-spirited people often want to be seen as a good spouse, parent, or friend, and being a decent human might mean becoming a caregiver for someone you love or a leader for a cause you believe in. Sometimes, you have to be the bus driver. Non nobis solum, as Cicero once put it. Not for ourselves are we born.
Supposedly. Few things in life should be taken as gospel, and this is one of them. When we follow this path of serving others, we outsource the thinking that defines our future and we wonder why we get manipulated or taken for granted.
Doing good for other people only works if it's what you want. This is something Ayn Rand is deeply misunderstood about. If you're compelled to spend your whole life responding to what other people want from you simply out of obligation, your destiny might as well be predetermined. You have no voice in it, and that feeling can make us miserable. This isn't to say you shouldn't help others, but you should be the one calling the shots.
We know this deep down, but many of us are so desperate to be liked, we ignore this inner voice. That doesn't fix it, though. That voice never goes away. It only gets louder and more unruly with time. It shows up when you least want it and bleeds into the other areas of your life, the ones you tell yourself you have control over, until one day you burn out or show up drunk at that important presentation.
The longer you defer your dreams, the more obvious it becomes — you're trapped. It's you tied to the tracks.
Back to the moving train
That's right. The train is still coming. Your mind drifted off but time doesn't stop for anyone. You're standing at the switch.
Notice the person on the side track. That's who you have to think about in this scenario. You're deciding their fate just as much as everybody else. When you look a little closer, you get an uncanny feeling. They look a lot like you. The solitary person on the side track is your true self.
You hear a lot of commotion coming from the main track. It's noisy over there and you know these faces well. Everyone you know is on this side. The group on the main track represents other people's expectations. They need you right now. You can't let them down.
Except you have to.
You absolutely have to let the train continue on its course and run over those people because it's not really them. It's just the version of them you've conjured up in your mind. Their lives are not at stake. Yours is. You're choosing between who you really are and how you're perceived.
It's a choice you make over and over every day, and it will come to a head at some point in your life. Even the holograms of your friends and loved ones are holding switches of their own and must decide between a life of their own and a life defined by how others see them. Run all that over and you can build actual relationships based on who you and other people really are. To thine own self be true.
There is no escape. You're going to disappoint someone. The least you can do is have it not be you. Because the world needs you. The real you. All aboard.
Like what you read? Did it make you think?
Subscribe to get future posts via email or grab the RSS feed.
Photo by Laura Seaman on Unsplash