Thinking You Can Save the World

From time to time, I have these grand delusional ambitions to help the world.

To think beyond me and help others.

I even confessed this is a bunch of friends. Silly me!

I said to them: more money doesn’t matter to me, and that I am oh so privileged, so I need to help others.

Life went on.

Then, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) made the news.

Bankman-Fried was part of the “Effective Altruistic” movement. A philanthropist and humanist first, billionaire second or so we would believe.

He ended up fooling a lot of people. Some compare it to Bernie Madoff.

SBF too had this grand vision of helping others at scale.

I later learnt this concept is called the Messiah complex (it’s not addressed in the DSM but is compared to the delusion of grandeur).

Perhaps, this ‘save the world’ mentality was just a facade for what was really going on, but it made me think about this delusion of making the world a better place.

After all, with solutions comes even more problems. I even postulate that there are an infinite number of problems to solve in the world. So thinking about all of them, let alone trying to solve all of them, is an impossible task.

Plus, why do I want to solve the world’s problems (or the biggest problem)? To increase my self-worth? To have a statue made in my honour? Come on.

I always thought that fulfillment comes from being able to have a positive effect on your surroundings.

A friend at the gym gave me some great advice.

He said to me: the world is a big place.

But think of one person’s life.

A single person’s life is a whole universe. Like the world.

If you can help a single person, isn’t that enough?

If you can help just the people you love and care about around you, isn’t that enough?

What do you think?