Which career is likely to engender the healthiest level of self esteem?

If a drug dealer felt they were above the law, that taxes were for other people, and they had no guilt about the health implications for their customers, they might feel pretty good about themselves for being a self-employed entrepreneur.

But keeping it legal, the line worker should feel good about putting in an honest day’s work. However, the need for assistance despite being employed could be discouraging depending on whether or not the worker has the ability to change the situation.

If I were in any one of those situations, my answer would be none of them.

When I was in a quite similar situation, if had I looked solely to my current reality for self esteem, I would never have gotten out of the “doldrums” as I call it. I raised my self esteem by refusing to allow my current reality to dictate my sense of self worth. Although my situation remained rather dismal for many years, as I changed how I saw my own worth in God’s eyes, my thoughts and behavior changed as well, thus my living situation improved.

Sadly would have to say number three, pretty hard on the ole self esteem if your working a full time job and still need the Governments help just to put food on the table at the end of the week.

None of the above.

Plus, the question implies career is the basis for self esteem, which may or may not be true.

But in order to not be too contrary, I’ll play along.

1.Would produce no self esteem. Dependency does not affirm the effectiveness of an individual as human being, which is the true basis for self esteem. Getting off of the dole would indeed be a self esteem booster, however.

2. Pretty much the same, but at least half way there. If one was moving from 1. to 2. that would be legitimate evidence of effectiveness, and a self esteem booster.

3. Having plenty of money to throw around would at least impress your friends and make you feel important, so I suppose the answer would be 3. in a very limited context. It would only work if you stayed in your neighborhood, and until you got arrested or killed by a rival. Then you would realize your cognitive error and be right back to useless.

Based on our local newspaper’s police blotter section it must be 1 and 3. And yes, our paper has a police blotter.

You left out porn star.

I don’t think #1 counts as a career?

@fluthernutter Only to conservatives! ~

@bossob Not sure whether to laugh or cry at your comment. GA either way.

That’s an interesting observation. Conservatives do assume that the average person receiving any sort of public benefit (with the possible exception of veterans) must be gaming the system. They therefore have no qualms against rendering the experience as degrading and difficult as possible for any and all involved. They are so rabid in the pursuit of this, that their opposition has little difficulty in portraying them as people without conscience.

@stanleybmanly and @bossob I’m quite conservative, and I certainly don’t think that way. But folks here are fond of putting us in boxes, aren’t they?

Have fun in your alternate reality.

I’ve been thinking about this. I know several people on food stamps, and it never occurred to me that they might be gaming the system. In fact, I’d be really surprised if they were. However, I know that criminal activity goes on in every area of life, and food stamps are no different. I do remember seeing a woman accept money for her food stamp card. I suppose that was “gaming” the system, but if she were confronted, I think she’d say she was trying to buy diapers or shampoo or whatever. My point is, when you’re down and out, you do what you must to get by day by day.

Then there are the people who profit by it, and I think that’s what “gaming the system” really is about.
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As I said, I’m a conservative Christian. Nobody I know thinks about food stamps like this…

Do you really find it profitable to label an entire group of people and thus brush them off so easily???

@snowberry As long as ideologues on the right continue to have the loudest Republican voice on the political stage, I will put any Republican who doesn’t speak up in a rational and reasonable voice in the same box.

Liberals and conservatives are supposed to argue, debate, and yell at each other. But all that hot air is supposed to clear the way for compromise and practical solutions that fall somewhere in the middle. The founding fathers of the country all made compromises because they knew there wasn’t one best way to run the country. Ideologues don’t believe in compromise; for them the world is black and white; for them it’s ‘my way or the highway’. If ideologues on either side dominate for long, we’re in a world of hurt.

Ideologues shouldn’t be running the country; their value lies in shifting the middle a little to the right for a while, and then a little to the left for a while. In hindsight, we’ll know if that’s what’s been going on the past few years. Democracy can be ugly (insert sausage making analogy here). For pragmatists who live somewhere in the middle of the political spectrum, the refusal of the dominant voice in the Republican party to work across the aisle is very frustrating. There are are issues, such as infrastructure, that desperately need to be addressed, but the right wing ideologues won’t let it happen.

I posit that if Republicans said, ‘There’s an increasing abuse of the social safety net, and we need to address it’, the Dems would get on board to reach a compromised solution. But in the last 15–20 years, the Republican message has been government bad government bad government bad destroy destroy destroy. They don’t want to fix anything, improve anything, or create anything.

Your personal sample size is small. When I look around, there is abuse of various social programs that should be addressed to make them more cost efficient, reduce the number of gamers, and increase the success stories. Fat chance that Republicans will address those issues any time soon, other than wasting time trying to eliminate the programs.

I can’t prove it, but I’m positive there are rational, reasonable Republicans out there somewhere, who are waiting for the opportunity to participate and be heard again. And when the time comes, our country will be better for it.