Each day I find myself becoming more of a structural functionalist. The social theory, born in the thoughts of August Comte, suggests that all the parts of a society work together like an organism. What it therefore suggests is that extraneous parts can be detrimental, divisive, and even destructive. Now believing this to be true, I have always looked to figure out my place in that ‘organism’. Your job, role in family, role as a consumer, etc. defines your value in the macrosociological sense. Your financial contribution to the whole is the blood that pumps through the system.
Whenever I enter a new job, or consider my role in the family, community, etc. I do so from this perspective. What is my function in the overall mechanism and what then does my removal mean for that mechanism. This is, in a way, a high-falutent way of figuring out if I am valuable to people around me, which may seem egocentric but is necessary. The one commonality between biological systems and social ones is this: If you aren’t needed, you are dust.