Seeking Purpose in Professional Pursuits — 1

In our quest for a better life, the focus has long been on economic growth. This article explores the relevance of this pursuit in today’s context.

TLDR:

1. Everything we do economically is aimed at increasing per capita consumption; which is treated as a crude proxy of ‘quality of life’. Historically, all the economic ventures have justified their existence with a mission that ties back to ‘Improving the quality of life’.
2. But ‘Improving the quality of life’ is elusive. Our basic standards for a good life have been rising for centuries. The pursuit of ‘Improving the quality of life’ has led to ‘mindless’ consumerism which is leading to environmental damage to the extent that it can risk the existence of humanity.
3. Most of the professional pursuits are directly or indirectly aligned with ‘Improving the quality of human life’ so it makes the vast majority of endeavors pretty much meaningless.

Mirage in a desert

[1] ‘The quality of human life’ — the eternal purpose of all economic activities

Since the advent of agriculture, most economic pursuits may have sought their ultimate meaning in one thing — the promise to improve the quality of human life. Isn’t it?

That’s exactly what our economic and political systems today are trying to do. Corporations strive for innovative solutions through competition, while governments focus on ensuring resource fairness and maintaining law and order.

And we all see that every startup has just one motto: “Trying to make the world a better place”.

[2] ‘Economic growth’ & ‘quality of human life’ have been intertwined for centuries.

The modern economy practically started when agriculture replaced hunter-gatherer lifestyles. We were trying to make it easier for us to feed ourselves. [quality of life]

Before agriculture, humans focused on food and shelter, but settlements freed up time for other pursuits. People started taking other jobs like making tools to make farmers’s lives easier. Tools improved productivity, productivity led to more food, and more food supported more people.

More people kept on taking different jobs like Soldiers, Weaver, Ministers, Priests, etc. Every role was solving a new problem that emerged in society.

And this continued for over 10,000 years to bring us where we are today.

[3] But is the quest for improving quality of life working?

Arguably yes, given humans are on top of the food chain.

with some rare exceptions.

I wholeheartedly agree that as a species we should continue to improve the quality of life of our fellow beings but:

1. Quality of life is elusive.
2. Seeking purpose in it is leading to mindless consumerism.
3. Mindless consumerism is causing massive damage to the environment.
4. Damage to the environment can risk human existence.

We’ll understand these with 3 exercises

Exercise 1: Is Quality of Human Life Elusive?

An average human today lives better than kings 500 years ago yet we do not seem happy, constantly striving for more.

‘Having enough’ is considered an important criterion for happiness.

The economic engine is designed to ensure that everyone has enough resources. How do you get resources? With money.

So after iterations over thousands of years, we are currently using a simplistic metric GDP Per Capita i.e. how much money an individual earns. And, all the political structures of today (or ‘countries’) are in quest to ensure it goes up.

Have humans achieved enough in the last 10,000 years? A lot but you see our goalpost has kept shifting.

Buddha figured this out and left us with his wise words that to be happy ‘have no desires’. However, the economic engine does not have this particular axis.

An Alternate World — Imagine if all of us were to ‘struggle’ to feed ourselves every day like other animals — Life would be really hard.

But ‘food’ is sorted for most of the humanity. Still, people are suffering because ‘they don’t have enough’.

On Suffering — Indian scriptures say that suffering is rooted in our minds. Much of our pain is psychological, such as envy, anxiety, future concerns, past grievances, and insecurities.

So the point is:

• Human desires are never-ending. So there is no such thing as ‘having enough’.
• We contribute towards the contemporary definition of quality of life which is a shifting goalpost.

Note that the horseman is also moving with the horse.

Exercise 2: Is Quality of Life = Consumerism?

Imagine, you had a magic wand and you could give every human $1m overnight. You could also scale the production & supply chain to meet the increased demand. Assume no inflation has risen.

Now that everyone globally (~7 billion) enjoys good living standards, will we have a stable human society?

Increasing global consumption to meet the ‘scaled’ demand may have significant environmental consequences like resource depletion, energy use, pollution, etc. It can lead to new conflicts. At the contemporary definition of quality of life, I think a sudden mega increase in consumption may lead to the collapse of humanity.

