What do I want to do with my life? 4 potential directions

"Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer." - Henry David Thoreau

"We think of self-control as something that limits freedom, but in fact it’s just the opposite: the true freedom of the sailor is taking the helm of his boat and sailing in the direction he wants to go, thus being the master of his destiny." - Matthieu Ricard

I have been unsure for quite a while about what I should do with my life when my course finishes in September. I am especially worried about where I will work and live. To try and bring clarity to my mind, I have written down four potential directions that my life could take and the reasons for each one. Some of the options are not mutually exclusive, and hopefully I will be able to find some form of synergy between them, for example by working part-time within an agricultural workers' co-operative. As always, suggestions, criticisms and life lessons are welcome from anyone who comes across this:

1) Working within an NGO – This is what I have been trained to do. I have studied "development" for the last two years and have a lot of knowledge which could be put to good use. There are endless problems which face us, and being paid to work on them full-time with other people who also believe in a better world, would no doubt be inspiring, constructive and productive. I would also be able to learn first-hand from people who have been in the political game for a very long time, which would give me the opportunity to hone certain skills, such as working on policy. Finally, it would also give me an institutional framework to work within as well as forcing me to work, and specialise, on certain areas of political interest.

2) Workers' co-operatives – I am completely obsessed with workers' co-operatives. After interviewing workers from workers' co-ops, I have seen first-hand how much happier people are when they are working with each other instead of working for a boss or manager. Equality of wages and decision making power as well as real ownership over your workplace (because only workers are allowed one voting share each), produces a very very different environment to that of a conventional capitalist company. Solidarity, support and communitarianism are strong in (especially small) workers' co-ops (for more on this, see my paper on workers' co-ops here). I have worked in kitchens, bars, pubs, offices, etc and have often felt deeply alienated in the workplace. I have often been told what to do without having any say about what it is that I was doing or the direction of where the company was going. Even if I had a good idea about how to make the job or workplace better, there is often not space to voice - or a willingness to listen to - my opinions. After looking at workers' co-operatives, I've come to believe that the structure of a work place is as important – if not more important – than the work that you do within it.

Working within - and promoting - this type of alternative economic model is, I believe, also vital for any form of sustainable future (see the definition of sustainable development below). Workers' co-operatives are essential because they are organised to serve the needs of worker-owners and are focused on generating benefits - which may or may not be profits - for the worker owners rather than returns to (often) external investors/owners with capital. As capital is subordinated to labour in workers' co-operatives, many have seen them as "labor-ist" rather than "capital-ist". The profit maximisation model that conventional capitalist corporations are legally obliged to follow on behalf of their shareholders inevitably leads to extensive environmental destruction. Whereas the worker-driven orientation in workers' co-operatives makes them fundamentally different from other corporations. Additional co-operative structural characteristics and guiding principles further distinguish them from other business models. For example, worker-owners may not believe that profit maximisation is the best, or only, goal for their co-operative or they may follow the Rochdale Principles. This means they often have a very different focus, and I believe that this makes them one of the many components necessary for a truly sustainable future. They are, in essence, one part of a positive alternative to capitalism.

I also want to study workers' co-operatives further. If I was ever to do a PhD (and if I could get the funding) it would probably be on this subject. Rather than many academics who study from afar, I want to see what it is like first hand. As one worker I interviewed told me, "you can't understand what it is really like unless you work here." Even if I didn't do a PhD, I would still like to read more of the extensive literature on workers' co-ops while working in one, so that I could see – and write about - the extent to which the various theories are true in practice.

3) Work part-time and spend the rest of time in social movements, getting involved again with the Green Party, reading, writing, meditating, doing what I think is right - Society has made endless technological revolutions yet the promise of being able to work less has never materialised. In fact, in our modern society people often complain about working too much, not having enough time or generally being exhausted. Why do we do have to do this to ourselves? I often see my dad come home at 7pm or later in the evening absolutely exhausted. Normally he then slumps in front of the television as he is too tired to read or do anything else. He often even works on at least one day of the weekend. While I will always appreciate the sacrifices he has made to ensure a roof is over our heads and food is on the table (as well as many many more things), I must ask myself if I really want to do the same with my own life? Surely, if I consume less and live a simpler life, then I will be able to work less? As noted in Juliet Schor's book The Overworked American (1991):

"Since 1948, productivity has failed to rise in only five years. The level of productivity of the US worker has more than doubled. In other words, we could now produce our 1948 standard of living (measured in terms of marketed goods and services) in less than half the time it took in that year. We actually could have chosen the four hour day. Or a working year of six months. Or, every worker in the United States could now be taking every other year off from work - with pay. Incredible as it may sound, this is just the simple arithmetic of productivity growth in operation." (p.2)

Could I not work for 2 or 3 days a week, and as long as I live frugally and live in a squat, council housing, a shared house or a housing co-operative, be able to do whatever the hell I want with the rest of my time? The answer, of course, is yes. Would this make me happier as it would give me time and freedom to pursue whatever the hell I wanted to pursue, instead of being a wage slave for 5 days a week? Most probably yes.

