I ultimately strive for work that is “fulfilling” and “enables human flourishing”, a moving target that has shifted around over the years.
I visualize the path towards attaining fulfillment as a
Fulfillment is frequently represented as the peak of a hierarchy.
However, fulfillment is probably not “best” found at the peak of a socio-economic hierarchy, or the center of some
The argument most often employed to align the ambition of my generation for fulfillment in work with “Corporate America” is that we can redeem these large, intrisically-exploitative hierarchical organizations by ascending their ranks from within before steering them in some vague, better direction.
However, this proposition that big organizations can be “saved” from within is a materialistically-convenient narrative, that falls under any serious scrutiny. Their bigness and their exploitative nature go hand-in-hand. Loving-kindness, generosity, and non-violence are at odds with the key ingredients required to keep these large organizations coherent.
For these reasons, I prefer organizations small enough that I can reason about the totality of their footprint in the world. I will do this until I can “afford” to join or start an organization whose existence monotonically increases goodness in the world.
Ultimately, I’d much rather be in a small autarchic organization doing good every day, than in a big, “impactful” organization that I could maybe make slightly-less-bad.