What I Did and Why I Did It
Since the summer of 2008, I have created and maintained a website called Stroke United, an unofficial liaison between the public and medical community on matters concerning stroke. Stroke United is a free and easily accessible website aimed to increase awareness to the open public about the many dangers of stroke and ways to prevent it. On the website I post weekly updates of stroke news, read and handpicked by me, from a variety of reliable and consistent organizations such as the Internet Stroke Center, the National Stroke Association, and Science Daily. Among many other things, Stroke United contains valuable information of the inner workings of this neurological disorder via plain text and videos. Stroke United encourages and facilitates lively discussions, through forums, among its website users. I also created this website to bring resources and services pertinent to the users such as recommending stroke-related books as well as links to other credible stroke organizations. In addition, I have assembled and sorted very useful online tools for the site ranging from online personal risk assessments and fitness plans to online stroke education and support groups.
Over the years, friends have asked why I would volunteer so much of my time to create and maintain this website. Motivated by my family’s past experiences with stroke, I sought out to create a website that would encourage the viewers to take preventative actions against this growing disease. Years ago, my grandfather suffered from repeating strokes and out of my ignorance, I was unaware of the steps that I could have taken to help him. Preventing those strokes would have saved my grandfather and his family from much misery. Upon reflection, I see that my website stands for a utilitarian cause. According to The Right Thing to Do, the chief principle of utilitarianism “is that we should always do whatever will produce the greatest possible balance of happiness over unhappiness for everyone who will be affected by our action” (Rachels, and Rachels 12). Stroke United aims to reach to as many people as possible, and as mentioned before, to inform and guide them to live a stroke-free and happy life. Preventing the number of cases of stroke, I believe, is one of the many ways society can maintain a healthy balance of happiness over the misery that could result if people don’t take those initial steps to live a healthy life.
Some may say that my intentions are purely altruistic. Upon further thought, however, I realized that by helping others, I make myself happy which implies serving a cause out of self-interest; Ayn Rand labels this phenomenon as “psychological egoism”. By maintaining this website, I feel more relieved and content knowing that some viewer somewhere is at least aware of the dangers of stroke and that preventative measures can be taken. However, if I had felt that Stroke United was not making any sort of impact to anyone at all, I would see no reason to volunteer my time and energy to running it. In the end, I see that I have created and still maintained Stroke United to not only benefit the open public but also myself.
Work Cited
Rachels, James, and Stuart Rachels. The Right Thing to Do: Basic Readings in Moral Philosophy. Fifth ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2010. 12. Print.