When I lived in California, I surfed on a weekly basis, but I would never have called myself “a surfer.” I write with some frequency, and I have some deep discomfort with the idea of calling myself “a writer.” I much prefer saying something like “I surf,” or “I write.”
And it’s not that I don’t want to be comfortable with it! In fact, it probably wouldn’t be too outlandish to say that all I’ve ever really wanted to do is be a surfer/writer (s/o William Finnegan). It’s more that formally donning these identity-based role descriptions feels like I’m asserting all kinds of things that I’m not comfortable asserting.
It’s an odd sort of discomfort I think, especially in a work-driven world where the first or second question you encounter with most folks is “what do you do?” And the easiest way to answer that question is usually some sort of role.
In fact, most people respond to this question with an identity-based role description. When asked what we do, we say things like: I’m an entrepreneur. I’m an artist. I’m a lawyer. I’m a real-estate agent. I’m a chef.
We’re asked what we do, and we say who we are.
I don’t suppose there’s anything wrong with this way of thinking. Indeed, in some circumstances it’s likely beneficial. But it does strike me as a sort of crossed wire in our psychology.
“What do you do?” … “I am a”
If you’ve been around the Commons for a little while, you may recall that in July I wrote about how our work shapes who we are. That the behaviors and habits of a certain line of work can bend the arc of our personality over time.
The danger, I think, with this sort of identity-based role thinking about work is that your work can subsume your identity. Hell, in some fields your role can even become your name - “Yes chef!”
And what happens when your work situation changes? When you burnout, when you get let-go, or when you wake up on a Tuesday and realize you don’t like what you do?
Then, it’s not a work question you’re wrestling with, but an identity question. Not “what do I do now?” but “who am I now?"
A reader (s/o mom) recently sent me the 2017 New Yorker article by Toni Morrison entitled “The Work You Do, the Person You Are.” In it Morrison describes the house-cleaning work she did as a kid and how as she got better at the work, the woman she worked for added more and more for her to do. She struggled to say no to new tasks and felt like the work was taking her over at times.
When she went to complain to her father about it he said, “Listen. You don’t live there. You live here. With your people. Go to work. Get your money. And come on home.”
But she says she heard her father’s admonition in this way:
Whatever the work is, do it well—not for the boss but for yourself.
You make the job; it doesn’t make you.
Your real life is with us, your family.
You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.
Read that last one again:
You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.
That struck a chord with me.
Previously, I wrote, “Your behavior will adjust to meet the needs of the job […and] this adjustment will be strengthened and reinforced over time through repetition, causing your personality traits to develop and change.” But this point from Morrison feels like a helpful rejoinder to that idea. Your work will shape who you become, sure, but that does not make you the work you do.
Here’s where I think these identity-based role descriptions can actually become a useful tool.
We all inhabit a host of social roles (e.g., project manager, CEO, husband, father, dog owner, runner, coffee drinker, etc.) that shape how we think about ourselves and how we behave to a certain extent, and that inform how we prioritize our attention.
For example, in the context of work, you may operate and think of yourself as “a literary agent,” but that may not be the role that you prioritize in your mind. You may first be “a writer,” and having that distinction in your mind can serve as a bulwark against the vicissitudes of your work life.
It may give you the courage to prioritize a different role at the right moment, to turn to your family, or to recombobulate after a setback, or to keep pursuing that faint dream that’s still floating out there, off in the distance.
It’s the kind of distinction that can help you see your identity from multiple angles; to help you adjust or stay on course; to say to yourself, “I am not the work I’m doing, I am the person I am. I am _______.”