By all accounts, I shouldn’t be feeling good today.
Yesterday, I was supposed to complete a written project assignment from a prospective employer. Instead, I submitted a request to withdraw my application. March 2020 marks five months that I’ve been unemployed and out of school.
I had applied for this position after being informed that I was a good fit for it by a friend, so I went through the motions with a modicum of excitement—only a modicum because I knew, in my heart, that it would be a return to the lifestyle that I had fled from just over a year ago. It would be working from home, in a state of constant isolation, in the same arena as my last job, dealing with organizational tasks related to ending an abusive and exploitative industry—one that I wanted more than anything to end.
But, there were too many factors working against me for this particularly job to be a good fit. There was the toll of working in a field where you’re constantly exposed to horrific abuse against living beings that you care about—I could deal with that though it does weigh on me. There was the social isolation toll—as a natural introvert, you might think that this situation would be desirable for me, but alas some degree of human contact remains important for a variety of reasons. The biggest problems were the fact that the job would have entailed almost exclusively computer work, and that it would involve immersion in a salesperson-type environment. An important reason for leaving my last job was that I couldn’t stand sitting behind a computer all day any longer, and I made a commitment to never land that type of job again. Of course, five months of unemployment can make a person forget things that they said they’d never do, hence the submission of my application in the first place. And finally, I also swore off of positions where I’d be forced to play the happy salesperson and manage conflict as core parts of my job, and this job would have had plenty of that.
Knowing all this, why the heck did I apply in the first place? I mean, yes, there was the part of me that couldn’t stand waking up one more day without having a job, but there were plenty of ways that I could address that concern, such as applying for a menial job (note: I have done this) or filling my day with other productive educational activities. What brought me back to this field, back to this type of role, back to this type of lifestyle, was effective altruism.
Effective altruism is basically a philosophy that examines how to create the greatest amount of good in the world with our time and money. As I see ending the abuse of animals used for food as the greatest moral imperative of our time—the number of animals we torture and kill for food *each year* amounts to the largest collective body of man-made suffering in the history of our species—I wanted to be a part of efforts to achieve that goal. Of course, there are many ways to work toward achieving that goal, from protesting to holding food demonstrations to passing out flyers to working with legislators and companies to improve living conditions and reduce overall numbers. But I had spent the last 6 years of my career investigating the most effective ways to help these animals, and I boiled success in this area down to two things: Working to create and promote cultured meat, dairy, and eggs, as well as plant-based alternatives; and working with companies and legislators to reduce overall use of animals and improve the living conditions of those currently on farms. The job that I applied for would be working in international markets to press companies and politicians for changes. In other words, it would have been a very impactful position, in keeping with my desire to work on the front lines of combatting the use of animals on farms.
So, despite my best judgment, despite knowing myself and my own needs, I still applied for the job. I had applied for two other similar roles in the past six months, and ended up being a runner-up candidate both times, so part of me figured that perhaps I was just destined to land back in one of these positions at some point, given my goals in life and my adherence to effective altruism. But this time, I didn’t go through the process, and instead decided to fold my hand before seeing the cards.
What changed? Why did I quit before seeing if I could get the job? Why did I bother with submitting my application in the first place?
This, my dear reader, is why I’m feeling good today.
It’s true that going through the process took time and effort. It’s true that the previous jobs I interviewed for also cost me time and effort, along with stress. It’s true that I’m technically in a worse position now, since I at least had a prospect of getting the job before I decided to abandon the process. So why should I feel good after yet another disappointment?
Well, sometimes you need to learn things the hard way. In fact, some of us prefer it that way, it seems. Going through this process yet another time for yet another role where I would have ended up in a similar position to the last job that I left, I finally got to a point where I had a moment of awakening, where I realized that there was a reason that I was having all these conflicting feelings. That reason was that it truly was time for me to move on from my previous field. And having that feeling brought with it immense relief, even though the journey forward is long, uncertain, and arduous.
Relief comes because it feels like I’ve been floating for a while now. After I quit my last job, I enrolled in a teaching credential program, pivoting hard from my previous career in order to go teach physical education to high school students. After being burned out in my previous field, I wanted to do something new, and decided to work toward elevating the collective physical and mental fitness of our country. But I realized fairly soon into the program that the environment just wasn’t for me, and I quit. Since then, I’ve been vacillating between different career options, and without being able to land on something, I became incredibly frustrated.
I wanted to engage in my core focus area of helping farmed animals while adhering to the principles of effective altruism, but it was that latter part that kept unnerving me. After having viewed so many elements of the animal advocacy movement with such a critical eye over the past half-decade—my previous role involved evaluating animal advocacy organizations as well as commonly used tactics—I’d become somewhat bitter and selective about advocacy. That meant that there were really only those two areas that I mentioned earlier—alternative proteins and corporate/legal engagement—where I figured I could work while maintaining my dedication to effective altruism. Given my broad generalized skillset, which also means that I don’t have any especially strong skills in any one area, there were very few positions in those areas for me to choose from. And when one popped up, it would usually involve working in a way that I had hoped to avoid, such as managing larger groups of people, or sitting behind a computer all day.
