I’ve been thinking a lot lately about business and its purpose not only in the world but in my own life, and musing about how it influences me and my environment right now — and how I would like it to be present in my life. Given things like the current crappy state of the economy, world financial system problems and issues, and protests such as the Occupy movement and just general discontent about how business, finance, and industry relates to us as a people, I don’t think the reflection exercise is misplaced at all.
I think we can all agree that business is necessary. Not only from a make-a-living standpoint, but to generate the various things we need — or want — to survive. But where that business falls in terms of its motivations, goals, and means is on a wide spectrum between two points: Pure Philanthropy and Pure Greed — you do it for the betterment of the world, or you do it for the money, or as more often happens — a combination of the two.
This, then, has been the key point that I have been thinking about: What combination of the two makes me happiest and most fulfilled?
It surely isn’t Pure Philanthropy — I am not employed because I feel a sense of having to better the world with my work; at least, not in a pure sense. But even more so, I don’t ever envision myself working for a primarily-philanthropic business where the goal is to “do good things” vs. anything else. This is because I have enough things of my own goals and volitions that I would happily accomplish if I didn’t have to earn a living. Since I must do the latter, if it ever comes down to, “don’t work or work for a social benefit company”, I’ll probably opt for staying home and completing my own goals.
This is not to say that I’m incharitable — it’s simply to say that I don’t ever see myself being able to have the time and availability to engage in such purely unselfish activities with my time and efforts. But, I do see myself volunteering in my free time for such things, and I think that’s where my contributions will emerge from.
On the reverse, I could never be simply money-grubbing. There’s no soul in it, no conviction, no trust, no heart. When your only god is the almighty dollar, your means become whatever they must to get it, no matter the associated non-monetary costs. I won’t sacrifice my family, friends, sense of goodness, heart, mind, soul to the cause. Those with the most toys don’t win, they just end up with a playroom full of toys and nobody to share them with.
That all being said, I don’t work for my health. (Indeed, my health suffers rather greatly from having to work!) I work because money, like it or not, makes the world go around, provides for almost everything in this post-industrial world, and is a necessary evil for so very many reasons. So while I’m not a whore to the system, I am still planning on trying my best to earn as much as I can, advance my career as far as it can go, and to rise in the ranks of the business world so I can get the funding to accomplish everything I’d like to be and do. I worry all the time that I’m not doing enough, fast enough, good enough, big enough, and the top of my career is looming ahead of me and that downhill slide to retirement is getting ever closer. I fear it so much it makes me ache at night sometimes, simply because I know that I only get one shot at doing this the right way and I hate the idea of pulling out at 70 and saying that I had a mediocre run of it.
So, I don’t think either side of the equation is fundamentally evil — I have to be doing a job where I am earning money and being successful and I also have to be doing something that ultimately creates something of worth for the world as a whole, even if it’s a limited audience. There are times when it’s perfectly fine to say, “Let’s to X because X will generate us a metric buttload of money.” Likewise, I need to always be looking at the things I’m doing and say, “Is this really worth the money? Will I hate myself in the morning/5 years/later?”
The balance must, ultimately, be struck. Money, life, and everything in between.
Where does that line fall for you?








