Opportunism

I actually had to make a fairly important decision earlier this week in which I was basically choosing whether or I would act opportunistically. This decision was in relation to the amount of money my parents would contribute to my college education and living expenses during college.

My parents got divorced when I was seven years old. During the time of the divorce, a custody agreement was drawn up giving the rules my parents would have to follow regarding the custody and monetary needs of my younger sister and me. One thing that was not detailed, though, was any agreement about the amount of money my father and mother would or would not have to contribute to my sister and my college educations.

My mother recently made the decision to try to get single custody of my younger sister, and along with that, to obtain a formal agreement about college expenses to ensure that my father will be required to contribute money, even if he no longer has any custody of my younger sister. The terms my mother came up with state that she and my father are each responsible for paying 1/3 of all tuition, fees, rent, utilities, groceries, medical costs, cell phone service, and any other living expenses during the four years of college, with my sister (or me) being responsible for the last 1/3 of all expenses.

When my mother called me to tell me about her plans, she told me that she would allow me to choose whether or not she set up these terms to apply to both my sister and me, or to just my sister. I ultimately decided to leave my name out of the document. Had I been acting opportunistically, I would’ve elected to have myself included in document my mother’s lawyer is drawing up. Including my name as well as my sister’s would likely result in me having a guarantee that a certain amount of my college expenses will be paid for by my parents. It would also mean that I would receive help in paying for many of the living costs that I am currently paying for on my own, so I would be much less tight on money than I currently am. Instead, my parents will be able to continue choosing whether or not to give me money for school, and if so what amount they will give me.

I chose not to act opportunistically in this situation mainly because I don’t want either of my parents to be giving me money because they ‘have to’ due to a court agreement. I view any money my mother or father put towards my college education as a gift, and from that point of view I wouldn’t feel right knowing I had elected to mandate that ‘gift.’ I don’t think it would’ve been unethical of me to act opportunistically in this situation, nor was I trying to be a “good citizen,” as is suggested in the prompt. I made this choice simply because it represents my beliefs, and because I think that it was the right thing for me to do under these circumstances.

I think that in many cases, people chose to not act opportunistically because of their personal beliefs about what is right and wrong, and because they see themselves as having some type of duty to those they have relationships with. This means that they are not necessarily acting un-opportunistically because they want some good result of that action, but instead they are doing it to avoid the bad results of acting in an opportunistic way. If acting opportunistically would cause a person to feel guilty or bad, then they have a personal motivation to not act opportunistically and avoid those negative consequences.