Unintended circumstances

"Everything has an unintended circumstance," he said.

It prods, somewhere around my cerebral cortex, poke, poke poke. What unintended circumstance will I exude into the world? No doubt a lot of death and destruction, what with two showers a day, frequent hand washings, walking around and placing high amounts of pressure on ants, cockroaches, things of the like (I use humane traps for mice though. But I also occasionally feed them to pythons.) Thinking more globally and long-term, if I were to choose a long-term career, is the 'Unintended Circumstance' something to consider?

Think of examples. In which the agent does a perfect job but of course, cannot control what the rest of the world does once the job is done. You could be a doctor and save lives. Population probably agrees: this is good. But what if you're Osama's doctor, and by saving him you subtract a few thousand lives? I think it's not your decision at that point, once you're a doctor, to decide who to save and who to leave. Only Unintended Circumstance.

You could be a field worker and work in international development. Population probably agrees: this helps, and I feel better that you do this. But what if the population you try to help doesn't really want change, or you funnel money into a system that eats it to feed corruption and war. Are you still forgiven your actions? If you do your job knowing about these consequences, are they still Unintended Circumstances?

In the other direction, you take a less drastic approach to life. No more life/death stuff, so far. You work at Dunkin' Donuts (unintended circumstances: distribute immeasurable amounts of joy to countless denizens; alternately: feed Mr. Smith a donut a day for 40 years, Smith dies of heart complications without life insurance leaving a family of four to fend for themselves), you work as a Legal Secretary (unintended circumstance: support someone to be the best they can be; alternately: is there an alternate ending? Do Legal Secretaries REALLY hurt people?), or say, you're a Yoga Instructor; you align chakras, are vegan, ride a bicycle. Unintended circumstances? Where?

I'm sure everything DOES have unintended circumstances. Their severity by profession is debatable. Am I advocating a less risky career? Not necessarily. Perhaps the more risk of failure, the greater the possibility of change, success, triumph. Do you choose the path of more resistance and hope the rest of the world doesn't let you down by being mean? Or assume it will be mean, and choose the path with fewer bad circumstances?

Can we be part of a system that does not end in destruction? If we can't, does it matter that we've considered the unintended circumstance? More significantly: does it matter that we've considered?