The problem is choice

I made a girl cry today.

We have to make a lot of decisions in life. That's what life is all about, that's what free will is all about. Most of the time, those decisions are superficial, are pointless, are insignificant in the grand scheme of time and space. But occasionally, just occasionally, we need to make the hard choices. The difficult and enigmatic choices which involve people, their emotions, their feelings. Their lives.

The average person can't deal with life-and-death choices. Would you push the button to blow up another ferry full of people knowing that by midnight a lunatic in a purple suit is going to blow up both boats anyway? A handful of people would relish in the prospect of having complete and utter control over another life. Then there are others who don't want anything to do with the control over another life, but have to make the tough decisions anyway.

Unfortunately, scattered across existence are these hard choices, and the world needs people to make them. It needs people to press the red button to launch nuclear war. It needs people to lay off the less-productive employee during a recession. It needs people to pick a group of five out of seven for a creative problem-solving competition. The tough choices have to be made. Sometimes, you have to be the person to make them. And I still don't know if I made the right choice. The greater good, over the individual. Maybe, one day, she will understand.

Maybe, one day, she'll forgive me.
The Edna Man