We live in a world where professional success is a barometer for the outside world (and often for ourselves) of our personal happiness.
Consider this question: So, what do you do? A prolific modern day inquiry, it is one of the first things we ask in new conversation. Most of us work to make our answers as exciting and interesting as possible. We exuberantly toss out our job title or role and our company or industry, followed perhaps by a brief, clarifying tag line. Then…
Pause. Wait. Exhale. Whew! We are interesting.
So, what do I do? My current answer is completely new for me – and honestly, I can’t help but ask why that is. I’ve been doing these wonderful things for years! Why, then, have they been absent from my response to the old, reliable question of introductory conversation?
I am a mom. A partner. I write and read and learn. We travel; spend time with family; entertain friends; explore our environment and participate in our community. For the first time in my adult life I am not working. I am opening myself up to the opportunities of this new experience, following the ideas that strike my passions and reaching out to the people who catch my attention. It’s invigorating!
But when faced with that good ol’ question, my ego finds it just a little strange.
After all, I have conditioned myself over the years to give the traditional response to old reliable. My professional title was a crutch, a cover, a shield. I could talk about my work without talking too intimately about myself. My ego was protected. I was safe.
That is no longer the case. There is no professional title to hide behind. In fact, just the opposite is true: the doors to new opportunity and experience are wide open! (I’m picturing glass-paned French doors with sheer white curtains blowing in the breeze, by the way…)
So yes, these wide open doors have left my ego feeling a bit exposed. But I’m deciding, with courageous enthusiasm, that it is a really good thing.
