Is Opportunism Bad Karma?
A concept always ingrained into me, and one I choose to follow, is known as "karma", or the idea of what comes around goes around. I truly feel, whether it's actually being selfish to satisfy my own conscience, that if I do good to others, good will come to me, or if I do bad to others, bad will come back to me. I recently turned 21, so I'm at the age in life where I'm challenging the philosophies taught to and figuring out. In Hinduism, there is a concept known as "purushartha" which refers to the four aims of life: dharma (duty and moral values), artha (welfare and economic prosperity), kama (pleasure, desire, or enjoyment), and moksha (self-realization or liberation). All these aspects are constantly in play when making human decisions, and while doing good can lead to good karma, at what point am I being too selfless at the expense of my own personal good? And is being opportunistic necessarily a bad thing?
We all have goals in life of where we want to see ourselves going and the type of person we want to see ourselves be. For a significant portion of my life, I was what people would call a "pushover". I would always give in to people's decision because I didn't want to be seen as a bad person. I wanted people to like me. I learned that by behaving this way, I was compromising on my future goals. Right before I went off to college, my mother sat me down and explained to me that in corporate America, it is a dog eat dog world out there. Every man and woman looks out for themselves and some times, in order to not see yourself get hurt, you're going to have to take advantage of every opportunity given to you. As much as it is my 'dharma' to be a good person, it is also my dharma to be able to fend for myself, so being opportunistic shouldn't always necessarily be a bad thing.
Going off to college is a great opportunity to figure out what kind of person you are. Taking my mother's advice, I set up my mind to stand up for myself more often. College is also a place where many things out of your control can happen, and it is up to you to decide what to do given the circumstances you have. One example is my first college roommate in the first semester of my freshman year. Being from New Jersey and not knowing anyone from Illinois, I ended up going random when selecting my roommate. I was assigned a girl from a Chicago suburb, so she's close to what I considered a local. Our friendship started out great, she had a very bubbly personality and she was the type of person who makes friends very easily. I came to realize that she comes from a very different background than me. I'm a child of immigrants from a very diverse town; she isn't and the make up of her town is very monotonous. I'm a Democrat, she's a Republican. Despite my first paragraph, I'm not a particularly religious person; she is a routine Sunday church attender. Regardless, I didn't really think much of our differences and even though I couldn't be myself around her, I still hung around with her because it was easy use her to make friends with other people.
We became close pretty quickly and our friend group was tight. And while I couldn't be myself with her, I could with everyone else in the group. Over the course of a couple of weeks, our different backgrounds became a problem for her. She didn't like the smell of my Maggi noodles (a brand of some really tasty Indian ramen), and I would still eat it because as a clueless freshman, it was the only food that reminded me of home since dining hall food sucks when you're a vegetarian. She didn't like how I would skip my 8am (I would skip my 8 am but I would attend the same lecture at 11am because 8ams suck). In retrospect, these are really tiny things that shouldn't be a problem, but it was for her. But for some reason she decided she didn't like me as a roommate anymore.
Being in the same friend group, one could see how the tension between my roommate and me would become a problem. Rather than keeping my friends neutral and not letting it affect my friend group, I thought about how in the past, I would always give in to the situations given to me. This time, I decided to stand up for myself. I was my 'artha' that made me realize to look out for myself. Why should I compromise a good thing I have going with my friends? Explaining my side, I convinced my friends to be "Team Laura D'Andrea Tyson". I took advantage of the opportunity to keep our friends on my side. Call it being opportunistic or not, but I can say that currently I'm still friends with these people and my former roommate isn't.
It became such that my roommate and I both new that we couldn't live together anymore. Fall semester was coming to end and we had to decide which one of us would move out. I don't have a family who can drive over here in 2 hours to help me move my stuff to a different dorm room, so I held my ground and I was NOT moving out. Thus, my roommate would be the one to move out. Again, I explained my side to the resident director of my dorm and she agreed that I was dealing with a lot. Because of my experience, she agreed that if I would get another roommate, I could meet with her first to see if she was someone I'd want to live with. However, I was very much looking forward to having the entire double room to myself in the Spring semester. My roommate moved out, and I had the entire room to myself now.
Once she was gone, I put fresh, new sheets on her bed and made her old bed sort of like a sofa. I made her closet my shoe, jacket, and cleaning supplies closet, and I made her desk and extra living corner for all the times I would host my friends with the newfound space I had. It was the 'kama' in me that made me enjoy having the extra space to myself, even though that was an empty living space that some other girl could be using. However, I took advantage of the opportunity I had to upscale my freshman lifestyle.
