Re:To fixate on finding work that makes us happy is a luxury
by twoquestions on Wednesday December 21, 2016 @11:39AM
(#13230448)
There's times I forget how lucky I am to kinda like my job, and that most people are forced to sell their time to some distant corporate noble rather than providing value to their friends and neighbors. Thank you for reminding me.
Seriously, most jobs are about you doing stupid - and often morally questionable - shit to enrich the owners, while only incidentally providing any value to society at large, and only the minimum amount of value the company can get away with. All of that in exchange for currency which you need to stay alive.
Do you think grocery store clerks have passion for their work? In particular, are they passionate about all the shenanigans like washing old meat with dishwashing fluid to make it smell less? No, they do this to stay alive. Do you think programmers writing all those stupid superaddictive on-line games have passion for sucking money out of people who lack impulse control? Well, maybe they do, but that's exactly the soul damage I'm talking about.
So sure, by not working on something I'm passionate about I am "cheating" the society out of the value I could be creating. Except that the society is not often giving away jobs I can be passionate about without utterly destroying my very self.