Choosing between career changes or moral obligations?

    Over the last couple of weeks, I've had a lot on my mind.  I've been given the opportunity to pursue two different, yet very similar jobs through my current company.  Both would pay me more and both offer me more, yet oddly similar responsibilities.  Although there is a great difference in how I would carry them out.

 

    One of these positions would allow me to continue to work from home, where I can  continue to save money by not having to commute and work four - ten hour days in a week, having an extra day off in the middle.

 

    The other position is in the city of Pittsburgh.  It's roughly  75 minutes away by car and that means additional expenses like parking and gas, in addition to my adding anywhere from eight to ten hours in commute time each week.  However it's a little more in line with my long term goals and, despite my bitching about it earlier, I do miss people.  

    Frankly I have already made up my mind - if offered the job in Pittsburgh I believe I would take it.  Simply because I believe that I can learn more and grow more in that position than I can where I am currently.  It may be better for my sanity and my career.  Plus it's a non call center position and I've spent most of my working adult life attached to a phone in one form or another. 

 

    Although doing so will pretty much end much of what I'm trying to do here.  

    I've touched upon it before, how I would like to plant a garden to help sustain Susan and myself, how I would like to plant a fruit tree or two more for the future than for us.  How I would like to turn our small plot of land into a native edible food source.  Again, not so much for Sue and myself but as a sort of future oasis.

 

    I can still do this of course, but losing time in the commute and an extra day during the week makes that effort harder.

 

    For me it's about leaving a bit of a legacy.  I love the concept of providing some shelter or edible food to future generations.  I'm not a "Doom and Gloom" kind of guy, but all the evidence points to "wastelands" in the near future.  I know it sounds like something out of science fiction but science fiction has a way of becoming fact eventually.  Global warming is a very real thing and no technology or politician is going to save us from that fact.

    I really do hope that I am wrong here...but I'm afraid that I'm not.

  

    I just don't know how to go about it, or where to even start.  Sure we can do simple things like plant an apple or mulberry tree, that's certainly a start.   For me however its more about living a uncompleted and simple life.  At 56, that is a tall order.

 

    In a way I do feel like I would be selling out taking an office job however.   My carbon footprint has been lowered drastically as I avoid driving places and switching (slowly) to a plant based diet.   I know I can't save the planet, but I like to feel that I'm at least doing my part to delay its demise by a day or so.

 

   

    

  The other day I joked with my wife Sue that if things got much worse, that I was going to buy a horse and travel like the Amish do when we needed to go into town for groceries.  The funny part is that their was a serious tone to it; and that is not due to the price of gas.   The future may very well involve a horse and buggy, at least for short hops to the grocery in town.  Hey, it works for the Amish!

 

    At the risk of being philosophical, I believe we have a moral obligation to do what we can do moving forward to try and save our environment.   It's to late, I know that too, but spitting in the ocean is never a bad thing.   

    So a part of me is not OK with a change in my lifestyle, even though it might make me happier and, if I'm being honest, wealthier as well.  I do have energy efficient windows and new energy efficient kitchen appliances to pay off including a new dishwasher to save water.  In this position we are a good bonus check or two from possibly putting solar panels on the roof.

 

    These are good changes to make, saving money and helping the environment.

 

    Or I could be taking extreme measures and resort to boiling my water like this.  

 

    The question becomes how far and to what extreme do you want to go?  I like my creature comforts, and even though I believe in making our home more energy efficient and living a simple life...the question remains how do you maintain that balance between comfort, being morally responsible to the environment and work satisfaction?