Reply to ISO examples of someone *really* selling out/abandoning morals

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Reply to "ISO examples of someone *really* selling out/abandoning morals"

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[quote=Anonymous]I think you are going about this wrong. How old is DD?

When a young adult says "ugh, I don't want to be a corporate sellout," often what they really mean is that they don't want to do something boring for money. It's not really about principles or ethics. It's about looking at middle aged people who have boring jobs they don't even seem to like that much, but do them because they pay reasonably well and they have kids and a mortgage. That lifestyle (which, by they way, basically describes my life) looks really, really unappealing to a young person who still holds onto a dream of doing something more meaningful than being a working stiff. And I get why (again, my life).

Instead of trying to draw these distinctions between an Amazon lawyer and a corrupt doctor, I would instead have conversations with her about how to navigate the practical need to support yourself and your family financially (and ideally in a stable career) and also the individual drive for meaning and purpose in life. The happiest people I know are those who found a way to marry those two things together.

Even if we just take the two professions you've mentioned so far, lawyer and doctor, you can talk through with her how someone plans a career in these professions to hold onto some of that idealistic drive for meaning.

Do you know how someone winds up as a lawyer at Amazon, sort of not being very proud of themselves but also appreciating the paycheck? They do it by making few choices in law school and afterwards to drive their legal career towards something more meaningful. They took a job with some big law firm and wound up in the employment group for no reason than because they wanted to avoid M&A, and then they hated the law firm life so they looked for in house positions and Amazon's needs matched up with their experience (at a job they didn't even like that much).

If, on the other hand, they'd thoughtfully considered which areas of law they found most interesting and rewarding, focus on finding internships and fellowships in those areas, and then taken a job with a firm (bit or small or midsize) that specialized in that kind of law, they'd be positioned to take a lot of different jobs (in policy, in-house, or at a firm) that actually plays to their interests and feels meaningful to them.

Same with a doctor. You can become a doctor without becoming a claims adjuster for an insurance company. You just need to not sleepwalk through your career.

I don't think coming up with hypotheticals of very morally corrupt professionals is going to make your DD settle on a major or pick a career.[/quote]

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