Working part-time would also help fulfil my environmental sensibilities. I've come to believe that people not only need to consume less but produce less. How can they produce less? By working less. It's as simple as that. All of this frenetic work and production is very energy intensive (for more on the economics of this see here e.g. "If Americans worked as few hours as western Europeans, it would lower our energy consumption by 20%"). Working part-time would also give me more time to grow food on an allotment and/or volunteer on organic farms, which would guarantee that I could eat extremely energy efficient produce.

Working part-time would also ensure that I could retain more of my political and intellectual independence, instead of having to align myself with the agenda of any organisation that I otherwise decided to work for full-time (this is especially the case if I ended up working for an NGO). I could then be involved in, and openly critical of, political activities that I want to be, instead of being forced to follow a certain line of a certain organisation.

This is especially important to me because I am deeply frustrated by many of the ideas, thoughts or comments that fill the public sphere. So much discussion flying around is spin or plain propaganda. Even organisations which are supposed to counter the power of government, such as NGOs and universities, are often very compromised in their ability to do so. If they want the government to listen to them, they can't be too critical of the government. If they receive funding from the government, then they end up being accountable to – and co-opted by – them. It is obvious that if you receive funding from the government, it inevitably has a "chilling effect" on any work done because you can only critique so far before your funding is retracted.

This feeds into one of my many worries about the information that NGOs provide to the public. Whenever I have seen people from NGOs speaking they seem to be afraid of being portrayed as too radical or anti-capitalist. I suppose that this is understandable as they do not want to be side-lined by governments and policy-makers, but at the same time I can't help but think that they often only provide facts and figures instead of helping people situate those facts and figures within ideological frameworks which help them understand the world. There is little to no mention of dependency theory or terms of trade problems (or other more radical political or development theories) - let alone other Marxist or anarchist thought - in NGO publications. This position inevitably leads to lots of well intentioned people jumping up and down shouting "make poverty history", "more aid for developing countries" or even "bollocks to poverty" after listening to NGOs without first deeply questioning (or challenging) the entrenched power relations, political structures and capitalist economy that helped create the poverty and environmental destruction they are so angry about in the first place. In an age when we most need to be thinking about alternatives to capitalism because of the extensive environmental destruction it is causing (as well as the massive inequality between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots'), there seems to be less and less space for those debates and ideas.

When speaking publicly, people within NGOs (and the populace more broadly) often don't even use the word capitalism any more – they just refer to it as the market or global economy (or even more opaquely, as globalisation). For me, this is just one more example on how the frame has shifted away from radical and critical thinking and how capitalism has become normalised. Knowledge creation has shifted to fit the existing paradigm. While the extent that these critiques are applicable obviously differs from NGO to NGO, and the people within NGOs often voice these issues amongst themselves, many of these vital opinions rarely make it into the public sphere.

I could mention many more critiques of NGOs, including their often undemocratic governance structures, the lack of real downward accountability mechanisms to the people they are supposed to be helping (e.g. "the poor") as well as the various problems they create within developing countries, such as crowding out (see, for example, these papers by Mick Moore for more).

However, to get to the core of this direction of my life, I want to be as free as possible to think, express myself and act. Working part-time would give me much more time and space to do this.

4) Work on a farm, develop agricultural skills, build own house, etc – There are many worrying unknowns for our future, including climate change and the various projected impacts it will have (CO2 emissions rose at a faster rate in 2000-2004 than the worst-case scenario imagined by the IPCC); resource depletion (especially oil, which almost every aspect of our society is dependent upon) and the further wars which will be fought over the dwindling supplies; the level of population growth and its impacts on the worlds ecosystems; and so on. We seem to be on a crash course collision to destroy the world, with our current economic model at the very heart of the problem.

To help me think about this, I keep coming back to the Brundtland Report definition of sustainable development: "Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." We are no way near doing this at the moment no matter how many people talk about "sustainable development". To be truly sustainable would mean that we would have to radically change the way we live (for example, see this).

Much like everyone else, I don't know what will happen in the future. However, one part of me is sufficiently worried to feel like I need to prepare for a post peak-oil future. Almost everything we use depends on oil in one way or another, and for some products there are no known alternatives. It will inevitably make us change how our society operates (for more on peak-oil see here). Some have projected economic depression or collapse with peak oil and the dwindling global supplies that follow. Indeed, one reason why I don't want to enslave myself to a mortgage is for fear of ending up in negative equity if – and when – a crash does happen.

