Who Are You Outside Your Job?
Forget that youâre working a job. Forget that youâre studying at med school. Forget that youâre doing all the things youâre supposed to.
Who are you without any of those?
Who are you beyond your career?
Can you survive in a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario with your skills?
Sometimes, I find myself pondering on these peculiar questions. We have more than what our parents had, yet weâre softer and less diverse in terms of real-life skills. Life is decent â thereâs a balance between adrenaline and boredom. But it feels like our problems are on an entirely new existential plane.
Sometimes, life is so slow, and sometimes, it is too fast. Yin and yang, action and inaction â itâs almost as if one were leading to the other. With the freedom of choice and the gift of abundance, we have the privilege to decide if we want to indulge in the momentary rushes of life or the peacefulness it offers.
But we get stuck in the middle because we want a little bit of both. Weâre greedy little suckers, no? A generation that has more than enough yet not the skills to sustain the state of it. Weâre all busy chasing skills that earn money but not the ones that make life self-fulfilling and sustainable.
Weâre taught to follow in the footsteps of successful careers where we only develop specific skills that are most likely to land us a job â a stable income. And we use it to explore everything that life offers and teach our kids the same. It sounds like a wise plan.
But at what cost?
People are building their entire personalities around this fast-selling lifestyle. Behind the six-figure salaries are people whoâve never used a knife or cared for a plant. They can afford the things they want and hire the people they need but thatâs about it. Without money, theyâre shallow. With it, theyâre pretentious.
Remember that rich brat in school you despised? The one who always got everything done, but didnât do it himself? Donât blame him for being like that. Money does that to people. He was merely a victim of privilege.
So who are you when no one is watching?
Who would you be if you didnât have the money that you need?
Honestly, this is a problem for the generation that has enough. This is a question for the kids whose parents have made their life easy. Itâs for those people who donât know who they are without their jobs.
If I ask you to pitch yourself to the world, how would you do it?
Who are you? And why should we believe what you say?â
If you canât think of an answer as you read this, take your time and think about this. Donât worry, youâre not going to âwin in lifeâ even if you had an answer. But hopefully, it provokes you enough to think about it.
Just like how managers love a candidate who can do more than what the job requires of him, everyone loves a partner who can do more than what is expected of him.
It is our career that gives us the flexibility of pursuing everything we want at our own pace and terms. But it shouldnât be the only thing you excel at. Maybe you could find a secondary skill â something that you can identify for outside work. It could be as simple as âIâm a gardener taking care of a personal gardenâ to âIâm a 2023 triathlon medalistâ.
Create opportunities to identify yourself beyond just your work. Maybe it could solve some of the great âexistentialâ dilemmas you have. Or maybe it could just lead to a more wholesome and balanced life.
If all youâve got to offer is X, X is all that one is going to take.
So before you go and give a hundred percent to your job tomorrow, remember to give a hundred and ten percent to yourself because you are not what you do for a living, but what you do outside it.
Who am I?
Iâm still figuring that part out, but Iâm a human who feels unsettled at being settled so I prefer to work on skills as a means of passing time. Sometimes, I associate being busy with productivity and burn myself out.
But Iâm definitely trying to live in a way that can prepare me for a survival world scenario. How does writing help, you ask? Good question.
History needs an author, doesnât it?
Hereâs the thing. I run a podcast. And because youâre great readers, I know youâre great listeners too. Everything I write, I narrate in my podcast. I wonât lie when I tell you that the podcast has helped me, more than anyone. So if you think youâd like to revisit my thoughts, you can head to my podcast, Within 5 Minutes, which serves as an audio library for these blogs â https://linktr.ee/hacchuu