This is an interesting point; so interesting, in fact, that it seems to warrant further consideration.
"If something is important enough to you that you feel the urge to donate your money or time to it, I think it’s best to try to express that form of giving through your career, not just as something you do on the side. If you enjoy your volunteering and charitable activities more than your career, it means your career is in serious need of an upgrade."
Those are two quite separate issues, and I think squashing them together in one paragraph as though they were more closely related than they are confuses the issue (and I see that confusion reflected in a couple of the replies here), which is why I'd like to take the time to separate them and look at them separately.
* * *
"If you enjoy your volunteering and charitable activities more than your career, it means your career is in serious need of an upgrade."
Have a career that is incongruent with one's values and/or results in no particular feeling of fulfillment certainly doesn't seem conducive to a person's happiness, no matter how much volunteering/donating they do in the evening.
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"If something is important enough to you that you feel the urge to donate your money or time to it, I think it’s best to try to express that form of giving through your career, not just as something you do on the side."
This one I can't heartily agree with.
If I hated my career, and I had a hobby I loved, then it would make sense for me to try to make a career of the hobby I loved But if, on the other hand, I love/am fulfilled by my career, and I still have the hobby, there isn't necessarily any reason for me to change the situation. I love my career, I have a hobby, awesome! I don't see "contribution hobbies" (contributing one does "on the side") as any different.
Of course, it's also true that more than one kind of contribution can be made through a person's career, and it may be that the hobby and the career could be combined, which could be an interesting endeavor.
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Since I'm anti-dichotomy, I have to propose a new model that seems to me just as worthy as the model Steve prefers:
"Do worthy work -> Earn money -> Reinvest money into increasing one’s capacity to do even more worthy work" and, if one desires, pursue one's contribution hobbies by "Give[ing] money/time to worthy causes"
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Contributing through one's career is awesome, and I aspire to contribute through my entire life.
