Be the change

I've been thinking a lot recently about the consequences of our choices. Most of us would be willing to accept that our choices and decisions have consequences that continue to affect us beyond just the immediate future. However what I've been thinking more about are some of the subtler effects of our choices and actions - on our surroundings, community and society.

I think the fundamental realization that led me to the conclusions I shall describe below, is the fact that society is made up of a number of individuals - of which I am one. Now I know that sounded very obvious and almost trivial - but lets unpack that a little more.

What does it mean to say that I am part of a society that consists of many more individuals like me? Well firstly, it means that I am not the center of the universe, and there exist people just as important as me in society. So I should not make decisions based on reasons that center around just me - will it make me happy, will it make me rich... Second, any crossroads I find myself at, other people probably have found themselves at. In fact, any choice I'm faced with today is probably faced by many other people without my knowledge - what career to pursue, whether to marry the person I love - you name it. So decisions aren't taken in isolation. Third, any choice you make sends a message out to the people around you, your family, your friends, your children, and influences the way they think. Fourth (and this is important), when people en masse take certain kinds of decisions, it creates the fabric and nature of the ideals of society of that time.

We often look at society today and say - this is the way it is, I can't change things. But I wonder how many of us pause to think about how society evolved to be what it is today. Let's take an example. Fifty years ago in India, most marriages were arranged between families. The concept of a love marriage was almost unheard of. Likewise, intercaste and inter-religious marriages were almost taboo. Today, however, things have changed significantly - a lot of people choose to marry each other not because their parents urge them to, but because they fundamentally feel a spiritual bond between them. Inter-community and inter-faith marriages are becoming increasingly more common. There are of course many sections of society that still hold on to the old beliefs - but attitudes are definitely changing. So how did we get here? Did we all wake up one fine day and decide that we'd be accepting of certain things that we didn't believe in the previous day? Or is the state of society today the painstaking result of thousands of choices people made over the last fifty years that slowly, subtly, but surely shifted the balance of society from one where, say 99% of the people did not believe in a love marriage to one where 50% of them do?

Too often do we dismiss the power of our choices - what, we ask, can one person do? What effect can my choices have on a society made of a billion people? But think of those thousands who did choose to go against the grain of society - what if each one of them had paused to think the same, and decided to do otherwise? Would we be where we are today?

The situation is not unlike the prisoner's dilemma - just like you need to project your own choice onto the prisoner on the other side of your jail-room walls, it requires you to put yourself in the shoes of every other person on the planet, and wonder what would happen if they all made the choice you are considering making. Where would the world go from there? What is the consequence of me, today, deciding to work in a company that manufactures guns? What is the consequence of me, today, deciding to drive an SUV when i'm single and don't really need one? What is the consequence of me, today, deciding to give up on my love for a Muslim girl and marry the girl my parents choose? Each of those choices might not really affect my happiness in the long run - I might earn a lot of money, drive around in a safe car, and grow, over time, to love my wife. Human beings are remarkably adaptive, and can learn to be happy in most situations. But what effects do those choices have external to me? How do they affect the fabric of society? And what do the people around me, my children, my grandchildren, the people who look up to me, learn from the choices they see me making?

We all have, I believe, a fundamental responsibility to ourselves and our families - but at the same time, we also have a subtler responsibility to society. Not just in a superficial way, but in every interaction we have with elements of the world around us. And each of those interactions need to, to the extent possible, reflect what we believe to be good, true and right. Ultimately, we all need to, as Mahatma Gandhi said, be the change we wish to see in the world - for each of us is a part of it.