Eternal Punishment for Underperformance

Have you shaken your head when people waste their talents? If only they realized all that they are capable of, you sigh. If you’ve felt that way, you’ll love David Eagleman’s version of the afterlife in Sum: Tales from the Afterlives in the story titled “Subjunctive”. Imagine this, he says:

“In the afterlife, you are judged not against other people, but against yourself. Specifically, you are judged against what you could have been.”

The afterlife includes all the you’s that could have been…

 

After the initial pride at seeing what the other you’s have achieved has worn off, intimidation sets in:

“These yous are not really you, they are better than you. They made smarter choices, worked harder, invested the extra effort in pushing on closed doors.”

You feel even worse when the realization hits you:

“Such success cannot be explained away by a better genetic hand: instead, they played your cards better.”

 

And the other yous are everywhere. You can’t avoid running into them. Sure, many have done worse than you, but the yous who did better are just as abundant. The moral of the story?

“Thus your punishment is cleverly and automatically regulated in the afterlife: the more you fell short of your potential, the more of these annoying selves you are forced to deal with.”