Your Job is Not Who You Are

A big problem in our society is the erroneous belief that your paid employment somehow defines who you are.

I think many of us buy into this myth, on a conscious or subconscious level, whether we want to or not.

It is hard for many of us to obtain paid employment that reflects who we are inside. Some of us settle for any job, just to survive. Some of us settle for jobs that partially reflect our interests, or partially use our skills and abilities, because that's as close as we could get to what we wanted. There are a lucky few who feel completely at home in their work. I always longed for that feeling. Mostly I only found it outside of paid employment.

In a bad economy, the problems of job mismatch, underemployment, being "overqualified" and work alienation affect vast numbers of people.

One of the factors contributing to ergophobia is the sense of being in the wrong job, and feeling that this makes our life somehow "wrong," and that we are therefore inadequate.

When I find myself feeling that way, I need to remind myself that there is more to me than what I am doing for a living at any given time. My job is not who I am.

"You are not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world."
 -Tyler Durden in the movie "Fight Club"