CSR Series: Embodying Your Beliefs

It is hard.  Trying to go against the current of the status quo.  Witnessing everyone around me taking the relatively safer road, the one tried and tested, while I am contemplating what I will do in the future.

This term made me ask questions.  To start pursuing corporate or start with a socially/sustainability-oriented career?  Corporate life promises the allure of comfortable money-filled life.  The other one, less travelled, promises self-actualization that my idealistic desires want to materialize.

Idealism.

I want to achieve monetary and soul-nourishing things.  I do not want to be a martyr; what I want is to achieve the best for me and the best for those around me.

Some would say I do not have a duty to serve those below me, but why is my conscience telling me otherwise?

The reason why I wanted to look at a social entrepreneurship career or working for an institution that includes social or sustainability entrepreneurship motives is that I wanted to be doing what is beyond right, yet I know I can sustain it.

Living a dream life while pushing others upward in the process.  Who would not want that?

I believe that CSR, in its current form now, is not enough.  There are even some that use it for the sake of reputation, not out of the drive to help.

I want to be part of an institution where these kinds of things are integrated in its processes, in its core business model perhaps.  I don’t want these things to be just “sidelines”.  I want this integrated in my career.

Yet I also want a relatively lucrative career.  Those promised in the corporate lifestyle, but instead of just increasing profits, there is social value generated.

For my last internship term, I will be going at the Foundation again.  I will believe and fight for the belief that social entrepreneurs, or those involved in a similar career, do not have to be martyrs just to serve.

Socially-oriented career takers should be able to live the dream, while letting others have the capacity to realistically dream as well.

It is hard to embody these beliefs, but these are beliefs worth fighting for.