“Bhikkhus, there are these four ways of taking a wrong course. What four? One takes a wrong course because of desire, because of hatred, because of delusion, or because of fear. These are the four ways of taking a wrong course.”

• AN 4.17 Wrong Courses

Quite recently, I had to make a decision between two job choices. The two choices were extremely different:

• one job offer was with a non-profit tech startup as a managing director;
• the other was with a government entity, with an ex-boss whom I work well with.

There was a 90% pay differential between the two jobs, and for most people, that is the deciding factor. But for me, the pay differential wasn’t really the main factor: it did factor for my immediate family, and so that was something I couldn’t ignore. But it was not the main factor for my decision.

The main factor in my mind is whether a job allows me to practice the Dhamma, well. And both jobs fulfil that criteria.

The other considerations, including the pay differential, were all largely the same tier.

I was really quite stuck, and told a friend that this seemed to me to be (not an apples-to-oranges comparison, but) “an apple flower (non-profit startup) vs. a ripe durian fruit (government job with a mature organisation) comparison”.

How I decided

How, then, did I finally decide? Here is what I did:

1. I first collected all the information I could about both job opportunities. I was candid in sharing with each organisation about my conversations with the other org, and made sure to clarify information about job roles, pay, benefits etc. etc. before I made a decision.
2. On the day I was going to decide, I had last minute meetings with both orgs, which I used to clarify outstanding questions.
3. Going home, I asked my mind whether I could decide then: and my mind’s response was “I need a nap…” 😂 So that is what I did!
4. After waking up completely refreshed, I did some walking meditation at home for about 20-30 mins. I could feel my mind getting more calm and tranquil, as I focused on the walking meditation (not on the decision). Truth be told, though, the question about my choice did pop up in my mind, but I gently shifted my focus back on the meditation instead.
5. Then in the middle of my walking meditation, my cat Greg popped out of our bedroom (where she had been sleeping), and flopped right at my feet meowing for attention. So I stopped walking, and squatted down to give her loving kindness.

And in the middle of giving her loving kindness, out of the blue, the decision crystallized in my mind to rejoin the government.

I checked: was my mind clear of defilements? And it was! It was actually filled with loving kindness (for Greg), and didn’t have any defilements I was aware of:

• I had no strong desire,
• no ill will,
• I was also fully aware of both the upsides and downsides of both options
• I had no fear in the mind.

To double-check, I flipped a coin to see how my mind reacted to the coin-flip: the coin-flip result was the government job, and my mind went “ok!”

Then I flipped the coin again, and this time the coin-flip was for the startup, and my mind went “no, it’s clear that it is the government job”.

So I made my mind, and communicated my decision to both parties.

An additional consideration

I think it is also possibly useful to share one more consideration I had in mind when I decided.

I am pretty clear that my main aim in life is to practice the Eightfold Path, and it’s true that both job opportunities would have enabled me to practice the Eightfold Path well.

But when I thought about the startup role, it was emphasised to me that this was a blank canvas which I would play a large role in co-shaping. I could feel myself getting excited by all the possibilties… and I found myself generating ideas, like “What if we did X instead of Y as we do now?”, “maybe we can adopt this governance idea from Patagonia”, “How can we shift the org to focus on being a true learning org? “, etc. …. and I could feel my mind getting heated up: all. the. possibilities!

… and it struck me (quite suddenly) that my mind was being influenced by a strong sense of desire and self when I thought about the startup opportunity.

In contrast, when I spoke with the current incumbent for the government job, he emphasised how important it was to be patient, to let go of wanting to claim credit (and how credit was often not given).

So, from a Dhamma practice pov, it seemed clear to me that the startup would have given free reign to my sense of self, whereas the government job would have demanded that I let go of my self.

As a practitioner, the choice was thus quite clear.