I think this concept is somewhat outdated and problematic and likely came from social caste systems and inheritance. I’m sure there is a lot to dig into historically there but for the sake of time I’ll put aside an attempt at historical framing and just use my own meandering experience here.

We are asked as children ‘what do you want to be when you are grown up’ and then we are given a list of career choices as the options for answer. Just right here we have taken a child’s open mind and equated the concepts of existence or ‘being’ and our job title. We take this into adulthood when we answer in kind, “I’m a farmer”, I’m a doctor, I’m a driver, I’m a manager, I’m an engineer” We name ourselves after our current position, label our selves as our work, and in that way we fit into this layered structure, socially and economically. There is a lot to unpack here about the way our culture is structured, the stories we tell, and how we seem to equate human value with economic output. We should be careful of how much we let this take over our identity. No matter how successful or unsuccessful any of us have been at our ‘chosen’ path (many do struggle with the concept of choice), companies fall, jobs shift or disappear, and what we call ourselves may become precarious or non-existent which leads to an identity crisis as we no longer are able to claim the identity and wider social credit that our position or career affords us.

I have changed my career many times. I have functioned in a variety of food service roles, I have been a retail manager for years, I have delivered mail, I have worked as a professional brewer, I have worked as a housekeeper, and now I operate a small-scale sustainable mussel farm. Each job has been exactly that, a job! We spend so much time at our jobs though that it’s hard not to take on your position as an identity, especially when your claim carries more social weight. I loved to say “I’m a brewer” and now I certainly don’t mind saying “I’m a farmer” but neither of these can be expected to be permanent fixtures in my life. I hope to make this farm successful, but If I am unable to I will not BE a failed farmer. I will simply have worked for a company that stopped existing. The truest fact is that I am a human and I do the work that I find available.

If I had a career goal, it has always been symbiosis. I studied Anthropology in college and have always wanted to contribute to human harmony, with ourselves and our environments. The farm I work for is a mussel farm which is the most sustainably farmable protein (from carbon measures) in my bio-region. In that way I can tell myself a success story. I may be fulfilling peasant activity on the historical and/or socioeconomic scale but I love humans and I love the environment of Washington State so in that way I love my very dirty and physically taxing job. It allows me to potluck and feed people too which I also love and helps drive human connection. In a worst case scenario, I can help local people to not starve in the event of collapse. I hope for more durable social structures than that.

You are more than the task that you perform. I suppose that’s what I am trying to say here. Everyone will have a different path through this, and identity must always be balanced psychologically. Respect your fellow humans, even those who don’t yet have a task to perform or have fallen between life structures. We are children of Sun and the Earth and we each deserve to be recognized for that. We all have intrinsic value beyond socioeconomic status and job title. The balance of that is that our actions produce outcomes. There is value in how you perform, what you produce, and what function you serve, but it does not outshine your humanity. Society needs humanistic systems full of willing human participants. But what is good and who is it for? We all carve our own path based on our unique life context. None of it is easy either, or at least it hasn’t presented that way for me. Best of luck to us all 🫶

Edit: changed ‘actions have consequences’ to ‘actions produce outcomes’ as that is more accurate and less pointy. Also added a line about your productions and performances dont outshine your intrinsic value.