Your identity is much more than your title

A millennial's confession

AI generated

I love going to SoulCycle. For those who haven't been, it's a dark-clubbing-spinning experience that sometimes moves you to tears. A little bit cringey perhaps, but I really enjoy letting my body flow with the choreography and sweating it all out. Anyway, I actually wanted to talk about the instructors there. Being a top-tier spinning studio, getting a job at SoulCycle isn't easy, an instructor would need to work all their way up. But what's so special about these instructors is that they all do this part-time, and many of them are actors and theatre performers at night. As I look at them shining in their own lane, I couldn't help but feel inspired, almost a bit envious.

I kept thinking, "Why are these people able to handle multiple jobs at the same time?"

And that's the moment I realised my millennial wiring is different from the generations today and perhaps growing a bit anachronistic.

The millennial programming

As a millennial, I was taught growing up that we specialise to succeed. We were asked "what (one thing) do you want to do when you grow up?" We go to college specialising in a programme, which ends up with a career in the field, and we build our lives around it. When I entered the government after graduation, like my peers, I identified myself as a policy administrator, and I could almost see the rest of my career there until retirement. Well, except that it didn't happen.

Two years later, due to political instability, I left the government and jumped into tech, an entirely different industry. Looking back, that was the most rebellious but the best decision I have ever made, because I enjoyed my job so much more, and I met a lot of inspiring folks. Many of my colleagues, while excelling in their daytime job, had a side hustle, or a passion that they devoted their time to outside of their work. One of them was even an Olympian. That started to make me wonder: to what extent should our job define us?

As millennials, we are programmed that success comes from picking one passion, going all-in, climbing one single ladder, and committing to it. Very often that means our job becomes our entire identity, our only source of meaning and validation. As that goes by, our brain devotes more time to the things we are accustomed to and starts to filter out things that don't fit into the identity frame; we stop noticing possibilities or even interests outside of our profession, avoid trying out new things, fearing that it could diminish our "main identity." When somebody asks a doctor "What do you do?" we will often hear "I am a doctor" rather than "I work in a hospital in the daytime and I garden on the weekends." We are born to experience things, yet the older we are the more we are tied to our titles. The comfort zone that we have created actually traps us further, until we are at a point of stagnation, until we stop feeling excited. We feel "too old to try," "too old to explore," and that "life is boring," and we start to question the meaning of life.

Your learning curve gets flatten out the longer you stay in the same job/ industry

While I know some people's jobs completely align with their interests and passion (such as an athlete, musician, or artist), that doesn't happen for most people I know. Chances are you are working in a job that you don't enjoy, just to save up money so that it could enable you to retire/buy a house/go for luxurious trips one day. And once that's achieved, you will finally devote time to your interests. This is a delusional thought because i) you assume you have all the time when you don't know how long you will live; ii) even if you do, you won't have the same energy level to enjoy your passion when you get old; iii) your passion will leave you behind if you never spend time cultivating it; and iv) you are wasting your golden years living in the future. In a world where careers are increasingly unpredictable, where entire industries can shift or disappear, pinning your entire identity to one job title feels even riskier.

My journey of transformation

So let's act on our dream? It's easier said than done. I read tons of books on this topic, and still struggled to take any actions for years. Leaving my title behind feels like destroying all the efforts I have spent over decades to build up my social reputation. Especially when my job falls into the "zone of tolerable dissatisfaction", bad enough to complain but not bad enough to leave, I ended up dragging in the company for years. When I finally left my job, I felt a huge void in me because I had already forgotten what I could be without my job. That felt extremely insecure, but sarcastically very youthful as well. It took me months to even scratch the surface, through trying and making different things, and I am still figuring my way out.

Fast forward to nine months without a corporate attachment now, I have tried so many different things that I now see myself as a consultant, a mentor, writer, an influencer, a web developer, a UX designer, an industrial design student-to-be, an art and furniture lover, a traveller, a mum, a wife, a daughter, and a friend. Nine months ago, if asked the same question, my answer would have been "I am a digital marketer."

Slashers have a lower level of mastery, but higher accumulated learning when all knowledge across all streams add up together

Maybe, somewhere in between?

I am not trying to argue whether the millennial or the GenZ way work better in the world today. I am rather suggesting something in between, more like a mindset change. The world is how we perceived it. We are not confined by our titles, only when we stop defining ourselves by our paycheque. Look beyond economic satisfaction and do things for just the pure joy of it, even if it doesn't generate any money. What do you find yourself envying when you see others doing it? Do that. Carve out time to cultivate interests and pick up old hobbies, without needing them to "lead somewhere." Surprise yourself. The world is changing, work landscape is changing, and what stays with us are our identities, which always come from within.

To my friend who said "I might want to try designing products if I am not in my current occupation in finance, but I am too old for it":

It's never too late to try.

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Hi, I am Lora, and I write about the difficult conversations and uncomfortable realities of personal growth, childhood trauma, mental health, high-achiever syndrome, social issues, tech & AI. It could be hard to digest or even hard to read, but it’s 100% honest. I have kept them with myself all these years, and this is my practice of speaking up and having my voice heard. Writing these vulnerable pieces takes courage (and lots of coffee). If my words resonated with you, consider buying me a coffee to fuel the next uncomfortable truth. Your support helps me keep writing without filters or facades.

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