Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Another of the core Protestant Work Ethic values that is deteriorating is the idea of taking your best opportunities, which has been replaced with the egocentric idea of pursing your passion. This is one of the manifestations of selfish liberty, the egalitarian kind without responsibility, where individuals are trying for maximum happiness, as judged by themselves. Unfortunately, almost everybody's “passion” is to be the center of everything, and if they can't get that then they remain unhappy; it's disenchantment caused by delusion masquerading as good advice.

Without the concept of best opportunity, needed jobs go lacking while superficial activity, and plain sloth, are accepted. For example, for almost everyone in the military, that was the best opportunity for them, even if it's dangerous. Similarly, if there's a high-paying oil field job in North Dakota; that’s opportunity even if it’s far away from everything; hauling garbage is steady work, but has low status; and ditches need dug, though it's back-breaking labor. Encouraging children to desire irrelevant, eve mystical, goals is destructive, and only possible when a society has been so productive that its most privileged members take it for granted, and want to be even more privileged, when instead they should be following their best opportunity.