I Am Not My Major. I Am Not My Job.

By Erin Lin on September 25, 2014

I asked some people where their values come from. Some of the responses I got were, family, achievements, the career I get, the friends I have, the faith I see in myself and feeling pretty awesome about their present and future.

There’s a problem with how we live and the mindset we have on what is considered valuable and where we derive value from. In this society, value is when I feel that rush from that one awesome performance I gave during my Improv show or the ability to land that amazing interview and impress my future employers. And when I start to talk about value, another important factor that comes up is identity. What do you identify with and why is this thing so important to you that you find it a part of who you are?

http://dms-blog.com/2014/09/15/stuck-in-a-creative-rut-heres-what-i-do/

And the answer is quite simple actually. For most of us, our value has always and will continue to come from our work, what we produce from our work, the reputation and relationship that we have with others and the major that we have found ourselves dedicating our time to.

We are a work focused society; frankly stated, we are obsessed with being busy and feeling productive and having a sense of doing something useful for the greater good. This could be for your future.

http://www.pinterest.com/ragingrhetoric/david-foster-wallace/

But the fact of the matter is this: your value does not come from your accomplishments or the work you put into your career, because to feel valuable from that is only going to lead to disappointment. And thus when Tyler Durden said, “You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your fucking khakis. You’re the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world,” we all felt a tug in our chest because we heard some truth in his revolutionary strain of thought.

http://www.quotesforbros.com/24-fight-club-quotes-sayings-images/

On days that I do not work or lie around trying to relax, I feel restless as well as uncomfortable that I am being idle as well as lazy. There’s an unfulfilled desire to work in order to feel useful. But sometime in the near future, I’ll retire and I’ll set down my body and forget the rhythm of the day to day work force. And I suppose the logical thought at that point would be, so where does your value come from then?

Our value is not from our work, what we end up doing or what our company has done. It is not the hours we spend talking to clients or earning our salary.

I am not my work, nor am I a student or a double major in English and Communication. I am not what my work comes from.

It does not make my identity.

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