Leaking Plutonium

There's a prevailing attitude which shrugs off any circumstance that might require unpleasant action. It often goes by the name of "apathy", especially in teenagers, but the fully-developed version usually requires a chain of rationalization to reach the end of the line. I used to call it the "leaking plutonium" argument. It goes something like this:

Unless it's leaking plutonium, I don't have the time or energy to deal with it.
If it is leaking plutonium, it's not going to kill me instantly. So I can put it off.
(If it does kill me instantly, the problem is over.)
If I do get cancer, there's no cure anyway, so I might as well not worry about it.
So it really doesn't require any action on my part.

This is what my long-ago bioethics professor might have called a "slippery slope" argument: one conclusion leading to another, until you're plunging downhill on greased skids, headed straight for the twilight zone. Nowadays, we're more likely to cut out that troublesome middle part, thus turning the slippery slope into the express elevator to Hell. Perhaps some of these arguments look familiar:

"Five more bucks isn't going to make a difference in my retirement fund... but now that I'm broke, I might as well have a latte."

"I'll just call Mary next week... and now that I haven't talked to her in a year, I don't really have a reason to call."

"One cookie isn't going to ruin my health... and now that I'm fifty pounds overweight, skipping one cookie isn't going to change the facts."

The interesting thing is that the descent isn't automatic. It requires our cooperation to send us down the black hole: first in the willingness to get onto the elevator in the first place (the "it's not going to happen to me" argument), then in the suspension of common sense (and often consciousness) during the trip, and finally in agreeing to continue the trip once we realize where we're headed (the point where we decide "it's too late now"). But it works, entirely too frequently, because we think that it's just too much work to stop the elevator. We weigh the five bucks in savings against the afternoon without latte, and decide it's just not worth the effort. Four straight hours without caffeine, are you kidding? Looking at the big picture just seems to make it worse: you mean I have to do this again tomorrow? And again the day after? For how long?

Until we succeed; that's the real answer. And we had better hope we do, because that point where we decide we're past caring about the consequences is nowhere near the actual bottom. What will happen at the end of the month, when those daily lattes have added up to the hundred dollars we don't have to pay the electric bill? What will life be like in a year, when those fifty extra pounds have become a hundred and Mary no longer has any need for our company? Or in five years, when the hundred pounds have become terminal heart disease and we don't even have Mary's new number to say goodbye?

That point of decision should be recognized for what it is: not the opportunity for moment of comfort in the face of overwhelming odds, but the opportunity to turn those odds around. Maybe you didn't notice when something first started leaking plutonium, but now that you do, you can take action. Plug the leak, call the repair crew, evacuate the building-- just remember not to get into the elevator. And when you get home, call Mary. I guarantee she'll want to hear about this one.