Quick Lunchtime Thought: different lifestyles

 I try to live my life with purpose. I go about my days trying to do the least amount of harm to others / the planet while trying not to completely compromise my own happiness / contentedness / safety. And if I do some good on top of that - I am victorious. 

This sounds wonderful, but really it only works because others do not live the same way.

Don't get me wrong; I am well aware that I am not the first one to consider this way of life, nor shall I be the last. I just mean that there are plenty who do not subscribe to this lifestyle. It brings me back to a conversation I had with a dear friend while working at the framing studio.

K and I were discussing sociopaths (I was suggesting that I might be one due to the fact that I don't nose around / "care" the way some others do). He assured me I am not one. He went on to tell me that sociopaths weren't all bad. Intrigued, I listened on.

K's proposition was that without sociopaths, we would not have a number of our "big successes"; we would lack (maybe entirely) in our big CEO population. We would have far less competition. Less selfishness. Less drive. We would have less people "knowing" how special and important they were and thus we would not have gone on to progress as much, as a society.

Please know that I am butchering his words (bad memory, not bad intent, I promise you), but not his general thesis.

I am thinking of this today because if the population were made of only a bunch of quiet hippies (such as myself), keeping to themselves, minding their own business, if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-ing their way through life, we would not have some of our most brilliant minds and finds. We would have so much less curiosity. Less theory. Less science. Less discovery. As much as I cringe to admit it, I would have likely been a quiet, Christian housewife with (at least) nine screaming children. 

Today I would like to (somewhat) publicly thank each and every brilliant mind, curious scientist and driven sociopath of the world. You folks make everything sparkle in a way I would never know how to. 

You make it possible for people like me to live the way that I feel I must.