You are What You Do... No More!

Today, a lot of people have their personal lives and their professional lives all tangled up. And for most youngsters, we have certain passions that we also want to pursue, plus the desire to make a difference. Given these responsibilities and different facets of our existence, it’s easy to blur the lines among them.

What I find the saddest with such situations are the times when one loses his/ her identity to his/ her job. See, after spending years and years of effort, time, money and passion on trying to make an education stellar, achieve AND keep a high profile career, we start identifying ourselves exclusively to what it says on our business cards.

We go through life this way: waking up to fulfill tasks demanded by the job, we go home at night to rest, to have a clearer mind when we go back to our jobs the next day. We take vacations, but dread the last days of it because we’re going to “go back to reality” again. At the end of the day, we all believe all these are paying off; we now hold high positions in the companies we are working at and sometimes, we’re even successful enough to garner enough credentials and capital for a personal business. We look around us; we feel so “up there”; we know we deserve it. Although this might help in keeping a healthy self esteem, it’s too big a gamble for personal identity.

For, what happens when you suddenly lose your job? Or your business? Your affiliations?

Whether you’re a en employee, a businessman or simply a socialite, you must be ready to shake your title off anytime. Why is this so?

When we enclose ourselves to our job titles, we jeopardize ourselves emotionally. When something bad happens at work, we take it personally. A disaster in the middle of our big event? We break down. If you fall into this kind of trap, you lose your presence outside of your office or your business and this will (sadly) lead to you seeing people (outside that world) of less value. You can only get to value and appreciate people who are there to help you advance in your career.

Chill out a little, fellow. Take certain passions that help you breathe easy, those which you have been dreaming since you were a child, or those which you have been dying to do after college. Volunteer work, some art lessons, dancing workshops, whatever. Stop looking upon others and comparing yourself to them. Instead, focus on you, on your well being, and lastly, take a second look on your health. Many youngsters nowadays are unbelievable workaholics that sometimes it shocks me to see them work harder than a single mom who raises 6 kids. And for what? Most of the time, they are not really sure.

Don’t wait for the time when you lose your job and you won’t know how to introduce yourself to a new friend. So really, stop being a workaholic and take time to smell the flowers. Even literally. Trust me, it helps.