The Hidden Forces Driving Nonprofit Workers: Part 1
How Relaxtionary Consciousness and Achievement Culture Shape Our Social Impact Careers
Dear readers,
Today I'm beginning a three-part exploration of the psychological and cultural forces that drive many of us into nonprofit work, and oftentimes then drive us out of it. This series examines how our pursuit of meaning, our need for achievement, and our position of privilege interact to shape our career choices and our approach to social change.
In this first installment, I'll introduce two key concepts: "relaxtionary consciousness" and "achievement-subject culture." These forces, often operating below our awareness, profoundly influence how we navigate our professional lives and our relationship to social causes.
Important caveat: I'm describing my experience working within and alongside relatively large, national nonprofits. I graduated from Yale, came from a financially comfortable family, and found myself surrounded by peers with similar backgrounds throughout my career. That's what I'm describing. It's not the whole nonprofit world, but it's certainly a large chunk of it.
The Privilege of Spiritual Fulfillment
Growing up in a comfortable middle-class household in a small Pennsylvania town, I never worried about my basic needs. My father was a doctor, my mother had family support, and I enjoyed what I now recognize as substantial privilege. This security created what I call a "relaxtionary consciousness" – an unconscious mental framework that shapes how we view the world when our fundamental needs are met.
When you operate from relaxtionary consciousness, you're free to pursue what Maslow called "self-actualization" or spiritual fulfillment. You can ask questions like: "What gives me satisfaction? What makes my life worthwhile?" These questions are inward-looking, focused on personal meaning.
I volunteered at food pantries and even traveled to Botswana for a conservation project. I worked part-time jobs not because I needed money but because they "built character." I sought activities that formed an encompassing portrait of myself as virtuous and noble.
This pursuit of spiritual fulfillment is a luxury afforded to those whose basic needs are secure. When you don't need to plan for survival or fear losing what you have, your outlook naturally centers around personal flourishing and fulfillment.
The Tyranny of Achievement
Alongside this relaxtionary consciousness, another force shaped my development: achievement-subject culture. Philosopher Byung-Chul Han describes this as our society's obsession with measurement, ranking, and hierarchies in his brilliant book, The Burnout Society.
From my earliest memories, everything in my life could be measured and ranked. Swimming races at the 4th of July party, grades in school, debate competitions – there was always a way to identify a winner. I learned to strip away activities that couldn't be ranked, focusing only on pursuits where others could measure and proclaim my success.
What makes achievement-subject culture particularly insidious is that we believe we're following our hearts' desires when we work obsessively for the top finish. As Han writes:
The achievement-subject stands free from any external instance of domination forcing it to work... However, the disappearance of domination does not entail freedom. Instead, it makes freedom and constraint coincide.
I worked with obsessive fervor entirely at my own volition, experiencing what Han calls the "free constraint of maximizing achievement." Even when I finished first, I sought to do so by greater margins, competing primarily against myself in "absolute competition."
The Cultural Elite's Redefinition of Achievement
When I arrived at Yale, these two forces – relaxtionary consciousness and achievement-subject culture – fused together in a new context. The cultural elite had redefined what counted as achievement.
For my generation of Millennials at elite institutions, the highest-ranked life wasn't measured by financial reward but by how hard you worked in service of something deemed good by cultural gatekeepers. We learned that the highest rankings went to those who did something "special," who didn't "sell out."
Many friends became medical researchers rather than well-paid surgeons, many others took their law degrees to the Justice Department instead of lucrative big law firms. These were the new pinnacles of achievement.
This redefinition of achievement created a powerful cocktail: we could pursue spiritual fulfillment while still satisfying our achievement-subject needs. The highest plane of achievement became doing good for the world – a contemporary version of noblesse oblige.
The Perfect Convergence
These forces converged for me during my senior year when I received a recruitment call from Green Corps, "the field school for environmental organizing." Initially uninterested, I was drawn in when told I was "a top candidate" – the affirmation my achievement-subject self craved.
After hearing a Green Corps graduate describe organizing a community to shut down a polluting trash incinerator, I saw how I could merge being the best (achievement-subject culture) with doing something virtuous (spiritual fulfillment) while protecting the environment (emotional desire).
I accepted a position with low pay to work 80-hour weeks. This choice perfectly satisfied my cultural elite values – it signaled pure and noble intentions while burnishing my record as a striver pursuing an acclaimed goal. It gave me the prestige I wanted without the guilt of a job in business or finance.
Looking Ahead
In the next installment of this series, I'll explore two additional forms of consciousness: revolutionary and reactionary. I'll examine how these mindsets differ from the relaxtionary consciousness that drives many nonprofit workers, and how they shape our approach to social change.
The final part will analyze how relaxtionary consciousness, despite its good intentions, often falls short of achieving meaningful social change – and what we might do differently.
Until next time,
Sam
What a great deep dive. Truly, I didn't think about what a privilege it is to be able to take a nonprofit job, especially when said jobs often pay less. And the burnout! So real!