Date Posted: November 23rd, 2009
I’m still uncomfortable with the idea that amassing lots of money is good from a moral standpoint. Yes, money is a form of social debt, but it’s not that simple. For one thing, there are plenty of valuable services that don’t translate well to gaining money for them. Childcare, listening, homecooked meals, parties, hugs, helping a friend move, mentoring etc. To ask for payment would just feel weird.
Keeping score in general feels bad when it comes to service, and money is the ultimate way of keeping score.
Also, how much money you have isn’t an indication of how much good karma you’ve amassed. When we buy things all we see is the end product, and as we all know, the ends don’t usually justify the means. If the food you’re eating now was procured in such a way that the soil underneath has been depleted of nutrients, is it worth the cheaper price than the one that was farmed sustainably? The plastic option may be cheaper but it’s often not recyclable or biodegradable. Is the computer that ultimately ends up in an electronics junk heap poisoning the earth worth the affordable price? We don’t see these negatives when we buy a new product. And even when there is information on products (Organic! Free range!) it can often be misleading. You can meet all the standards of organic and still not produce your products sustainably. There’s no regulation on what “Free range” actually means.
So yes, it’s very clear that you can generate lots of money by doing things that are unsustainable. That is, the value you provided to the end user came at a cost to the earth or to others who don’t have a say in the free market.
And, of course, when you go to spend the money you can use it in very damaging ways: flights around the world, giant houses, more new stuff than you can count.
Money is like power. When you have a lot of it it’s tempting and easy to misuse it. It’s also tempting to do amass it in less than ethical ways.
I suppose, then, that it’s not surprising that a primary sustainability metric is income. The more money you make the less likely it is that you’re living sustainably. Why? Because of all the reasons I’ve listed above. To generate money you probably waste a lot and you’re probably will to spend money on things that are also wasteful.
It certainly seems like the only way to do good for the world is to be OK with living on virtually nothing. But that sounds less than wonderful.
Can you make money sustainably?
There are some occupations that don’t do that much damage to the environment. Blogging, for instance, is fairly low. People aren’t buying new computers for the sake of reading a blog, and there are lots of ways to get access to said blog without even owning a computer. In general anything where there is no physical product is very low on the impact scale. (At least that seems intuitive to me… I don’t know if that’s actually the case.) Also with blogging and other content type things, it doesn’t matter all that much as you get more and more readers. With something like making cars or electronic stuff or plastic candy dispensers or disposable diapers, the more customers you have the greater your negative impact on the earth.
I imagine with one of these low impact type careers (especially content generation) you could have the potential to make lots of money essentially guilt free. And if you’re wise in the spending of your money you could have an incredibly positive impact on the world.
Tags:
Abundance / Scarcity Mentality, Ethics, Money, Sustainability, YMOYL.
Posted at
9:00 am | No Comments »
Date Posted: November 20th, 2009
It’s an old story. The successful business man who amasses large amounts of wealth, but has no one to share it with. The woman who has hundreds of acquaintances but no real friends. The person who’s incredibly successful in the workplace but misses out on seeing their kids grow up. All of these people are successful by one measure and ultimate failures by another more fundamental one.
I used to take this to mean that the true hero was the antithesis to the characters in those stories. The poor person who has lots of people to share his joy with is better than the businessman. The person who has a small social circle (but incredibly close!) is way better than the woman with lots of acquaintances. The stay at home parent is better than the working parent.
Then I read lots of books and blogs which told me otherwise. Or at least discussed in great deal how to obtain large amounts of wealth, how to make many weak ties, and how to be successful in the workplace. On top of that these same sources mention ideas that are also important to me: service to others, changing the world to be a better place, living life with passion and fervor. The people that write these things don’t sound particularly depressed with their lot in life. What gives?
On top of that I realized that the people I thought were the heroes didn’t have the greatest lives either. Being poor means you’re unable to do things that enrich your life. For instance, a poor person doesn’t have the freedom to choose to eat healthfully. Nor do the poor have the freedom to send their kids to the best schools (or homeschool them), to private piano lessons, or whatever. A poor person can’t live in safe neighborhoods because he can’t afford it. It also probably indicates that he isn’t really doing a lot of service for the world. (Although, of course, there are plenty of exceptions to this rule.)
The person with only a few close friends is not in all that great a position either. She’s dependent on them to help her out, since that’s all she’s got. After a while they could become resentful of her frequent calls, and if one of them changes who they are (for better or worse) she’s stuck either changing with said friend or risking losing said friend. Also she doesn’t have the freedom to become all that she can be because there’s a good chance she’d lose her close friends. And when she needs a new job her close friends can’t really help her out because they all share the same social circle. So yeah, have too small a circle of friends (even close friends!) is not all that awesome.
Being a stay at home parent has its drawbacks too. It’s a funny situation in the home since the stay at home parent is dependent on his/her partner to put food on the table. The stay at home parent may develop an unhealthy attachment to his/her kids since he/she sacrificed 18 years of his/her working life to them. Etc.
The Middle Way
The truth is all of these observations are true. Neither the storybook path nor it’s opposite is optimal. What’s optimal lies in the middle, where the positives of both are combined. The successful business person who also has a rich personal life with lots of close friends is in a better position than the poor person who has lots of close friends. The person with lots of weak ties AND a close circle of friends is better than the one with just the close friends. The person who manages to spend lots of time with their kids and give to the community is in a better position than the one who’s solely focused on their kids.
What the stories tell you is where you should err. That is, you should err on the side of close relationships rather than material gains and weak relationships.
On combining both
The fundamental thing to keep in mind when you’re trying to gain worldly success and live a fulfilling life is to make time for the important. While you’re off amassing your wealth spend at least the minimum amount of time necessary with the people that make your life worth living: your family and close friends. It’ll probably be a bit less time than normal, but it’s really not about quantity, it’s about quality. Watching TV, reading together, and small talk, while nice are not the way to keep your relationship in good shape. Master the art of getting to the heartfelt, vulnerable, and intimate part of conversation as quickly as possible. It’s hard, but it’ll go a long way toward really maintaining your relationship.
When it comes to raising kids the same thing is true (quality over quantity), I’d personally prefer to err on the side of too much time. In this case the ideal is finding a way to spend the time with your kids and still be a part of work that inspires you. Blogging, to take a nice obvious example, is a great way since you aren’t bound to an office. Other “work from home” type work is good too.
To sum up, worldly success should not be dismissed. There’s a reason people strive for it. But, you shouldn’t ignore the important people in your life either. The challenge is to make meaning with the small amount of time that you have.
Tags:
Abundance / Scarcity Mentality, Career, Emotional Health, Money, Purpose, Relationships.
Posted at
11:09 am | No Comments »
