Be True to Thyself! (Mid-Life Crises Stalk Quietly)

Rahima Wachuku makes an excellent point about striking a balance between our dreams and the path that we have to walk to realize them. I have tried to live under a permutation of the sentiment “If you enjoy what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” It goes: “Success is the merger of what you want to do with what you have to.”
What I wanted to do always involved a moral component. In college, I held a secret disdain for friends I had that worked at the local telemarketing firm cold-calling, or transferring balances with the nearby offices of a gigantic corporation in the financial services industry. I felt, and sometimes still do, that in earning their daily bread they were knowingly facilitating underhanded and negative aspects of life: Transferring a large balance to a new credit card, for instance, where the interest rate would quickly increase and render the sum unmovable, or interrupting a family’s dinner to ask them about their insurance policy. Their arguments were reasonable, but rang dangerously of group-think. “If I don’t do it, somebody else will.”
“Maybe,” I would respond, “but does it have to be you?” Now I’m hungry, so to speak, and I don’t protest as much. What we’re talking about here is “selling out.” Mid-life crises stalk quietly. Making glasses for a large corporation seemed safe at first. People need to see! However, I know from experience that the most expensive products, the ones being pushed all the time, are not only overpriced and unnecessary, many are optically inferior. A close friend who I hooked up with a sales job left the industry because he couldn’t lie to people. I’ve held on by virtue of being far from the retail floor.
Recently there was mention of a promotion. Instead of a cause for celebration, it has spurred my job search. The student loans are about to kick in, my living situation is not sustainable for long and it would be very hard to turn down the money – or the chance at a credible title – but something tells me it would also form a dangerous rut and conjure the specter of a mid-life crisis. I agree that we should not sacrifice ourselves for a paycheck, but schooling is not the same thing as entitlement and integrity may have to be purchased with sacrifice.