I’m a Climate Killer: I Work

I studied, I dreamed and then I worked. Never before have we been so educated in the West. Growing up in a Middle Class Western European family I learnt that education was important. Education would open the door to all my dreams. Our governments have helped us with an extension of education to the masses.

What has not occurred is a matching of our expectations to the work. We’re spat out by the universities and find ourselves then sitting in job interviews pretending we are passionate about finance, marketing, planning, and the list goes on.

I have sat in many job interviews and lied my little head off. How can anyone be passionate about marketing? Maybe I just have high expectations, but I do not believe I am alone. I believe at least 90% of my friends are stuck in jobs selling or buying or marketing or designing or informing or financing that they are not fully happy with. There must be more to life!

I got stuck in marketing. I now sell a dating website, an online porn shop and Photo Books (oops I wrote Photo Books big; that is because I am so used to writing it in adverts and BIG SELLS). Now my work is not bad, it pays well, not much stress and at least I do not have to sell something like cheap flights (not yet). But if I remember correctly my dreams were different

I drifted through education taking subjects that interested me, got good marks and moving on and on. Then it was over. I should of stopped drifting at about 14, but instead I was 21. Our education is lacking the lesson in which the teacher starts by saying: “Today Children we’re going to learn how to realise our dreams”. Maybe they know that not all of us will ever make it there.

Maybe our dreams cannot come true because there is just not enough inspirational work. The economy still totally pivots on consumption. Oil based products from Photo Books to porn.

My sister is also ethical and has great green jobs (note the plural). Why am I different from her? 1) She does not need a reliable source of income to feel safe. I need to know the rent is paid for. 2) She moves around a lot and moves where the green work is. I love my city. It’s green, it’s big, and it’s cosmopolitan. 3) It does not mater what the work is as long as it is green. I am a very calculated person and need to know where I am going before I set off. My sister is in a minority club that the majority of us are simply too afraid of joining or do not know where the door to the clubhouse is.

My solution: Find a little project that you can do in your spare time and work hard on that project, because you are finally passionate about work, and more importantly it is your way out of your 9 to 5. It could be a business, it could be simply writing lots of letters and being very active in an organisation, it could even be a website where you share ideas . Either take the jump or set up something that means one day maybe you can comfortably step away. Hopefully well before the consumption economy crumbles (but watch out the cracks are already spreading across the walls)

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Quiet-Environmentalist