5What Do You Do for a Living? The Question That Traps Us in the Past
Key Ideas
- Whether voluntary or otherwise, people are changing jobs, and even industries, more frequently than ever before.
- Our tight tether to occupational identity makes it even more challenging to adapt to a rapidly changing future.
- To navigate change, we must rewrite the narratives that form our identities to avoid getting caught in an identity trap and to build our adaptation advantage.
The Questions That Limit Our Identity
Throughout our lives, we've gotten to know one another by asking three seemingly simple questions: “What do you do?” adults ask one another. “What's your major?” we inquire of university students. And who hasn't asked a child, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
We use these questions to orient ourselves in the world, to describe and define ourselves and one another, and to give our academic pursuits a sense of direction. These questions, though inquisitive and well-meaning, might be just the thing that tethers us to a fixed identity and denies the fluidity that adaptation demands. Rather than giving us direction, purpose, and identity, these questions can become traps hindering personal growth and evolution.
What Do You Do?
In the United States, if not most places, it's the icebreaker at gatherings both professional and social. The answer is layered with social signals. “I am a lawyer,” one person might say, and we imagine the intelligence and diligence required for the ...
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