I Am Not My Career
My choice of career has fluctuated over the years. I wanted to be a firefighter when I was really young. This was before I realized you can die from these things and then dropped it like a hot potato. I was very steadfast about becoming a teacher between the ages of six and twelve. At thirteen and fourteen I wanted to be a paediatrician. I then found out you have to deal with things like paediatric oncology, decided I don’t have the stomach or the resiliency these things require and moved on. Then, there was nothing. At fifteen, I really, really, just wanted to write a book. At the age of seventeen, I randomly picked my major as Psychology after a friend mentioned her interest in it. I’ve always been fascinated by people, something clicked, and I chose it. Even after I started my degree, I still had no idea what I wanted to do. After doing a bunch of modules, and the cold shock about how much statistics there is to Psychology and through pure coincidence, I landed a part-time stint in research. It was fun – you get to interact with people, you can do statistical analyses, you can write a paper. It was a little bit of everything I liked at the time so I decided that would be my track.
Once I graduated, I got a job as a research coordinator at a hospital. “That will show them,” I thought about the people who continued to pick away at my size and my colour, and indirectly my self-worth, at weddings and gatherings. Ironically, it just fuelled the question of how I managed to get a job at a hospital with my size. For the first year of my job, it was FANTASTIC. People would go “Oh wow” when I told them I work in research. People would go “Oh wow” when my dad told them I work in research. His clearly evident sense of pride to those reactions kept me going another year.
Before long, a crack fell in my illusion of my perfect, successful, put-together life. When I was in school, “goals” were pretty clear – get this grade to pass this exam, get this grade to get into this school, get this grade to get into this major. Things were very laid out. As an adult, goals were vague. I didn’t like the idea that my 9-5 was the only thing happening in my life. I wanted to live a bit more intentionally, so I looked into goals. I didn’t realise how much I didn’t hold my job at great personal regard until I started getting into goal settings heavily. Things like eat my 5 a day, hold downward dog for an entire class, try creative writing, donate to charity, look at phone just once during today’s meetup with friend started taking a front seat. While I had my KPIs at work, they didn’t feel like they were my goals as much as my personal goals. It was an odd dissonance and I told myself maybe that was the case because these KPIs were set by someone else, not me. Soon, my personal goals started to evolve into only one food indulgence once a week, do personal training, listen better. The more I started to connect and grow with these goals, the further I felt like I was getting from my job.
One day I woke up from my stupor about who I thought I should be, and there was an entire gulf between my self and my job. So, I quit. It wasn’t what I wanted anymore. It felt great to get some looks of admiration my way about how I was “adulting” so well with my well-paying job, in this big company, with my nice clothes and shiny watch, but it wasn’t who I was. I felt like I was living someone else’s life, and in a way, I was – it was my way of showing my immigrant parents that I had made something for myself. It was my way of thanking them and fulfilling their vision of living a good life. But my job wasn’t giving me anything other than money. And that’s what it had boiled down to.
Our jobs are a GOOD chunk of our life – almost half our waking lives and for some, even more than that. Which is why the line between what we do, and who we are as a person, starts to blur. Think about it. When you introduce yourself to someone, I’m pretty confident you go “I’m Thendral. I do (this)” I’ve not met a single person who has gone. “I’m Thendral. I believe in happiness and love.” One of the prevailing questions I use as a conversation starter on Bumble BFF is to ask people what they do. I don’t mean any harm, nor do I use it as a way to determine if this person is worth having a conversation with. It feels easy as an opener, it’s fairly harmless and more often than not, it gives me the space to ask more questions about them. But for someone who wonders about people’s innermost thoughts, this question never feels substantial enough to learn about the other person. Which is why I started wondering why we ask each other about our careers so casually and this article came to be.
Part of me thinks this is the result of an unnecessary emphasis on “busy”. It’s all about endless opportunities and hustling and maximizing your day and pursuing your passion. That we should be constantly working to be refined versions of ourselves. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing that will take you as far as hard and honest work can but also, I can’t think of a single person in my life who is not busy. Who made “busy” the hallmark of someone’s worth, and our career its barometer? I don’t see why one should be glorified for being busy, and to be shamed for having some lax in your schedule. Especially in the era of freelancers, where we are constantly assumed to be “free” and “flexible”. Spoiler alert: It’s not that much different from my 9-5. Yes, I’m flexible about my schedule, and I can meet you for brunch on a Wednesday, but this means I have to work on a Sunday. Also, I don’t have paid vacations. AND as someone who changed careers, I can tell you success doesn’t come with your job title and your career. It comes with how you see those things through. I didn’t do pretty okay in my previous job or with what I am doing now because I was a “researcher” or because I am a “freelance writer”. I got by because I was curious, because I was always ready to learn, because I didn’t want to let people who believed in me down and sometimes because what I was doing was a whole lot of fun.
To be a 100% honest with you, other than writing a book, and having this blog, I don’t have an ultimate vision of my career track. And I’m more than okay with it because I know who I am. Which makes it easy for me to figure out what I want. I don’t have to know right now what I want but what I know for sure, is that what I want is not something that can be filled by money or my career. Right now, it’s being filled by writing. And you know what, I won’t be all that surprised if that changes one day too. What I do is just a part of myself and my identity – like my ginormous nose and my inability to see people go hungry. But it’s not the only thing about me. Because at the end of the day, people don’t care, or remember what you do. They care and remember how you made them feel – dejected, inferior, unworthy. Or, loved, inspired, positive.
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