In the eye of giant issues like a global pandemic, social injustice, institutional racism, or climate change, it is easy to feel powerless. It seems that our voices, even our votes do not matter. We are all just small potatoes.

And it is true; it is unlikely that any of us will cause a revolution or change the course of the world significantly. But it would be too easy and convenient to give up and accept everything around us as it is.

Counting Smiles

I moved to Hong Kong’s rural side in late 2018. And when I say rural, I mean it; think free-roaming cows.

While I now enjoy a beautiful sea view, a lush green surrounding, and much better air quality than in the city, I also spend about 2h 20 minutes per day commuting to work.

Part of my daily commute is a 25-minute bus ride over the mountains of Lantau Island.

Those who know me personally probably would confirm that I am usually a friendly guy. As such, I regularly thank the driver for not killing me or any of the feral cows and buffalos, by saying 唔該 (m goi, “Thanks” in Cantonese), when getting off the bus.

Now, a thank you might not pay the driver’s bills, but I guess knowing that his work is appreciated possibly makes him like his job a bit more.

I am not the only friendly person out in Hong Kong, and I observed that, on average, about a quarter of bus passengers within earshot (usually the 2-3 people in front of me) also express their gratitude towards the bus captain.

By accident, I realized an interesting phenomenon. If I thanked the driver with an audible Thank You, the two passengers getting off directly behind me, seemed to show their appreciation much more frequently than the ones in front of me. For two weeks, I paid attention and kept a tally in my head.

As it turns out, during my little test, the chance of the two people behind me (after hearing me doing so) thanking the driver seems to be almost 50% higher than the average. It seems politeness is, to some extent, contagious. My little token gesture creates a slight ripple effect, going through the bus like the Wave through South American Football Stadiums.

My behavior directly affected the conduct of my fellow passengers. And probably the effect didn’t end there.

Lorenz’ Effective Butterflies?

According to Wikipedia, “in chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic non-linear system can result in large differences in a later state.”

Reworded in my simple laymen terms: a small change (like the flapping of a butterfly’s wings) can cause a huge event (Hurricane/Typhoon), through a chain of many connected incidents.

As author Nassim Nicholas Taleb emphasizes in his book The Black Swan, the Butterfly Effect makes it not only very difficult to predict the outcomes of complex interconnected systems; it also renders it practically impossible to find root causes for any particular event in retrospective. Our world is so complicated; we can neither forecast it nor explain historical events with certainty.

This phenomenon is the main reason while weather forecasts are still surprisingly inaccurate, despite all the additional computing power metrological services added to their arsenal in recent years. Because small change can lead to significantly different results, the weather can hardly be simulated accurately or explained ex-post.

Human Butterflies, Powerless yet Powerful

I would argue that our lives and human society in general, are complex non-linear systems, with a significant degree of interdependence. Whatever we do, influences the course of our own lives and ever so little the lives of everyone else. Our behavior, as in my bus example, can even directly affect the behavior of fellow humans.

I do not think I need to create a hypothetical example of the potential butterfly effects of being friendly to your bus driver. I am sure we all know enough instances of a small coincidence that has made a difference in our lives, for the better or worse.

In a way, we are all just butterflies flapping our wings ferociously, trying to get somewhere in life.

We are powerless, as we do not have the means to solve any of the pressing issues of our times or even (I am talking about me here) get more than 200 followers on Instagram.

At the same time, we are powerful, as almost nothing that we do is free of consequences.

Live Your Life just as if You Would Matter, You Possibly Do

Every decision that we take and everything that we do changes the world around us. The complexity of our interconnected systems, however, prevents us from predicting the full consequences of our doings. Even retrospectively, it is not possible to determine without a doubt, in what way our past action led to an exact outcome.

The flapping of your tiny butterfly wings might just as well cause a hurricane on the other side of the word; you only will never find out.

Now, you can draw different conclusions from this view on the world. My personal one is: “Live your life as if it mattered, it quite probably does.”

If everyone would live by this dictum, our cumulated wing-flapping might even solve a few bigger issues.

What do you think?