This is not just my own vision of a future neo-malthusian dystopia. An increasing number of people have been thinking in the same way. Eco or intentional-communities have been spreading across the globe (see, for example, Escanda and Matavenero in Spain, the Diggers & Dreamers and intentionalcommunities.org.uk websites for a guide to communal living in Britain and the IntentionalCommunities.org website for the whole world). Some even believe that they will be lifeboats for the rest of society as the economy comes crashing down, because the people within them will have developed the skills necessary to help everyone else survive.

I'm not sure about all of this and I do remain very sceptical, however even if it does not turn out to be true, or some energy alternative is found, I would still like to learn more about working on the land and being truly sustainable. This is especially the case because I both enjoy it and believe that one of the major reasons for our global environmental degradation is that the majority of people within richer nations are seriously disconnected from the land and environment around them (see more on this here).

This vision is also tied up with not being able to afford a pre-built house with the extortionate house prices and the massive mortgage that would end up hanging round my neck (see this for more). This problem is amplified by the fact that all of the jobs directions listed above are not well paid, and I would have to take out an absolutely crippling mortgage to buy a house. I also don't want to rent for my whole life because I would end up with nothing but funding my landlords holidays to the Bahamas.

The only alternatives that I see are living in council housing, in a squat, in a housing co-operative or building my own house on a plot of land, either by myself or with a group of people. An increasing amount of people are doing this. For example, several people have been building – and living in – roundhouses for only a few thousand pounds (see, for example, this). Others are building beautiful houses in the woods for £28,000 (which is still expensive!). For me, this vision is deeply inspired by Thoreau's book Walden, where he builds his own house and derides the people who give away most of their life to wage labour so that they can own a house with all the modern furnishing (see the section on shelter in his book here and the paragraph at the end of this entry).

I would also try and be as self-sufficient as possible by growing food on the land around my roundhouse. There is even the thought in my head of setting up an agricultural workers' co-operative in the future to help fund what little expenses I had.

I don't know if I can do these things, however it seems a much more cost effective and realistic option than renting a house for my entire life or enslaving myself to a massive mortgage. It would also mean that I would be helping to create a truly positive and sustainable alternative, instead of living in incredibly expensive and unsustainable housing.

Final thoughts

After managing to get all of this out of my head, I am still torn as to what direction I should follow. I've decided that I will try and pursue each one and see where I get. I will also keep in mind that over my life I can pursue these different directions at different times. I already have a list of workers' co-operatives in the UK, and will be applying to the ones that I would like to work for. There are also a multitude of websites and agencies which will help me pursue the other directions. Ultimately, I need to move out of my house in September, so I need to keep my options open. I can only plan so far. Hopefully, once I am actively pursuing all of these different directions, something will fall into place!

Passage from Walden:

In the savage state every family owns a shelter as good as the best, and sufficient for its coarser and simpler wants; but I think that I speak within bounds when I say that, though the birds of the air have their nests, and the foxes their holes, and the savages their wigwams, in modern civilized society not more than one half the families own a shelter. In the large towns and cities, where civilization especially prevails, the number of those who own a shelter is a very small fraction of the whole. The rest pay an annual tax for this outside garment of all, become indispensable summer and winter, which would buy a village of Indian wigwams, but now helps to keep them poor as long as they live. I do not mean to insist here on the disadvantage of hiring compared with owning, but it is evident that the savage owns his shelter because it costs so little, while the civilized man hires his commonly because he cannot afford to own it; nor can he, in the long run, any better afford to hire. But, answers one, by merely paying this tax, the poor civilized man secures an abode which is a palace compared with the savage's. An annual rent of from twenty-five to a hundred dollars (these are the country rates) entitles him to the benefit of the improvements of centuries, spacious apartments, clean paint and paper, Rumford fire-place, back plastering, Venetian blinds, copper pump, spring lock, a commodious cellar, and many other things. But how happens it that he who is said to enjoy these things is so commonly a poor civilized man, while the savage, who has them not, is rich as a savage? If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the condition of man -- and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages -- it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. An average house in this neighborhood costs perhaps eight hundred dollars, and to lay up this sum will take from ten to fifteen years of the laborer's life, even if he is not encumbered with a family -- estimating the pecuniary value of every man's labor at one dollar a day, for if some receive more, others receive less; -- so that he must have spent more than half his life commonly before his wigwam will be earned. If we suppose him to pay a rent instead, this is but a doubtful choice of evils. Would the savage have been wise to exchange his wigwam for a palace on these terms?

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What do I want to do with my life? 4 potential directions