I had a recent chat with my Kuya. He just started studying in the UK. I started the conversation telling him that I finally found a university that offers the program I want — a bachelors in Architecture and Urban Planning. It starts in September of 2020, takes 3 years to finish, and costs 19,000 GBP. Yes, it's in the UK and the tuition costs around a million in PHP. Despite the holes in pockets it could create, a career in that is how I want to live my life. 

So my Kuya asked me for what was stopping me. And I told him that I started this organizational chapter in MCM, UAPSA (United Architects of the Philippines Student Auxiliary). My chapter will be fine if I go but there might be a gap in the succession in the district (the region-wide scope of UAPSA including AdDU, UIC, UP Min, UM, and NDDU). My ates and kuyas in the UAPSA community outside MCM see a lot in me to the point they have been scheming my UAPSA career development up to being seated at the highest position. I laugh and deny it often because I don't want the position. But if a majority people need me to do something, as a people-pleaser with a vision, I do it. 

With that, I have my trolley problem: pull the lever and crush one person or leave the lever and crush many. Let me be that one person with many hopes and dreams; the other track will be my org, UAPSA. (Honestly though, they shouldn’t entirely be crushed. There are a lot of great people in UAPSA who do well without me.) To leave MCM and study abroad may be my immediate happiness but a majority's sadness and delayed happiness (let's face it, I'm coming back). To not study what I want would be my sadness but to stay can be a majority's immediate happiness. 

Will my idea of utilitarianism be selfish or selfless? Should it even be selfless or selfish in the first place? I know either way, I cut an opportunity away from me. 

Still, my Kuya assures me that transitioning from PH to UK education is easy. He says our parents can handle costs. And he says it's about time that I stop it with the orgs and start investing in myself for once. I can't deny him. It sounds great. But to leave UAPSA for me is to abandon not just any baby but something that needs to learn to walk and fend on its own. It’s something that doesn’t reflect my values. Though even if it doesn’t, it would not mean it makes my life healthy. My org is my drug, believe it or not. I'm torn. Thank God, I still have some sanity in me to function. At this point, I just want to pass the term and get my mind clear for that big choice when summer comes. 

I’m afraid to come and think that maybe I have lived most of my life as a stoic and a follower of utilitarianism. Maybe my Kuya is right that I have not looked after myself enough for the sake of what I think is the greater good; being a person for others. And maybe in acting in that selfless manner, I’m less than capable of doing more for people because I’m not as trained as I could be if I just invested in myself a little more in my earlier years. 

01/31/2020 

Ethics