That's Business

As the years go by and I find myself getting older and older (and older), I realize that my perceptions about life alter with the passing of time. My once stalwart conceptions begin to change, to take a different shape. Not utterly transform into something completely different, just morph into something I didn't necessarily expect.

My very first blog post, nearly one whole year ago, consisted of a rant of my distaste for Corporate America. I recognized its need to exist, but I certainly did not have much appreciation for it. If I'm not mistaken, that same theme has found itself threaded across several of my posts. Its strange, really, that after such disgust with the business world, I am lately finding myself having an entirely new appreciation for it. Mind you, the greed that is so evident across the bulk of Corporate America still makes me vomit in my mouth a tad. I don't see that ever changing. However, I have been seeing business through new eyes.

Not terribly long ago, I was introduced to the concept of microfinance institution, or MFIs as they are commonly referred to. In case you are new to the term, MFIs help to provide loans to low-income individuals and business in poverty-stricken areas of the world. The loans are folded into entrepreneurial endeavors, varied as they may be, ranging from purchasing a new cow or goat for a farm to soda pop production and selling. This provisions people who would never have been able to do it on their own to have a boost, a helping hand towards providing for their families. The lofty goal is to help people help themselves out of seemingly hopeless situations of extreme poverty. That's business. It is the business that enables people to eat, to put food on the table, to afford medical care, education for their children. Business gives them the basic necessities of life.

My desires to work for a non-profit one day have not changed. Helping people is still my ultimate goal, in a larger capacity than most corporate employments will be able to give. However, my perspective of business in and of itself are very much changing. I have a new found respect for our economic structure in leaning on corporate jobs for stability. I think I'm just looking at it from a different angle, an angle that makes sense to me. Perhaps for most of the monitor-heads sitting behind desks in a corporate job, it may be all about bringing home as much bacon as possible. For me, it will never be that. Yet, I respect it now. And I find that to be terribly interesting.