Projects and Updates, 2024Q1
Big Existential Questions™️, some fun things I did, and pictures of dessert.
Playlist of music in this post: Spotify
What do you want to be when you grow up?
I spoke to a very nice person, recently. He'd had a long career and was considering what was next: more of the same work, more of different work, or maybe just retirement. He said he was trying to figure out what he wanted to be when he grew up.
It was apropos to hear. I'd been actively contemplating what do I want to be? for a few months, and that comment helped me reach an important conclusion: The question is bad. It's a bad question that reflects bad, harmful ways we view and, importantly, talk about ourselves.
A harmful mental model for who we are
Questions like What do you want to be? and So, what do you do?, taken denotatively, are generally fine. Asking someone to visualize their best self or asking someone how they like to spend their time are both totally fine.
Reasonable answers to What do you want to be when you grow up? should include things like:
- Funny
- Kind
- Self-aware
- Excellent pancake maker
- Pickup soccer player
- Traveler
The problems arise from the connotations behind the questions. "What do you want to be" and "what do you do" aren't actually about the type of person you hope to be, or all of the things you love doing in your life -- these questions are just about a job.
That creates a troublesome structure: when the correct answer to "what do you want to be" and "what do you do" is a job, your identity is supplanted with a job.
That's pretty stressful. It was for me, at the very least.
Maybe it's my fault for being too literal, but for decades my goal was finding a job that described me perfectly. When people asked me Big Existential Questions™️ like what do you do, I hoped to one day tell them a company name, a job title, and then not need to say anything else about myself. They'd know, concisely, everything about who I was, what I "be", and what I "do."
This is a bad design. The name of a [COMPANY] and the [JOB TITLE] they assign to me won't ever be a suitable tool to describe the rad human I am.
A better mental model
Here's what I've decided is a better structure, at least for me and maybe for many others.
We are traits and activities
It's good for a person to know what they strive to be, and a healthy response is a list of traits and activities: e.g. funny, kind, self-aware, excellent pancake maker, pickup soccer player, traveler.
Some of those items will be closer to the center of a person's identity, some farther away, maybe they shift over time, etc., but those items are what we "be" and what we "do".
Luckily, I think most of us know, somewhere in our minds, that we're more than our jobs and assigned job titles.
The problem? We don't act like it.
We reinforce the JORB-OVER-EVERYTHING mentality every time we ask each other who we are and expect a company name in return.
Personally, I know I need more practice actively internalizing who I am and what I do as a healthy constellation of traits and activities. And then, importantly, more practice and consistency leading with those traits and activities in the stories I tell myself and others about who I am.
Where does a job fit?
Now that we have a healthier, functional model for understanding who we are and what we do, we have a healthier way of categorizing a job's place in our lives: a job is just another activity -- essentially a hobby. It's a weird hobby, for a number of reasons, but that's the emotional space a job should inhabit.
In one sense, that's not to diminish the work we do to make money. I consider activities like tennis and dancing my personal hobbies; I'm really good at both and I've been quite committed to both for years.
In another sense, I am literally diminishing the work we all do to make money. I'm diminishing a job away from the single semantic & emotional answer to our Big Existential Questions™️, and I'm moving it to an off-center position in the swirl of items that make up a human being's identity. This is where it belongs for me, and where I'd argue it belongs for most people.
A quick benefit from this diminishment: when a job doesn't need to resolve a Big Existential Question™️, it's easier to not take it so gravely. It's emotionally easier to explore, go with the flow, stay or leave a job (or industry or career) as you grow and as that hobby needs to change with you.
Maybe you already are what you want to be
I have more thoughts I may put into a longer, standalone post; this is where we'll stop, for now...
For years I've felt bad about supposedly not knowing "what I want to be when I grow up." The reason I didn't have a good answer was only because I was asking a bad question.
In fact, I know much of what I strive to be, and I'm already doing a pretty good job at it: decent friend, good partner, knower of rad music, baker of tasty treats, bringer of sparkling wine, etc. There's more I want to become, and I reckon we'll sort the rest in time.
Fun...
Drawing lines
Cutting lines
It's just fear.
Fantasy High
Tasty Beverage
I wouldn't call scanning and shredding old documents fun, per se, but it was nice to see some the things I saved.
Persona 5 Royal
The Best Science
Cheesecake photo shoot
Five Albums
Hard Candy, Ned Doheny
ORQUÍDEAS, Kali Uchis
Sweet Justice, Tkay Maidza
TRAP KITTY, Young Miko
Vida, Ana Tijoux
Spotify playlist
Five Albums library
Other Recent Bloggeries