Was I being selfish in my actions? Could I have acted in a more altruistic manner? Most certainly. I didn't have to get my friends involved and I could've offered the other side of the room to someone else having roommate issues, but I didn't. I could have gave in to my roommate's preferences, but I would be compromising my identity by doing so. I was being opportunistic and looking out for myself, and I took advantage of the opportunities presented to me. However, I don't think I did bad, and I certainly don't regret my actions. Of course, there are cases where being opportunistic can be a bad thing. It'll probably always be a battle with my conscience to decide between being opportunistic or being altruistic, but perhaps this is my 'moksha' or my self-realization on karma and making decisions.
We all have goals in life of where we want to see ourselves going and the type of person we want to see ourselves be. For a significant portion of my life, I was what people would call a "pushover". I would always give in to people's decision because I didn't want to be seen as a bad person. I wanted people to like me. I learned that by behaving this way, I was compromising on my future goals. Right before I went off to college, my mother sat me down and explained to me that in corporate America, it is a dog eat dog world out there. Every man and woman looks out for themselves and some times, in order to not see yourself get hurt, you're going to have to take advantage of every opportunity given to you. As much as it is my 'dharma' to be a good person, it is also my dharma to be able to fend for myself, so being opportunistic shouldn't always necessarily be a bad thing.
Going off to college is a great opportunity to figure out what kind of person you are. Taking my mother's advice, I set up my mind to stand up for myself more often. College is also a place where many things out of your control can happen, and it is up to you to decide what to do given the circumstances you have. One example is my first college roommate in the first semester of my freshman year. Being from New Jersey and not knowing anyone from Illinois, I ended up going random when selecting my roommate. I was assigned a girl from a Chicago suburb, so she's close to what I considered a local. Our friendship started out great, she had a very bubbly personality and she was the type of person who makes friends very easily. I came to realize that she comes from a very different background than me. I'm a child of immigrants from a very diverse town; she isn't and the make up of her town is very monotonous. I'm a Democrat, she's a Republican. Despite my first paragraph, I'm not a particularly religious person; she is a routine Sunday church attender. Regardless, I didn't really think much of our differences and even though I couldn't be myself around her, I still hung around with her because it was easy use her to make friends with other people.
We became close pretty quickly and our friend group was tight. And while I couldn't be myself with her, I could with everyone else in the group. Over the course of a couple of weeks, our different backgrounds became a problem for her. She didn't like the smell of my Maggi noodles (a brand of some really tasty Indian ramen), and I would still eat it because as a clueless freshman, it was the only food that reminded me of home since dining hall food sucks when you're a vegetarian. She didn't like how I would skip my 8am (I would skip my 8 am but I would attend the same lecture at 11am because 8ams suck). In retrospect, these are really tiny things that shouldn't be a problem, but it was for her. But for some reason she decided she didn't like me as a roommate anymore.
Being in the same friend group, one could see how the tension between my roommate and me would become a problem. Rather than keeping my friends neutral and not letting it affect my friend group, I thought about how in the past, I would always give in to the situations given to me. This time, I decided to stand up for myself. I was my 'artha' that made me realize to look out for myself. Why should I compromise a good thing I have going with my friends? Explaining my side, I convinced my friends to be "Team Laura D'Andrea Tyson". I took advantage of the opportunity to keep our friends on my side. Call it being opportunistic or not, but I can say that currently I'm still friends with these people and my former roommate isn't.
It became such that my roommate and I both new that we couldn't live together anymore. Fall semester was coming to end and we had to decide which one of us would move out. I don't have a family who can drive over here in 2 hours to help me move my stuff to a different dorm room, so I held my ground and I was NOT moving out. Thus, my roommate would be the one to move out. Again, I explained my side to the resident director of my dorm and she agreed that I was dealing with a lot. Because of my experience, she agreed that if I would get another roommate, I could meet with her first to see if she was someone I'd want to live with. However, I was very much looking forward to having the entire double room to myself in the Spring semester. My roommate moved out, and I had the entire room to myself now.
Once she was gone, I put fresh, new sheets on her bed and made her old bed sort of like a sofa. I made her closet my shoe, jacket, and cleaning supplies closet, and I made her desk and extra living corner for all the times I would host my friends with the newfound space I had. It was the 'kama' in me that made me enjoy having the extra space to myself, even though that was an empty living space that some other girl could be using. However, I took advantage of the opportunity I had to upscale my freshman lifestyle.
Was I being selfish in my actions? Could I have acted in a more altruistic manner? Most certainly. I didn't have to get my friends involved and I could've offered the other side of the room to someone else having roommate issues, but I didn't. I could have gave in to my roommate's preferences, but I would be compromising my identity by doing so. I was being opportunistic and looking out for myself, and I took advantage of the opportunities presented to me. However, I don't think I did bad, and I certainly don't regret my actions. Of course, there are cases where being opportunistic can be a bad thing. It'll probably always be a battle with my conscience to decide between being opportunistic or being altruistic, but perhaps this is my 'moksha' or my self-realization on karma and making decisions.
