The title is a bit of a bait, but bear with me...
I was talking about this with my dad the other day.
My skill is that I can write code. I can make my ideas come to life by typing some random stuff into a computer.
So, I could make good money building things like client websites, refactoring code, etc etc. Or, I could take a bit more of a risk, be a bit more creative and try and create new things like utilities or services that people find helpful.
Both potentially end up well, but there is less risk (I think anyway) doing the former.
Question:
Do you use your learnt life skills to make good money and live a comfortable life, or are you more focused on creating worthwhile and progressive things with the risk of less comfort? Have you figured out how to do both?
I don't think either answer is right or wrong, so it would be interesting just to hear all your perspectives on this.
I think it's very strange to frame this as a good or evil question. Both scenarios you write about seem to be fairly value neutral, in fact in many cultures the second one (that you seem to be saying is good) would be seen as tending toward more irresponsibility and morally worse than the first. But yes, I've done it and my opinion is that really the best thing is to follow a more natural course with your working life, taking advantages that present themselves in the course of your work and exploring avenues of interest as they become available rather than making arbitrary decisions to change course or jump ship and try something else. But that's just my own experience, changing careers midstream for me was a huge setback in terms of where I was in life, almost like starting again from scratch even though I was doing it for the reasons you seem to be talking about, in the end that seemed to be a very self-indulgent thing to do and maybe fell into the class of an evil act in that it robbed the world of the potential good that I could do with the experience and professionalism I brought to my previous career. I think there is something of a false dilemma here sometimes, and there isn't really a choice to be made, in the end a job is a job ( within reason). Often it's more of an illusion generated by the self help industry and pop psychology boosters glorifying the follow your dream type of tropes.
I think it's possible to do both. analogous example: I'm a musician (classically trained, but also play rock, country, etc). to make money as a musician you usually have to play covers (even orchestras are cover bands if you don't think about it too hard). Does playing in a cover band to make a living remove your ability to write new music, or perform the music that you love? It's all a question of what you want to do with your time. Do you want to spend your spare time using your skills to make other peoples lives better? I'd say that's pretty admirable, but it's not what everyone wants to do with their life.
Personally, I do both. I work a 9-5 using my skills to earn a living for myself. I also founded and help run a non-profit hackerspace. The job makes me money, and the hackerspace lets me give back to the community.
I work as a customer support representative for a large outsourcing company. A few months ago, I would have said good, because I genuinely sympathise with the plight of customers. But months of being rudely mauled apart by customers has made me bitter towards my current job and want out. Now I'd say I use my powers for myself.
I would like to think it is possible to do both. I haven't figured out how to do it myself yet, but with time who knows? I work for a non-profit where I earn less than I would elsewhere simply because I think what I am doing is important. I've worked at for-profits before but didn't feel like what I was doing was making a difference to anyone but the CEO's pocketbook.
I used to work in the legal profession that gave me no sense of internal reward. I felt "stuck" at the time though, and it took me years to garner the courage to take a radically different path in my life. Now I'm in the healthcare field, after having worked for years to get a doctorate degree, and I feel like my "powers" are better used for good at this point. What I learned was that money is vastly overrated as one quickly becomes accustomed to whatever income is earned such that that is "normal." I took risks and made a progressive decision to pursue a career in physical therapy though, which still has a nice salary while being a very internally rewarding profession.
I've been using my 'power' of broader learning ability (you know how people say there are different ways that people are best at learning, 3 I think, I tend to learn pretty well from any of the ways) quite good/bad. During school, I got lazy and since I learned the material pretty well during class, I didn't do much homework unless I needed it or it was interesting. This ended in me getting a worse grade than I could have earned if I wasn't so arrogant. I've also used my power to put myself and others in a better place. I got a job at a shave ice shack for the summer, and was doing pretty well in my first hour or so. I'm cranking out those snow cones pretty fast and making good conversations with the customers. Back to the school part, I've got to really pick up my game when school starts up if I want to keep my GPA up. I'm thinking of getting a notebook so I can write down things I can improve on....
At first I thought this thread was going to vague question from Pablo! I plan to use my skills for what I would call good. My skills are writing, rhetoric, and people skills. I'm finishing a degree in English and professional writing, and it probably goes without saying that I love to read and write. I tried my hand at a professional writing position and spent a summer working for a marketing company. I was writing company blogs, product descriptions, social media posts, and filler text designed for SEO. I made good money there, and they offered me a full time position after graduation if I would keep the part-time job for the rest of my degree, but I declined. I learned that everything about marketing, sales, networking, and, to be honest, capitalism in general, feels slimy to me. I got to do a fair amount of networking and meeting with current and potential clients. I'm a very outgoing person, and I make friends everywhere I go. I thought that I would have no trouble applying to people skills to networking and business, but I was wrong. It all felt like such a charade in which everyone was just trying to turn everyone else into dollar signs. I found that while I'm great with people and love socializing, I have difficulty faking a genuine conversation if I'm not sincerely engaged. Nobody was getting hurt, and we did honest work helping the businesses (most of which were pretty local) expand their web presence and grow into bigger markets. But still, I couldn't get over the feeling that everything, at the end of the day, was about money. It felt terribly un-fulfilling and, to my taste, maybe a little bit evil. So I am now training to be a teacher, and I'll be starting my official student teaching within a year. I am a private tutor to high school and middle school students on the weekend, and I work in the writing center as a consultant and teaching assistant at my university. It is very fulfilling work, and I believe in my ability to make a lasting difference in the lives of individuals, even though I know I'm signing up for a lifetime of underpayment and under-appreciation. I don't think I'll ever feel comfortable working for a corporation. A lot of people are perfectly comfortable working in that kind of setting, doing what they love, and making great money. More power to them! I kind of wish that I had the attitude. But since I don't, it's nice to not have a nagging feeling that I might be selling my soul, screwing someone over, or doing meaningless work.
I gave up a tenured professor position to move to another country for a year-to-year contract because I wanted the challenge and to experience as much out of life as I could. I ended up getting tenure in my job as well. Now I'm giving that up also (yikes!) in one month to start my own business – a math creativity center. Is this good or evil? My jobs were already for the public good. I am focusing on "creating worthwhile and progressive things with the risk of less comfort", as you say, but I also want to make good money and live a comfortable life. The priority for me is doing the creative and worthwhile things first, as long I've got enough money to take care of my family! I've often wondered if I'd gone the other way, gone into the private sector early, taken a high-paying programming job instead of going into teaching. Or if I focused my powers on increasing wealth where might I be today? I get the feeling I would have ended up doing something with the same flavor as what I'm doing now. Hard to say? Do you focus on making money so you can be free to do what you actually want to do? Or do you just do what you actually want to do and let money take care of itself? There's risk either way. You could risk going broke and hungry if you follow your art, but for me the greater risk is never realizing your art because you kept waiting your life to be in the right place to make your dreams happen.
Good and Evil aren't exclusive, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't discriminate between jobs, even if just a little. All the money in the world wouldn't console you on your deathbed, but knowing your family will get off well because of what you gave them helps. I say do your best first, but make sure the people you're working for are doing their best too. EDIT: I don't understand markupGo out into the world and do well,
But more importantly,
Go out into the world and do good.
― Minor Myers