For more than a decade now, I’ve been trying. I’ve put a conscious effort into living a life that is good—good to the people around me, good to the planet, good to myself. But if I’m honest, the primary feeling that comes with this effort is a quiet, persistent exhaustion. It feels like swimming against the current in a river that is actively trying to pull you downstream.
I’ve come to realize that this isn’t an accident. We live in a world where the “default” path—the easy, convenient, and often cheapest path—is not aligned with being a good person. Every conscious choice, therefore, becomes an act of resistance. Every decision is a deliberation, a cost-benefit analysis of money, convenience, and morality. And nothing made this clearer to me than a recent, simple travel booking.
I was planning a trip between two of Spain’s Canary Islands, Tenerife and La Palma. The obvious options were a ferry or a plane. My environmental instinct pointed to the ferry. But after a bit of research, I was confronted with a paradox that has come to define modern life: the plane was actually cheaper. A whole debate instantly began to rage in my head. My budget pointed one way, my values another. In the end, the ferry schedule worked out better, so my choice was made for me. But the conflict itself was the real story. It was a perfect snapshot of the daily friction of trying to do the right thing.
Why? Why would a system produce a reality where the more polluting, high-impact option is economically incentivized? The easy answer is to point to the vast, impersonal system of capitalism. That’s true, but it’s more specific than that. We are stuck in a world where the core incentives benefit a small, disconnected group of people at the top. The systems they’ve built are not in tune with the needs, values, or long-term survival of the majority of us. It’s a global structure that prioritizes short-term profit over long-term sustainability, and it places the burden of navigating that broken logic squarely on the shoulders of the individual consumer.
This can make all our little efforts feel pointless. What good is my agonizing over a ferry ticket when massive corporations are the real problem? What is the purpose of this exhausting struggle?
After years of asking myself this, I’ve landed here: the purpose is twofold. Yes, I still want to find my way to contribute to the bigger fight, to push for systemic change wherever I can. But I also have to accept that for now, my power lies in the small, daily decisions I can consciously make “for good.” The act of choosing the ferry, of researching the ethical brand, of taking the harder path—it’s an act of defiance. It’s a personal, radical refusal to consent to the default.
And here is the most important thing I’ve learned: I have to let go of the guilt. I must allow myself to choose convenience or money from time to time without feeling like a failure. Because the guilt we feel is a tool that the system uses to keep us focused on our own shortcomings rather than its.
The ultimate responsibility for our flawed choices does not lie with us, the individuals forced to choose between a bad option and a worse one. It lies with the system that provides these options in the first place. My radical act is no longer just trying to make the “good” choice, but also refusing to carry the guilt when I can’t. The burden is not ours to bear.
