Of all the things wasted in our throwaway times, the greatest is wasted talent. There are millions of people around the world who could help make the world a better place, but don’t. I’m talking about the ones who have got the power to shape their own careers, though you would never know it from their utterly unsurprising résumés. About the talented folks with the world at their feet who nonetheless get stuck in mind-numbing, pointless or just plain harmful jobs.
There’s an antidote to that kind of waste, and it’s called moral ambition. Moral ambition is the will to make the world a wildly better place. To devote your working life to the great challenges of our time, whether that’s the climate crisis or corruption, gross inequality or the next pandemic. It’s a longing to make a difference – and to build a legacy that truly matters.
Moral ambition begins with a simple realisation: you’ve only got one life. The time you have left on this Earth is your most precious possession. You can’t buy yourself more time, and every hour you’ve spent is gone for ever. A full-time career consists of 80,000 hours, or 10,000 workdays, or 2,000 workweeks. How you spend that time is one of the most important moral decisions of your life.
So what do you want on your résumé? Do you go for a respectable, if bland, list? Or do you set the bar higher? Morally ambitious individuals don’t move with the herd, but believe in a deeper form of freedom. It’s the freedom to push aside conventional standards of success, to make your own way along life’s path, knowing that it’s a journey you can only make once.
Moral ambition is more convincing and more effective when you’re not broke.
Yeah, I would love to quit this bullshit job and do something worthwhile but then I’ve got maybe half a year before my insulin runs out because they never let you have all that much chain on your leash.
It is arguably more important then. Granted, I have enough of a support system where I can get a wild hair and not die.
“Moral ambition begins with a simple realisation: YOLO!” XD
Yeah, all nice and peachy.
Two years ago I submitted an application for an expression of interest with a globally significant project. I received an automated response advising me that I’d be considered for every role.
A year later, after attempting to contact the organisation repeatedly, I get an email from a recruiter within the organisation saying the same.
A year later, last week, after more attempts to contact the organisation, I attempted to update my resume and discover that I cannot because I’ve been “disqualified for the role” without any indication why or when this happened.
I’ve been in my profession for over 40 years, I want to work in an interesting environment and eat food.
That combination does not appear to exist on this planet, at least not where I can find it.
I’ll note that overall job search is so broken that at one point I was told that my experience as an ICT Consultant would be suitable for the role of dog walker.
Were the world as it was in 2001, I’d be one of those “how the fuck did he get there so young” folks running the Post.
As society has repeatedly failed me, I chose homelessness. A 0% raise after saving Gannet seven fucking million dollars a year via automation broke my belief in anything.
I’m hiding from the bank that funded my van. What, they need $8,000 more than I do?
Cool cool cool yeah, let me just do that and live out of a cardboard box. We get jobs because of this thing called money. Handy stuff, it lets us obtain things we need to live.
You want people to dedicate their working lives to making change? Find a way to enable that while also earning a livable income.
I’ve already been homeless for a year and a half. And my job came to a sudden, if anticipated, halt in January, when covering federal grants for green tech ceased to be viable.
I’m unwilling to go back to the corporate rat race. I saw zero benefit from playing that game, as costs inevitably rose faster than pay. I’ll happily die in my van before taking a bullshit job.
Good for you. Not everyone has that as an option though, however morally motivated they may be.
Death as an escape is always an option. Some look down upon it, but that doesn’t make it impossible – it’s actually remarkably easy. Unless your dealer, sensing something is off, breaks into your apartment and calls 911.