My older son lived in ISR for the first two years of college. I was in his room a few time to help move stuff. I couldn't believe how small it was. The dorm rooms I had - at MIT and then Cornell, gave the students a lot more space. I would think some of the issues you talked about would be fairly common, simply because there is hardly enough room to breathe in the space that is allocated.
ReplyDeleteI liked your first and third paragraphs very much - developing a personal philosophy is a very important thing to be doing in college. However, I would add that there are some other things that go along with that, mainly to learn about yourself and, in particular, what gives you joy. Then, also, what particularly causes you distress. On the joy part, of course, you want to create conditions for yourself where that is likely. On the distress part, in contrast, it may be less obvious what is the best thing to do - overcome your own limitations or try to avoid those situations.
An issue that you may have not confronted with your roommate, but I thought might have been present in your previous post, is that if you you are working hard to not be a pushover, you may then stop listening to others. Listening is a key skill. If you can be even handed, listen, and yet not be a pushover, that might be the ideal.
Let me add something to this story, which is about mood and resilience. I think it is generally easier to deal with setbacks and tough people to work with if you are otherwise upbeat and are generally optimistic. In turn, I believe this gets back to identifying what gives you joy and engaging in that with some frequency. If everything become drudge work or some kind of burden, you wear down from that. If your nature is to be a pushover (dove) but you convert yourself into a hawk, you should ask at what cost to achieve the transformation and if the price is too dear.
My freshman move-in experience was also memorizable like your son's. I lived in Taft-Van Doren, which has no AC, and that week happened to be a heat wave of up to 97 degree weather. The day moving in, there was me, my father, my mother (who was recovering from surgery), my roommate, her parents, her aunt, her grandmother, and her younger sister. So I can totally relate to the size of the room feeling small.
DeleteAs for your other points, I agree very much. I am now in my senior year of college and I can say that I've learned a lot about myself throughout these years. I try to find things that make me happy and get involved in more activities that encourage that. I've learned to recognize the type of situations that cause me distress and I either try to avoid them or I find ways to manage it.
I have also come to realize that you are right about that part where you said by working hard not to be a pushover, I might stop listening to others. As a finish my college years and enter the professional world, I hope to learn to find the happy middle (or equilibrium) of not being a pushover on one extreme, listening to others, and still standing up for myself.
I really enjoyed reading your post! Human beings are insatiable, and no matter how much you try to please everyone, there would always be someone that isn't satisfied. In regards to your post, I can totally relate to some of the room mate isssue especially when there is a cultural difference involved. My previous room mate didn't like the smell of some of my home made food, which was surprising because I never really knew those food had certain smells. I have been eating them most of my life, and people around me (family) for the longest period have too. The whole transition of embracing others culture can be overwhelming at first before it becomes interesting.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you were being opportunistic since you didn't force your other friends to take your side. From experience, it can sometimes be hard to be best friends with your roommate. For me, I prefer some space. It helps me maintain the friendship because we aren't hanging out all the time.
I also didn't realize that the food I have been eating my whole life might smell differently to people who aren't familiar to them! And yes, it was a transition of learning how to embrace other cultures when sharing an environment as intimate as a shared bedroom or living quarters. Hopefully, I have become much better in that transition and I can hope for my ex-roommate that she has learned the same as well.
DeleteAnd thank you for thinking that I wasn't being opportunistic! I prefer space as well!
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ReplyDeleteI found it really interesting how you related "purushartha" to your experience and the discussion about opportunism! I have lived in a dorm as well, and while I knew my roommate moving in, we still had to compromise and figure it out how to coexist in such a small environment.
ReplyDeleteI am very neat and clean, she would leave food and shoes everywhere. I like the blinds and windows open, she liked it dark and with the A/C on. This were all things that could have caused a problem on our friendship, but I choose to just talk it out with her. We also had friends in common, and most times we would both vent with a 3rd person who acted like a mediator. I could have gone to the 3rd person and tried to "convince her to be on my side" but I knew that that would probably hurt my relationship with my roommate.
Although it is good to stand up for yourself, sometimes in life, in a professional environment especially, you will not be able to pick who you work with. While you could complain about that person to co-workers or your boss, I believe that could hurt your image. Therefore, I always think that conversations and compromises are the best way to go.
With that in mind, sometimes you do not have a choice and some people are just not willing to cooperate, in that case (which I believe was your case) it is better to cut the "weed" out.
Haha "cut the weed out". I'm glad you were able to avoid causing problems in your friendship by just talking things out! And yeah, a 3rd person acting like a mediator can certainly be helpful, however in my situation it backfired. It turned out that both of us were venting to this third person we were both friends with, and that hurt the relationship with all of us. But I do agree that in a professional world, it really does hurt one's image to talk bad about one person to another coworker. Having someone to talk to and vent to is important to release some stress, so I've learned that it's best to have that person be uninvolved with the other person.
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