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.

In the Want of Something

I feel the need to clarify some points about my job, as per my first rambling. I don't hate my job. I don't even dislike it... most days... I mean, don't get me wrong. Its not called a "job" for nothing. We go to "work" 5 days a week, and its called that because... well... frankly, it is work. While I may not spring out of bed every morning, with a look of glee on my face and say "Oh joyous! I get to go to my oh-so-wonderful JOB today!!", generally speaking, its far from bad. Although, I did basically work for one of Satan's minions prior to my current place of employment, and referred to my at-the-time office as "the Seventh Circle of Hell," so, I may be slightly more inclined to like any job that isn't the loathesome "InfoHell." The Fifth Circle of Hell would even have been an improvement.

My job doesn't really fall into any of the Circles of Hell. Well, except on days where I wake up in a panic from thinking about the bazillion and a half items on one list of many that I need to keep track of (see last blog). Those days it might be the One-fifths Circle of Hell, or Two-thirds Circle of Hell. Maybe.

Any dissatisfaction that I may have in my current occupation is based around the fact that I don't feel like I'm doing anything that has any lasting meaning. There is a certain level of contentedness that I feel from what I do 8 to 5 (if I'm lucky) Monday through Friday. But it lacks a sense of purpose. Purpose is very important for someone like me (ya know, the crazy neurotic type). I crave that feeling that my toiling isn't just a paycheck. It isn't just the typical corporate hodge-podge that is seen in today's business. I mean, it is business. The primary goal of business is to make money. Pick up any business magazine and the headlines will all be based around how to make more profit and how Joe Schmoe down the street made 5 million by simply making adjustments to his business model. While all of that is valid, and for some, completely fine and dandy, I don't care so much about the dollar as I do really leaving a footprint on the earth. Granted, those greenbacks do come in handy for shoe and purse shopping...

Its idealistic, I know. But I do have that ideal that my life will mean something more than how much money I have stashed away in the vault. I want more than that. Its incredible to know that your life has changed someone else's, and it is my true desire to feel that my vocation is having a positive impact directly, or even indirectly, on the lives of others. That thirst for meaning, for something more, leaves me coming up a little empty by being one of the fish in the Sea of Corporate. Solomon spoke right to the center of the issue in saying that "its all meaningless, a chasing after the wind." In my own life, corporate lacks purpose, it is merely a chasing after the wind.

Yeah, blah blah blah, you can make your job your mission field and change the lives of those around you. Its the Sunday School answer that I've heard for years. And while that may be very true, I've been witness to it in my own life on several occasions, it just doesn't cut the cake. The fulfillment of that will last for a while, but like most things, it fades away and I'm left again with that yearning for more. The want of something. Anything.

Perhaps its a selfish ambition. I've wondered that many, many times over the past 4.5 years since I was booted out into the "real world" after college graduation. Why am I feeling like something is just missing? I am positive that there are elements of the future life that I will lead which have yet to come to fruition, and that is conceivably why I still struggle with this hole in my soul that just can't seem to be filled. Maybe once those pieces of the jigsaw fall into place, I'll get that sense of fulfillment that I'm so desperately looking for. Maybe I'm just pointing the finger at Corporate America because I can't find anything else to blame it on. Or maybe I'm spot-on and I'm just not cut out for the rat race.

Who knows. The question of "am I doing the right thing?" is one that plagues many, particularly those living the awkwardness of growing up. Perchance that question needs to be rephrased to "am I doing the right thing for right now?" It is likely a much easier conclusion to grasp. Rather than trying to take on the next 70 years, how about just the next 5?

So, I will continue to search out my answers to what is right for me right now. I am confident that God does have an awesome plan for my life. It may leave me exactly where I am, or it may lead me on an incredible adventure into unknown places. Honestly, I'm rather hoping for the latter....

Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should... -Max Ehrmann