Charles Eisenstein on career and money

“Each one of us has unique and necessary gifts. If you don’t know what those are, that’s excusable because we’ve grown up in an educational system that often suppresses those gifts and says ‘No, no, no. You’re purpose is not to give, your purpose is to take, and how can you best make a living? How can you best turn whatever talents you have toward making money?’

Those gifts that are unsuited toward making money–those get ignored, ridiculed, suppressed, and you don’t get to develop them. And you might even become ashamed of them, and you might deny them. Those gifts which do make money and on a deeper level, those gifts that contribute to the stories that define our civilization… the story of the separate self and the story of ascent–which says that human destiny is to [control nature more and more]–if your gifts are such that they contribute to that program, then they get developed and encouraged and rewarded…

How do you find your gifts? They’re called forth by needs, by that purpose which is unique and necessary.”

—Charles Eisenstein, Living the Gift