Oh boy, I really related to this one … for a while. I’m now three-and-a-half years out from leaving the machine, and I don’t worry about these position/status issues in quite the same way anymore, though I’m also not beyond them. I’m going to keep reading your series.
The longer I lived outside my old sense of self, my work self, the easier it was to let it go. So time is the short answer. But having shed one kind of skin, I’m not sure I’ve yet found a new one.
Rick, this really resonates because it's very similar to how I felt when I left the Army. Even though I was in for only four years, I was told that and felt like it was the most important thing I'd ever do. In many ways, it was. But the way I've come to see it is that at that point in my life -- my early 20s, right after college -- serving in the Army was exactly where I was supposed to be. But thinking ahead about my life, I had an intuitive sense the Army wasn't where I was supposed to be in my 30s and 40s. I wanted to start a family and the Army, esp during Iraq & Afg, was not a great place to do so. Many friends did and I admired their courage and sacrifice but I knew I didn't want that life for my future family.
My current view is that our identities change as we get older and part of the challenge in our current identity is envisioning what a future identity looks like. We also get to take all the learning and growth from the previous periods with us to the next one. What do I *really* want to do in my 40s? Where do I want to be when I'm 50? What does my wife want to do? Our kids will be in college/high school and we'll be empty nesters -- in just over 10 years?! We'll need to take care of our aging parents too. A lot to think about.
And, your post reminded me that I still need to get "Working Identities"...
Really looking forward to your next post re: disappearing!
Matt - this is powerful, and in line with my comments below to Tracy that higher identities (e.g. entrepreneurs, doctors, musicians, now adding military) are potentially hardest to get out of or transition from.
Your story also makes me think about "Identity Capture" (making this up on the spot)... that certain opportunities can consume us at the right timing, maybe when we are younger, more impressionable, and for me, following a crisis period. We latch onto to these identities when they present themselves.
Then later on, maybe we wisen up and get a bit more skeptical. Rightfully so.
And your point of seeing identities as a changing thing is something I endorse fully, although I don't think it's commonly discussed.
I can really relate to the question “who am I without my work?” I trained as a classical musician since my teens and had my eye on a career as a musician. Which I created… but still left me unfulfilled. Shifting away from identifying with being a musician was the hardest thing I had to do, and I have to admit, it took years. There sure is a lot to unpack around the work/career/identity conversation, I’m in that inquiry myself. Great article!
Totally. For a long time I didn’t think I could be two things (musician and biz owner) or that it made me “less of a musician” whatever that means! It took a long time but now I get how brainwashed I was and how conditioned I was! I am still realizing how a lot of my attachment to the career path was more about status than the love of what I was doing. I’m glad I realized it but it took quite a while
From the David Foster Wallace commencement speech I referenced last time:
"Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness because it’s so socially repulsive. But it’s pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real."
Oh boy, I really related to this one … for a while. I’m now three-and-a-half years out from leaving the machine, and I don’t worry about these position/status issues in quite the same way anymore, though I’m also not beyond them. I’m going to keep reading your series.
What do you think helped you let go of these identities?
The longer I lived outside my old sense of self, my work self, the easier it was to let it go. So time is the short answer. But having shed one kind of skin, I’m not sure I’ve yet found a new one.
Rick, this really resonates because it's very similar to how I felt when I left the Army. Even though I was in for only four years, I was told that and felt like it was the most important thing I'd ever do. In many ways, it was. But the way I've come to see it is that at that point in my life -- my early 20s, right after college -- serving in the Army was exactly where I was supposed to be. But thinking ahead about my life, I had an intuitive sense the Army wasn't where I was supposed to be in my 30s and 40s. I wanted to start a family and the Army, esp during Iraq & Afg, was not a great place to do so. Many friends did and I admired their courage and sacrifice but I knew I didn't want that life for my future family.
My current view is that our identities change as we get older and part of the challenge in our current identity is envisioning what a future identity looks like. We also get to take all the learning and growth from the previous periods with us to the next one. What do I *really* want to do in my 40s? Where do I want to be when I'm 50? What does my wife want to do? Our kids will be in college/high school and we'll be empty nesters -- in just over 10 years?! We'll need to take care of our aging parents too. A lot to think about.
And, your post reminded me that I still need to get "Working Identities"...
Really looking forward to your next post re: disappearing!
Matt - this is powerful, and in line with my comments below to Tracy that higher identities (e.g. entrepreneurs, doctors, musicians, now adding military) are potentially hardest to get out of or transition from.
Your story also makes me think about "Identity Capture" (making this up on the spot)... that certain opportunities can consume us at the right timing, maybe when we are younger, more impressionable, and for me, following a crisis period. We latch onto to these identities when they present themselves.
Then later on, maybe we wisen up and get a bit more skeptical. Rightfully so.
And your point of seeing identities as a changing thing is something I endorse fully, although I don't think it's commonly discussed.
I can really relate to the question “who am I without my work?” I trained as a classical musician since my teens and had my eye on a career as a musician. Which I created… but still left me unfulfilled. Shifting away from identifying with being a musician was the hardest thing I had to do, and I have to admit, it took years. There sure is a lot to unpack around the work/career/identity conversation, I’m in that inquiry myself. Great article!
I can see how being a musician, would especially make the transition harder.
I have no data, but it seems clear that the HIGHER ones identity, the harder the shifts become and the harder the old identity to detach from.
For example: entrepreneur exits their company, doctor retires, athlete no longer can play, and so on.
Totally. For a long time I didn’t think I could be two things (musician and biz owner) or that it made me “less of a musician” whatever that means! It took a long time but now I get how brainwashed I was and how conditioned I was! I am still realizing how a lot of my attachment to the career path was more about status than the love of what I was doing. I’m glad I realized it but it took quite a while
On perhaps the most zoomed out level, we are stardust; yet we can identify with being a dog, another gender, a big CEO.
From the David Foster Wallace commencement speech I referenced last time:
"Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness because it’s so socially repulsive. But it’s pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real."
https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/