Careerism and Vocation and Power

Rhyming with and riffing on thoughts from bell hooks Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope, furthering one's career and prestige by climbing on top of others seems at times a hindrance to living values of love and respect for peoples' humanity. A career and accumulation of power and influence can be exciting and come with many benefits, but often at the cost of relationships based in truly mutual affirmation. If the normative way to gain success is through accumulation of wealth, power, domination, and hierarchy, I want nothing to do with it.

Here's to dreaming and pioneering even when it's outside the normative mode, coming from another immigrant kid and kindred free spirit: "So by 30, I quit my corporate job, sold my possessions, and went traveling for three months. Three months turned into three years. I lived on organic farms and communes; I taught English at a monastery on the Burmese border; I studied Buddhism in Tibet, yoga in Indonesia, and boys in Australia. It was awesome. I was alive. And I came back to California saying things like, 'Let’s just trust the universe and let the gifts come.' And I actually meant it." from Christy Chan on the cultural roots of ballsy aunts and uncles.