hidden agenda
n
a secret or ulterior motive for something

Imagine what it would be like if everyone, everywhere on the planet, had a hidden agenda. Imagine these agendas are so well hidden, even the people who have them don’t know what they are.

Imagine further that everyone has multiple hidden agendas they don’t know about: your family members, the store clerks you encounter, your friends and neighbors, the people you work with, the other drivers on the road, your representatives in congress, all the way up to heads of state.

To make things even stranger, imagine that there’s no way to find out directly what those hidden agendas are.

What would that sci-fi world look like?

Actually, it would look exactly like the world we live in. Odd though it may sound, this isn’t fiction; it’s reality. And it isn’t the result of any kind of conspiracy. It’s just the way our brains work. The truth is that we have no idea what we’re up to most of the time. And neither do the people “at the top,” who are in significant positions of power.

As a species, we’ve managed to get this far without being aware of or acknowledging our hidden agendas. I can’t help but wonder how much better we could be—and how much farther we could go—if we did become aware of and acknowledge them.