Most people have goals that they would very much like to accomplish, but we tend to weigh these goals against the cost of achieving them. Costs not only in time, money, effort, juice, or other of our own resources, but also in terms of opportunity cost. We can’t pursue every goal; we must prioritize.
But there’s an additional complication, which is that some goals may detract from other people’s ability to accomplish their own, and we like those people. Taking away their resources might get you closer to your goal, but you generally don’t.
Those people in turn have their own people, and so on. The web of our interlocking cares for one another and the things we try to accomplish, both individually and as clusters within that network, is endlessly fascinating to me. It motivates me to look for ways to align goals, ways to understand motivations, and ways to imagine myself in the situations of others.
I think once you start to see that web, it’s very hard to un-see. It becomes very hard to think of yourself as truly atomistic again. There is a lot of good to be done with that knowledge. I will try to discover more.
The Opportunity Machine 