Small cogs in a big engine

Balaji is a taxi driver. He drives a taxi at night. Most of his customers after 11pm go to the airport. He stays awake till well into the morning taking people to wherever they need to go.

Does Balaji contribute to making the world a better place?

On the surface, no. He is not inventing medicines to cure diseases. He is not inventing technology to ease people’s lives. He is not counselling families to stop their quarrels. All Balaji does is taking people to where they want to go.

If we use the same lens, most people’s work doesn’t contribute to making the world a better or an easier place to live in. Yet, the world has constantly been becoming a better and easier place.

What was the world like in 2014? Are our lives easier now? Of course! What was the world like in 2004? Are our lives easier now? Definitely!

One way to explain this would be to give the entire credits to specific inventions that have made our lives better. We’ll maybe find hundreds or thousands of people to cite as the reason for the improvements. Did those thousands of people accomplish all this all by themselves? No, they did not.

Taxi drivers like Balaji help scientists (and businesspersons and social workers and …) go where they need to go. Progress is faster because we have easy transportation thanks to taxi drivers. Let me repeat this in different words. In a society where there are no taxi drivers and everyone needs to manage transportation on their own, progress would be slower.

This is not just about taxi drivers, though. Everyone out there today, doing all kinds of work, is helping the society move forward. Maybe they are small cogs in a big engine, but everyone is a small cog in the humongous machine that is our society. All these small cogs come together to make the engine do wonderful things.

When you take a taxi ride next time, or when you have a plumber repair your water lines, or when you have a delivery person bring you things, or when you have a restaurant cook a meal for you—remember that they are also a reason you’re able to excel in your day job.