Top Gun Maverick: Lessons in Self Sacrifice & Doing the Right Thing

I obviously loved this movie. Watched it like 50 times at least. There is a great scene in the beginning of the movie when Maverick decides to take one last flight of the hypersonic plane ahead of an Admiral showing up. This is to make the Mach 10 grade so the program is not canceled. 

As he is taxing up the runway, His colleague asks him: “it’s not too late to stop, you know what happens to you if you go through with this.”

Maverick replies: “I know what happens to everyone if I don’t”. Basically everyone else loses their job if the program gets shut down. He is willing to risk his career for others. 

Yes,  this is just a movie. But think about the workplace or political world in our modern life. How few people would be willing to risk their careers, let alone their lives for someone else. I’d throw myself in this. As a man, I hope I will do the right thing. But you won’t really know until that moment. 

We’ve been so lucky to live in the prosperous world that we are in that we have not been put in these situations. And also where the stakes are relatively low. We’ve not had to exercise this “muscle”. Instead we have low stakes, lots of virtue signaling and plenty of cowardice around us. That’s why “ghosting” is a thing now. It’s such a weak move when you disappear without closing things off because you don’t want to have the difficult conversation. 

But the world is changing. And we’re going to be put in a hard place where tough decisions will come fast and hard. And doing the “right thing” comes at deep personal costs. Even more so than before. 

I read about some Russians who left their country & family to join the Ukrainian Armed forces to fight against the barbaric invading Russian army. What bravery and what honor! Especially the former Gazprom executive who gave up a cushy life to fight as seen here: https://www.reuters.com/world/im-not-afraid-says-ex-gazprombank-executive-who-defected-ukraine-2022-04-28/. 

If only all of us would have the guts to do a shade of this in our everyday life. It’s something I think about and aspire to every single day. It’s the only way to make the world better for each other.