Carol, it's not so much Steve's own approval that defines whether or not any of us are moochers or contributors, it's society as a whole, and ourselves who decide. Steve is merely pointing out how we humans work when it comes to careers. Some careers are seen as contributing to society and some are seen as taking from society. And, obviously, many careers do a little of both. Steve is merely suggesting that it might be useful to you to take a look at your job and decide if the net result of it is rewarding for both you and the rest of the world, or if it saps something out of the world (and probably yourself as well)?
Realizing that your current job is making you a moocher isn't a bad thing, it's great, because once you know that you aren't happy with your job, you can do something about it. You can start looking for something else to do, or some other way to do it, so that you are happy with it, and it does feel rewarding and valuable. It's also impotant to remember that you aren't your job. Your job doesn't define you, you define your job.
If it upsets you to think that your job is based on a moocher philosophy than that probably means you aren't a moocher at heart - otherwise you wouldn't be bothered by taking more than you are giving back. And it sounds like you don't want to be a moocher, right? Great! So, find a way to ditch that mooching job and find a truly rewarding one!
Ultimately, I do agree with you that Steve might have been able to find another term to describe people who aren't contributors to society (aren't adding healthy, honest value) that wasn't so negative. Negative framing tends to put people's defenses up and makes it far harder to see things clearly. But it's really hard to convey a negative concept without sounding negative, you know? Personally, I tend to think of people who have unfullfilling, non-contributory jobs as good people who simply don't know what their options are. And for the most part, it's not because they don't want to have a contributory, valuable, rewarding job, it's because society just doesn't make it easy to see all the wonderful options that are out there. Or, if people so see the options, society doesn't make it easy to get there. But I'm not sure that you could boil my ideas here down to one word. Unless you want to go with the accurate, but overly fuzzy term "frustrated"...
Peace, Love, and Bicycles,
Turil  |