But isn’t it the direction in which we are headed? Trying to increase GDP per capita.

Do you think the people will be happier? — Not sure. We saw in Exercise 1 how human desires have been never-ending for the past 10,000 years.

The point is:

• With ~7 billion people, trying to boost global consumption might be a meaningless pursuit.
• Alternatively, we could aim for equitable resource distribution with a smaller population, similar to Europe and Japan. However, this comes with challenges like stagnant GDP and an aging population.
• Population and GDP decline aren’t necessarily bad.

But what do we do about the people that we already have? Should they not increase their living standards? —Not sure, if one can, then tax the wealthy more to support the less privileged; and try to reduce their suffering. They anyway don’t consume a lot and as a society, we do the bare minimum for them so let’s not embarrass ourselves now by trying to hide behind those who are not a party to the problems of consumerism.

Exercise 3: Why only human life?

There is another fundamental question: Why only human life?

As the dominant species, our moral rules center around humans. We also have incentives to work for other humans i.e. we gain something whether it is money with business or goodwill with philanthropy.

In today’s world, it seems shortsighted to solely consider human well-being. Why we don’t think about the lives of animals, plants, and other beings? Our excessive consumption poses a threat to various life forms, and if we continue this way, even human existence might be at risk. Oh! weren’t we talking about other life forms?

The current economic system doesn’t account for the well-being of other life forms, as they cannot pay us. However, preserving these forms of life has become crucial for our survival.

So the point is why bother about the quality of ‘only’ human life? You can help humanity by focusing on nature & other life forms.

Conclusion

You see, I am biased towards not increasing consumption.

Revisiting the TLDR:

1. Everything we do economically is aimed at increasing per capita consumption; which is treated as a crude proxy of ‘quality of life’. Historically, all the economic ventures have justified their existence with a mission that ties back to ‘Improving the quality of life’.
2. But ‘Improving the quality of life’ is elusive. Our basic standards for a good life have been rising for centuries. The pursuit of ‘Improving the quality of life’ has led to ‘mindless’ consumerism which is leading to environmental damage to the extent that it can risk the existence of humanity.
3. Most of the professional pursuits are directly or indirectly aligned with ‘Improving the quality of human life’ so it makes the vast majority of endeavors pretty much meaningless.

It’s like being in a catch-22 situation:

We’re part of an economic engine that flourishes with the growth of consumerism but the overall magnitude of consumption has already reached threatening levels.

How will you find purpose in professional pursuits that are essentially part of the same engine?

Towards a solution

Though I support capitalism as a vehicle of innovation but overall magnitude of consumption is a problem. To address this issue, we can either decrease the global population over the next few centuries or change our beliefs to reduce individual consumption. Though we should try both but to move the needle, I’d bet on the first i.e. natural population decline which is going to happen in all likelihood over the next 100–500 years unless we start brainwashing children in schools.

The bottom line is that we need to balance the benefits of ‘increasing aggregate consumption’ and the risks it poses to ‘our existence’.

Does this imply there is no purpose in one’s career? — No. A job helps you get resources to feed yourself & your family. A noble cause. Secondly, jobs keep a lot of humans busy, very imp for societal peace which in turn keeps humans organized and provides an architecture for upgrading life.

Think of the quality of human life like software versions, every few years it keeps on upgrading and our economic engine is working towards it.

But if you’re looking at answers beyond it, like why are we upgrading? Then I feel there is no real purpose in anything except our attempt as a species to keep going but let’s keep that aside for a moment & continue:

Here are some things that may provide ‘meaning’ in ‘contemporary’ times:

1. Being environmentally responsible, like using less plastic and reducing waste.
2. Participating in volunteering activities for a positive impact, such as cleaning up garbage or planting trees.
3. Contributing to scientific innovation of any kind, esp. for a sustainable society, either directly or through donations.
4. Help in alleviating the physical suffering of those who already exist, like donating to causes in areas you care about, such as food, health, education, or animal welfare. Every cause is equal.

These activities expect you to give your time or money without expecting financial returns.

If you liked this, you may also like: Nature’s Way: How Modern Economies Follow Evolutionary Processes