The life you save may be your own
Mar. 26th, 2020 12:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brin_bellway[cw: illness]
I sent my latest menial-Internet-labour payout to the local hospital's COVID-19 preparedness fund.
'Finally,' I thought as I filled out the form, '*finally* a fucking pandemic charity. A couple years ago, I looked around and there was fucking *nowhere* you could go to throw money at this problem. If you wanted to help, you had to get a fucking biology PhD and do the damn research yourself. God, can you imagine me writing a fucking *thesis*? That *alone* sounds like a fucking *nightmare*.'
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(At a school event a few months back I met a nursing student, and we bonded over our mutual gratitude of "you volunteered to go into that field so I don't have to". I have that feeling about a lot of fields, an "I'm very glad there are people doing that, and I'm very glad that I'm not one of them". Conversely, a lot of other people feel that way about accounting: "gratitude that I'm voluntarily taking that bullet so society can function" is actually a very common response when people find out what I'm majoring in.
I have a valuable role to play in society, but it's not *this* role, and that does bother me on occasion. A tiny part of me wonders if I ought to do it anyway despite not being well suited to it, like a car factory churning out surgical masks. I think I'm rather less suited to it than a car factory is to mask production, though. I certainly couldn't pivot inside of a month or two like they're doing: I highly doubt I could pivot inside of a *decade*. And I would spend a lot more of that decade miserable (see above, re: thesis, nightmare).)
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(edit: postscript)
I sent my latest menial-Internet-labour payout to the local hospital's COVID-19 preparedness fund.
'Finally,' I thought as I filled out the form, '*finally* a fucking pandemic charity. A couple years ago, I looked around and there was fucking *nowhere* you could go to throw money at this problem. If you wanted to help, you had to get a fucking biology PhD and do the damn research yourself. God, can you imagine me writing a fucking *thesis*? That *alone* sounds like a fucking *nightmare*.'
---
(At a school event a few months back I met a nursing student, and we bonded over our mutual gratitude of "you volunteered to go into that field so I don't have to". I have that feeling about a lot of fields, an "I'm very glad there are people doing that, and I'm very glad that I'm not one of them". Conversely, a lot of other people feel that way about accounting: "gratitude that I'm voluntarily taking that bullet so society can function" is actually a very common response when people find out what I'm majoring in.
I have a valuable role to play in society, but it's not *this* role, and that does bother me on occasion. A tiny part of me wonders if I ought to do it anyway despite not being well suited to it, like a car factory churning out surgical masks. I think I'm rather less suited to it than a car factory is to mask production, though. I certainly couldn't pivot inside of a month or two like they're doing: I highly doubt I could pivot inside of a *decade*. And I would spend a lot more of that decade miserable (see above, re: thesis, nightmare).)
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(edit: postscript)
no subject
Date: 2020-03-26 04:24 pm (UTC)(Okay, technically you *can* get into the CPA program without a bachelor's, but doing it that way requires eight years' work experience and jumping through a bunch of hoops. I suspect that even if you *do* have the work-experience equivalent of a bachelor's, you're better off breezing through a bachelor's program to prove it than you are trying to go straight to CPA.)
no subject
Date: 2020-03-26 09:26 pm (UTC)I do not think it's a good idea to make yourself miserable for that much time to change roles. You have an important role that you presumably like much better, and there /are/ people working on this.
Not being miserable is in itself a good.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-27 03:51 pm (UTC)If I end up with a full career pivot at some point ("job got automated out from under me" would not be surprising), I think the most plausible one is working at a library or archive.
(Although, "financial advisor" would be less of a pivot and might be robot-proof in much the same way my brother's career (cooking) is: I suspect many people specifically value having that done by a person.)
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Turns out having an *active* pandemic is not just sprouting new pandemic charities, but revealing pre-existing ones. Apparently the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (funds vaccine development) *mostly* does not take donations from random non-rich individuals, but *does* have fundraisers occasionally. I have subscribed to their newsletter and will be keeping an eye on them.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-27 05:28 pm (UTC)Excellent link, thank you.