Who Do You Want to Be?

When your job isn't working for you anymore

Whenever you interact with strangers, there’s one question you’re guaranteed to be asked: “What do you do?”

While better than “Wanna see my rash?” it’s still not great.

The reason it’s troubling is because that’s become our cultural shorthand to assess who a person is. We do this with other people, and we do it with ourselves.

Europeans don’t have this issue. They have a different perspective. The French, for example, are relaxing over two-hour lunches. Taking the month of August off. Using all that extra time to drink wine and “storm the Bastille,” if you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, we’re calling into meetings and answering emails during our week off at the beach, and when we get busy, half the time it’s with Excel or PowerPoint.

That’s because we, as a society, got hoodwinked. Somehow, we were convinced that we are our jobs.

That may be who we think we are, but is it who we want to be?

What’s it all about?

Not that long ago, a career was a relatively straightforward proposition: you started working for a company, and 40 years later you were handed a gold watch and an existential crisis.

Today, like the impatient, gotta-have-it-now fiends that we are, many people are skipping ahead and asking what it all means much sooner. I know I’ve done it. Unfortunately, that’s not a question Siri can answer. (Here’s another question Siri seems unable to answer with any accuracy: “Is it raining?” Seriously, Siri, do better.)

I’ve heard a lot of stories lately about people who’ve either quit their jobs or are making plans to do so. Tons more would surely follow suit if it were financially feasible.

Most of the time, the reason given is some version of “I don’t find meaning in it anymore.” We’re lucky to live in an era where you can even say that out loud. Your ancestors would have looked at you like a dog hearing a radiator whistling, then hit you with a log.

For these people, it’s not just that their job is unfulfilling, it’s that it’s clashing with their souls. They often don’t know what they’re going to do, but they know they can’t do that anymore.

Enough already

It’s heartening to see so many people announcing that they’ve had enough, and are seeking a life that’s better for their mental health. It’s surprising to see it happening on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is an aspirational echo chamber. It’s no different than Instagram, only instead of curating photos to make people believe your personal life isn’t an exhausting disappointment, you curate statements to make people believe your professional life isn’t an exhausting disappointment.

How’s that for work-life balance?

But instead of sounding like amped-up contestants in the Corporate Martyrdom Games, these dazed souls come across like former cult members trying to process how they let themselves get brainwashed.

Too harsh? You tell me. I wrote the following as a fictional character, and I’d like you to decide who this person is talking about. It’s a little game I call Boss or Sovereign Master?

“He was so kind at first, making me feel like I was part of something really special. We were all going to do great things together. I felt like I’d finally found the place where I belonged. When he started wanting more of my time, I was happy to give it because I believed in him and the organization.

“But then it escalated. He expected me to be on call practically 24/7. Most of my time was spent doing what he wanted when he wanted, and he’d get annoyed if I wasn’t available. It became clear that he didn’t really care about me at all—I was only valuable if I lived and breathed ‘our mission.’ The takeover of my life was so gradual I didn’t even know it was happening.”

Scary, right?

It doesn’t take an overbearing boss or a charismatic, sociopathic despot to reach that point, though. We often get there all by ourselves. We burn ourselves out then get all fired up about it.

The War of Art, by Steven Pressman, is a book about fighting through the blocks that prevent you from reaching your potential. As the title suggests, its focus is on creative pursuits, but its messages are more broadly relevant.

One passage in particular shook me. Pressman talks about Tom Laughlin, who worked with cancer patients (Laughlin passed away in 2013, several years after the book’s publication). Laughlin contended that when we’re confronted by a terminal diagnosis, there’s a shift in our consciousness.

Pressman writes:

“At once we discern what’s really important. Superficial concerns fall away, replaced by a deeper, more profoundly grounded perspective.

“This is how Tom Laughlin's foundation battles cancer. He counsels his clients not just to make that shift mentally but to live it out in their lives. He supports the housewife in resuming her career in social work, urges the businessman to return to the violin, assists the Vietnam vet to write his novel. Miraculously, cancers go into remission. People recover. Is it possible, Tom Laughlin asks, that the disease itself evolved as a consequence of actions taken (or not taken) in our lives? Could our unlived lives have exacted their vengeance upon us in the form of cancer? And if they did, can we cure ourselves, now, by living these lives out?”

Now, you should know that this is the same Tom Laughlin who starred in the Billy Jack films of the 1960s and 70s, and had no medical or formal psychological training. If Matthew McConaughey started touting a cure for Lyme disease, it would be fair to have a few follow-up questions. What Laughlin suggests sounds fantastical, but to me—in some cases—it does seem possible. And if it’s true, we all have a lot of thinking to do.

It appears that more people are already doing that thinking, and having that shift in consciousness. And if there wasn’t a physical ailment that needed healing, there was certainly an emotional one.

You do you

Many people love their jobs, are fulfilled by devoting most of their waking hours to them, and happily consider their career to be central to their identity. My guess is that they’re doing something especially meaningful, like helping people, or being a taster in an ice cream factory.

A lot more don’t feel that way. Except for the career-as-identity part.

If you’re in that camp, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to quit your job. But you should at least consider scaling it back. As actor-turned-either-genius-or-crackpot Tom Laughlin advised, start incorporating more things that feed your soul.

You can rebuild your “you” into who you actually want to be. And if quitting is part of that, I ask just one thing: try to do it in spectacular fashion and post it on YouTube for the rest of us to enjoy.

Whatever you decide, you’ll have a different answer the next time you’re asked, “What do you do?”

As for me, I’m going to respond, “Let’s see. I read. I write. I do crossword puzzles. I swear like a savant. I have a job. I drink a lot of water. I crack wise. I play with my dog. I visit my parents. I answer tedious questions. What do you do?”