Community Math

A man is driving home late at night. He is in a place and time where hitch hiking is normal and safe, its just part of life there. This place is also very small, so at midnight, there is hardly anyone on the roads. He comes up on a light post with a woman standing under it trying to get a ride. He pulls over and tells her how far he is going as is the custom if you choose to stop and offer a ride here. As soon as she opens her mouth he realizes she doesn't speak much English as she just says the name of the one town there is. He isn't going that far and she doesn't want to go only part way, and that is perfectly acceptable here. A person will just wait for the next one to come along. But it is midnight......

As he drives on, he starts doing math in his head. Its late and the man is really tired and needs to get to bed. He will be in bed in 15 minutes driving straight home. The woman obviously would like to be at home in bed as well. Once she gets a ride, she will be home and in bed inbetween 20-25 minutes. But, how long will it be before another car comes by, especially from the direction that it needs to be coming from in order to get her to town? And there is no guarantee they will stop to even offer (the odds are 50-50 on a person stopping). And if they do stop and offer, there is still a huge chance they aren't going all the way to town just like the man. It could easily be another 20-30 minutes before a car comes by, and again we have the 50% chance of them even stopping, and after that of them not going as far as she is which would leave her still standing there, so say 40 minutes which is extremely conservative and unlikely. She will probably be there longer than that. So if we quantify the minutes and add them, we get 15+20+40= 75. That is our total outcome on everyone being where they want to be (but is probably much higher).

Now, he can turn around and go back after realizing this, and add 15 minutes roundtrip from where he would normally stop to town and back. And this option completely eliminates the question of how long she will wait until the next car stops and can give her a ride. So if we do the same math, we have 15+20+15=50 for everyone to be where they want to be. This number however is certain, unlike the number above. This shows that it is in the best interest of the community (being the man and woman in the illustration) that he turn around and take her to her destination, then backtrack to his house.

Here is what I learned from this story. This is what it is to serve others. To instead of looking out just for number 1, to consider what it would take to look out for someone else as well. If we lived in the world alone, we could consider only ourselves and where we needed to be, and no one would be effected by our decision to do so. But this is not the case. Many times there is someone else involved. Often our numbers are not the only ones being effected by a decision, and if we took the time to do the "math", and make the best decision for everyone involved, the world would be a better place.