...making the rich richer and not actually improving the lives of others
You are and everyone is. This is not exclusive to working in tech or design. It is how capitalism works. Unless you get paid in direct relation to what you have provided in value for the company, you will always just make the rich richer.
Also understand, that this "I want a work to improve the lives of others" is also a narrative that you have absorbed. In our grid of values it may align as a more noble goal, but the actual truth of it all is that whatever you do will rely on the exploitation of other beings and you are also being exploited.
This sounds very grim, but try not to attach any value to what I am saying. I teach meditation and mindfulness and one very helpful thing you learn is to detach your ego from the narratives you tell yourself, the mind-chatter that is almost like white noise in your mind. You might not even consciously realise that you are doing that, but we all do.
If you want to live a good life you learn to detach from values that you have absorbed from other people and you find your own values. You become egoistic, meaning you ask how you personally feel about this / think about something first - you think about yourself first and then you decide how you act. The world would be a better place if we would truly start to think about ourselves first, because nobody is truly doing it. Putting yourself first means understanding what you are thinking and acknowledging all parts of yourself.
You can only share what you have cultivated. If you can't love yourself, you cannot love somebody else. If you want to improve the lives of others, you have to improve your own life first. You cannot give what you don't have.
You can start working at a company with different values but ultimately, those companies were also just made to make one person or a small group of people richer. Those might not be bad people just because they want to be rich. Realise that money is also aligned in your value system somewhere. What does it really matter, if you make other people rich? It does not add or remove something from your life, yet there is a part in your mind that tells you that it is bad - and this part is coming from the outside not from your inside.
As designers we are somewhat paid to mainfest human approval in something mostly visual - either approval from the people we design something for, or the people who pay us to design something. But all of this is related to finding out what will be liked what will be approved. So we are already equipped with a mind that is primed for absorbing narratives. You need to detach from that, otherwise your life will be always be directed by others.
You are and everyone is. This is not exclusive to working in tech or design. It is how capitalism works. Unless you get paid in direct relation to what you have provided in value for the company, you will always just make the rich richer.
Also understand, that this "I want a work to improve the lives of others" is also a narrative that you have absorbed. In our grid of values it may align as a more noble goal, but the actual truth of it all is that whatever you do will rely on the exploitation of other beings and you are also being exploited.
This sounds very grim, but try not to attach any value to what I am saying. I teach meditation and mindfulness and one very helpful thing you learn is to detach your ego from the narratives you tell yourself, the mind-chatter that is almost like white noise in your mind. You might not even consciously realise that you are doing that, but we all do.
If you want to live a good life you learn to detach from values that you have absorbed from other people and you find your own values. You become egoistic, meaning you ask how you personally feel about this / think about something first - you think about yourself first and then you decide how you act. The world would be a better place if we would truly start to think about ourselves first, because nobody is truly doing it. Putting yourself first means understanding what you are thinking and acknowledging all parts of yourself.
You can only share what you have cultivated. If you can't love yourself, you cannot love somebody else. If you want to improve the lives of others, you have to improve your own life first. You cannot give what you don't have.
You can start working at a company with different values but ultimately, those companies were also just made to make one person or a small group of people richer. Those might not be bad people just because they want to be rich. Realise that money is also aligned in your value system somewhere. What does it really matter, if you make other people rich? It does not add or remove something from your life, yet there is a part in your mind that tells you that it is bad - and this part is coming from the outside not from your inside.
As designers we are somewhat paid to mainfest human approval in something mostly visual - either approval from the people we design something for, or the people who pay us to design something. But all of this is related to finding out what will be liked what will be approved. So we are already equipped with a mind that is primed for absorbing narratives. You need to detach from that, otherwise your life will be always be directed by others.