We’re involved in a collective delusion. We chronically deny the extent of our privilege, underestimate our ability to change things in the world and rationalize using our resources selfishly.

Some double-think I hear at Stanford:

• I’m not that rich. Compared to other Stanford students, perhaps you aren’t, but compared to most of the human race, you are. Almost half the people alive today live on less than $2 a day.

• There’s nothing I can do. Bull. You’re a Stanford student/alum/whatever. You have immense resources at your disposal, including the Stanford cachet.

• I’m going to help the world by applying (insert subject here). Some of my friends want to study engineering and make ecologically-sound products or renewable energy technologies, apply economics to help third-world countries or use law to benefit the underprivileged or the environment.

This worries me. People enter treacherous fields, learning skills that make them valuable to industries and practices they detest, with the blind hope they’ll be able to use these skills to “help the world.” More often than not, they’re sucked into industries they formerly loathed.

I’m saddened when my friends major in economics, financial math, statistics, political science, environmental engineering and such; not because the subjects themselves are immoral, but because they increase the risk that the people will go to the dark side: Goldman Sachs, K Street, Exxon-Mobil or the World Bank.

Maybe it’s possible to help the world through morally-suspect industries. But if one can have a good affect on the world working in a stereotypically “bad” industry, then one can have a bad affect on the world working in a “good” industry, which takes us to the next misconception:

• All I need to do to help the world is to become a doctor, researcher, etc. or join the Peace Corps. As people who read my column last quarter might have deduced, I’m dubious about the benefits of most medicine, research, the World Bank and even the Peace Corps. Anything connected to the government or big industries probably isn’t taking the world in a direction I favor.

Yet even if you’re working in the best of industries, still you might not be making much of a marginal “difference,” since someone else would be doing the job if you weren’t. I laugh at how people compete for the privilege of “helping the world” as, for instance, journalists or doctors. In my opinion, if you have to compete for your job or if it’s well-compensated, you probably aren’t changing much. Changing the world through jobs is doubtful anyway (I think the biggest changes are made outside of work), so I regret that people think they can satisfy their moral requirements through jobs.

That many people talk about how they plan to make things better or rationalize why they don’t have such plans, suggests to me that many people feel a deep urge to use their position and benefits for good purposes. Once we banish our delusions, how can we actually improve things?

My suggestions:

• Work on causes you know about or that you have a stake in. When working on issues that have affected them, people have a better idea what needs to be done and are more motivated to help. One of my friends, a former foster youth, worked on legislation to improve the foster care system.

• Get out of line. Drop out. Stop doing things you don’t believe in and live in a way that makes sense to you.

Thanks to personal experience, Andrea Runyan wants to expand gifted education and reform anorexia treatment. Her e-mail address is arunyan@stanford.edu.