Little Things, Huge Impacts

It is always striking to observe that seemingly very little things often bring about irreversible and immensely large effects. Mathematicians have a fancy and poetic term for outcomes, which are highly sensitive to tiny differences in initial conditions. They call it the butterfly effect.

The idea is that a butterfly flapping its wings at one corner of the world could cause a hurricane at another. Taken literally, it may sound absurd to trace a hundred and twenty kilometres an hour hurricane to the flapping wings of a small distant butterfly.

It makes a lot of sense, however, to think that the state of the world would be different with and without the butterfly or without it flapping its wings. The weather takes different paths under various scenarios concerning whether that little insect is there and dances in its tiny world.

To the extent that it may be awakening and enlightening to recognise the ‘butterflies’ in one’s life as well as in the entire society. It is also terrifying to be aware that almost all of the outcomes, both good and not-so-good, are co-created and co-directed by little internal and external forces which are hard to notice.

In personal lives, decisions, which appear too trivial to warrant serious scrutiny and thorough investigation, end up causing regrettably irreversible outcomes. People who grapple with addiction are living witnesses of how easy it would have been to do away with their first touch of the stuff that now controls their body and soul before it grew into a monstrous dragon.

Procrastination, for instance, occurs when one lets a small seed of laziness multiply with each subsequent tiny part of the task added to the pile until it starts to look terrifying and eventually overwhelms its victim such that they become utterly paralysed. Ironically enough, it all starts naturally small.

Social evils such as corruption, crime, racism, poverty, and environmental deterioration have their little butterflies which could be easier, if noticed and given enough attention, to handle.

I consider ethnic based unwelcomed opinions which can be seen among some Ethiopian social media users as a dangerous flap of a cursed butterfly. It creates a state of a world different from one where every Ethiopian cooperates towards a prosperous and fulfilled own and fellow’s life.

Corruption is another ghost, which may devour the economy if left unchecked. It sadly has already started to be a threat to the country’s development. Mitigating corruption once there are many corrupt people is a different problem from preventing the little distant butterfly from setting in the waves of cupidity and bribery.

The likelihood that a corrupt politician used to cheat in exams or miss classes in school is higher than that of the law-abiding citizens. Or put differently, a student who cheats in exams is more likely to be a liability to the society, as that behaviour continues to be magnified and multiplied than his self-reliant friends’ behaviour does.

The entire chain of good and bad in one’s behaviour may ultimately be cascaded to the family, to one’s very childhood and formative life experiences.

What did, as the story goes, the boy who was caught red-handed while stealing an ox say to his mother? He, quite touchingly, is said to have blamed her for not stopping him when he first stole a needle from their neighbour.

It is also worth noting that this kind of reasoning could be used to reinforce positive circumstances and create a rewarding upward spiral of events. It works both ways. The story of most successful people in business, for example, is that they started simply small, with small ideas and most often with very little or no money.

If someone finds a positive and powerful wise word or advice having a permanent effect on their frame of mind, that is essentially a butterfly effect at work.

This may work on children too when given, as a vaccine, at the right time. Parents may empower their children by observing their passion and giving that little dose of courage, which ignites an unstoppable flame of discipline, perseverance and wisdom.

While dealing with finances, the difference between saving the smallest amount possible every time one gets some income and spending it right away may be a fortune over one’s lifetime.

Millionaires are not born with millions in their bank accounts. Did they, after all, have bank accounts?!

They allow positive flaps of a butterfly of fortune in their state of mind, their relations with people, their love for work, their optimism, their daily routines and habits. These characters take them to the sure path to prosperity while any slight difference in this magic combination of characters may most likely lead to a different economic status.

The point is that, be it for positive or negative outcomes, understanding the vast array of cause and effect across domains, both at individual and society level, and over time, may be of great help to tackle the challenges while tapping into the realm of a positive spiral of achievement-reward-achievement.

Types of crimes, which we had known only in movies, are now not uncommon in our cities. If one asks how they started and grew to threaten lives, the general answers could consist of smaller problems such as failure in school, poor self-control, addiction and joblessness.

Unpacking poor performance at school may reveal other smaller problems, which might have occurred long ago but sit in one’s mind and, together with other sets of factors, dictate current behaviour.

This chain could have been broken right at the point where the little-cursed butterflies had started lurking. Yet there is no point in blaming and identifying with this unfortunate long chain of events of the victim if a change is what is genuinely sought.

Even though I am not a psychologist and I do not claim to have even the slightest clue about the psychological mechanism involved, using the butterfly effect framework to think through events that unfold gives a good map of what happens and where something goes wrong.

The solution lies partly and usually to a greater extent in understanding the problem. Using haphazard and sometimes equivocal categories and vaguely characterising certain behaviour as rent seeking, corruption, terrorism, anti-democracy, anti-development may not solve the latent problem in question.

In fact, it may end up creating another chain of cause-and-effect events and outcomes which land the country to quite a different destiny than it would if everyone flapped their wings a little more virtuously, more responsibly, more reasonably and more sustainably.

Recognising the big effect, that one’s little day-to-day decisions and behavioural manifestations may change the course of history to an entirely new path, can help in choosing among these sets of behaviour which are good for us and the rest of the world. One, little (in)actions need due attention; and two, seemingly overwhelming outcomes may be traced back to distant butterflies.

 


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