Life: A Series of Small Sacrifices

An unpleasant thought crossed my mind today and the more it took root in my head, the more I thought to myself “well fuck.” Every single thing we do calls for a sacrifice to be made, perhaps not directly from us, but someone somewhere down the line is getting the bummer deal. In other words, there is no such thing as a true win win situation.

Familiar with “the greatest happiness principle”, key point in Utilitarian philosophy? According to this school of thought an action is considered morally good depending on the ratio of good caused by its results versus bad. This insinuates that there will necessarily be those for whom the action in question will be unfavorable. If its outcome is positive for twenty and not so for three, the latter will not even be accounted for. I learnt this in a philosophy course about five years ago, but at the time the information never really phased me. Today, it hit me like a ton of bricks, perhaps it has something to do with this crazy sinus infection that I am trying to overcome with the use of meds and my desperate need to find something to feel shitty about.

All this disturbs me because I realize that a lot of people I know, and perhaps even myself, are not necessarily a part of the sphere encircling those favorable to “the greater good”. So what is left for those of us who remain outside? Can there be such thing as an action that doesn’t leave anyone out in the dark? My point really isn’t to get all philosophical here, as I know these are questions that have already been posed in such contexts, however when you really face this predicament and realize the answer is no, it really gets you thinking. When it comes to big decisions especially, someone is bound to get hurt. We basically spend our lives getting hurt and causing pain, whether we are to blame or not. Sometimes people even take forever to make a decision, then when they finally do, another person will turn around a say “you have balls to do this to me”, well yes frankly it does take “balls” to make any decision… it’s like handling a knife, you have to be very careful because it’s their balls or yours.