Written: May 5, 2018 | Released: June 25, 2021
Can you justifiably believe that you may be able to really change the world?
There’s a certain seeming absurdity in believing you can change the world. And by “change the world,” I don’t mean playing a small (though still meaningful) cumulative role in bringing about change as part of a group of many thousands of people, each contributing incrementally. I mean, causing a large and important positive change to occur (and not merely by dumb luck) that would not have occurred (or that would have occurred much more slowly) had you not put in the effort.
The irony is that just believing you can change the world makes you, I think, significantly more likely to actually succeed at it, for at least four reasons:
(1) If you believe you can do it, you’re probably much more likely to TRY AT ALL compared to if you don’t, since the idea doesn’t seem automatically stupid or doomed to fail.
(2) When trying to create change, you’re likely to encounter numerous problems and obstacles, and if you really believing you can make change, you may be less likely to give up when these problems occur (e.g., if your first, second, and third attempts at a solution don’t work). Creating significant change probably requires smashing your way through, or skillfully dodging, EVERY ONE of these obstacles. In that vein, it’s amazing to see how often successful startups had times when they looked like they were going to fail, and if the founders had given up, they probably would have.
(3) When you really believe you can do something, others are more likely to believe it too, meaning it becomes easier to persuade others to help you or join you in your mission.
(4) If you really believe you can make change, you may feel more of a moral obligation to actually try really hard to do so. For instance, if you think you can actually ease the suffering of a million people with effort, isn’t it very important that you try hard to do so? On the other hand, if it were something you’re not capable of (or you convinced yourself of that anyway), then you wouldn’t be (or feel) obligated to solve the problem.
BOOTSTRAPPING BELIEFS
Hence, believing you can change the world is what I’ll call a “bootstrapping belief” (in the sense that it is a self-starting process). Your belief in it causes that very same belief to become truer. Another example of a bootstrapping belief might be a belief that the placebo effect has a strong effect on you. The more you believe it, the more effective the placebo effect may actually be, just by virtue of you having that belief
Yet, even with its bootstrapping nature, there is still a certain absurdity in believing you can change the world.
CONDITIONAL SUCCESS
Better than merely believing that you can change the world, in my opinion, is believing you can change the world under a specific set of conditions that are at least to a significant extent under your control, and that would enhance your likelihood of success MUCH GREATER STILL.
For example:
“I believe that if I:
– choose my goals and priorities carefully so that my efforts are aimed at improving the world in an important way that I deeply care about,
– work really hard over a period of many years,
– do not let the intermediate goals replace the long-term objective,
– seek out my weaknesses and put in substantial effort to counteract them,
– spend a lot of time practicing at least one or two very useful skills that are especially important for my mission,
– carefully analyze why others have failed at what I’m attempting, and plan my way around their mistakes,
– learn as fast as I can from the mistakes I make myself,
– take care of myself physically and psychologically so that I don’t burn out,
– attempt to foster deep and meaningful relationships with kind, supportive and knowledgeable people,
– try to carefully collect and evaluate evidence about whether what I’m doing is working,
– pivot my plans when it becomes evident they aren’t working,
– try over and over and over again each time that some important part of my plan fails,
– vary my strategy creatively and flexibly rather than banging my head against the wall when a failure occurs,
– join forces with highly talented people who share my values and ambitions but have complementary skills,
– and most importantly, not give up…
THEN
I may really be able to change the world.”
If you believe all that, and you’re truly willing and able to put in the effort, then maybe (with some luck) you really can.
If you don’t already believe “I may be able to really change the world,” maybe you can find yourself able to rationally endorse “I may be able to really change the world” with these extra conditions added. And if you already believe you can change the world, maybe adding these conditions to your belief will make it substantially more likely to be true.
Of course, being able to “change the world” is not binary. The amount of impact you can have is a continuous variable from “not at all” to “massive,” and the probability that you can change the world (in any particular way) is a continuous variable between 0 and 1. What I’m suggesting is that, compared to the statement “I can change the world,” the statement “I can change the world [given certain conditions]” should have a higher probability of being true.
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