I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I was trying to make other people feel bad for their achievements. I think the impulse to want to help your community is venerable, and to have these doubts about ethically operating in this economic system is natural and encouraging. I'm not denigrating survival; it's hard enough as it is. But if you have the luxury of time to spend thinking about how you can be helping people, you have the time to help people, even if it's only in small personal ways to start. I'm not suggesting that product design is the way to do this, but rather that product designers tend to have developed a strong sense of empathy, intelligence, and awareness of how systems work that can be used in a lot of ways big and small to enrich our communities and our neighborhoods.

You likely won't find this sort of satisfaction in your work no matter who you're working for, but that's okay — we get plenty of opportunities to volunteer our time and talent, whether we have the time and resources to do so immediately or need to get situated first.