For me to pursue a career helping farmed animals using the principles of effective altruism, and also, importantly, continue enjoying my life, I was at a loss. It really seemed like there weren’t any ways for me to have all three of those things. And that was making me terribly, terribly unhappy. Add that to my history of issues with depression, and I’ve been feeling particularly useless lately. The guilt of not having a job, of having the ability to not have a job due to my partner’s income and our financial savings, was very real, and very intense. When I work, I work hard, and when it is something I care about, I have the drive to push through whenever needed. But to have no direction, no path, to feel like the main thing you’ve done over your career is no longer a good fit, to basically consider that you might have to lose almost all of the extensive career capital that you worked what felt like a lifetime to build up…that can lead to a dark place.
So, today, one day after I withdrew my application for yet another job, I’m feeling good. I’m feeling good because it feels like this was the final step toward coming to a realization about myself and where I belong with my career. I’ve been kicking around starting up a small business selling veg foods, but the biggest reason I hadn’t moved forward with it is that it just isn’t particularly effective relative to those two super impactful interventions. At the small, local level, there’s really no way to scale, and it didn’t feel like I’d be providing something essential to really move the needle forward (wrt reducing/eliminating suffering) in a meaningful way. After all, most folks eat meals three times a day—how much of a difference could I make in simply providing one or even a few of those meals each week? How could I pursue that path and still feel like an effective altruist?
Here’s where mindfulness, and getting to know yourself, really comes into play. I now know that as a person, I’ve been far too consumed with meeting some invisible standard that I set for myself. The standard is always changing, in a way where I never quite get to where I think I should be. Talk about frustrating! This mentality has caused me great suffering in my life. It does produce some good things, like drive for creating the change we wish to see in the world, but it wreaks havoc on your self-identity. You live in a state of constant flux where you’re always trying to achieve something, perpetually destined to fail.
To paraphrase a book that changed my life (Way of the Peaceful Warrior), happiness was always around the corner…a corner that I never turned. Since I’ve been meditating and being more mindful, I’ve come to realize a lot of things about myself, including this inability to be happy. As I write this, I’m reminded of a time 12 years ago when my girlfriend gave me a card after I adopted a dog and wrote “I’m so happy that you’re finally giving yourself a chance to be happy.” So I’ve been this way for a long time. Of course, at the time I probably took some offense to that statement, I returned the dog after two months bc I was always at work and felt bad for the little pup, and my girlfriend and I broke up after a year. Heck, even at my last job, I had this problem; when we’d receive a very large donation or grant, I wouldn’t celebrate but would rather *immediately* just put my head down and get to work on the next problem. What I’ve come to realize from all of this is that I have a tendency to always find something new to strive for, and not ever let myself be satisfied, or happy.
But I strive to be happy, and dang nabbit I’m going to find a way to get there. To the question of how I could consider myself an effective altruist if I pursue a non-optimal career path, the answer is simple: Consider myself an effective altruist, and act accordingly in whatever path I take. Yes, I could technically spend my time doing something that has a larger impact on the causes I care about, but something like making healthy vegan meals for people will still have an impact—in fact it could even end up being a significant impact by changing minds about plant-based eating—and I can make efforts to maximize that impact as much as possible. This is not so different from views I hold in other areas. For example, I am frustrated by some vegans who think it is their calling to criticize other vegans for not being vegan enough, or worthy of the name, as if someone who hasn’t thrown out their old leather belt, or eats a buffet dish that has some dairy in it, is somehow no longer worthy of the sacred title. If I am frustrated with those vegan purists, then why am I engaging in similar thinking with regard to myself and effective altruism? It’s the same damn thing. It’s holding yourself to some invisible standard where you’ll never be happy or content. And then you’re just practicing defective altruism, because you’re not going to be happy, you’re not going to be effective, and you’re not going to create the changes that matter to you.
Fuck. that. shite.
So, today is a good day. Because I’ve come to realize that I *can* pursue a seemingly non-optimal career field, and it’s *ok* that I make that choice over a more impactful career. I can still identify as an effective altruist, and I can still apply those principles to the decisions that I need to make. And sometimes, I won’t. And that’s ok. It’s not a purity test. You don’t win an award for being the *most* effective altruist. Even if they did, who the hell would want the trophy? I think it’s safe to say that all of us true effective altruists would rather that they spent the money on preventing suffering instead of buying some silly trophy.
Yes, that was a joke. Trophies, and the recognition that come with them, can be a good thing—yet another example of how we should avoid being too rigid in our doctrine. Make sure that when you seek to share your kindness with the world, you portion out some of that love and compassion for yourself.