The thing about jobs and careers, though, in this modern industrial society (America, Japan, Europe, etc...) is that they are what society is built on. The capitalist economy dictates that we must work. But we seem to have put too much emphasis on efficiency, profits, and productivity. I know that average Americans and Japanese people are working around 50-60 hours a week now. This is crazy. With lifestyles like this how can our career not be part of our identity? It eats up all our time. Many of us have no more free time able to develop meaningful hobbies or relationships with people. And it's all the more frustrating to many because they are too involved in the game and too locked into the system. If you work all the time, life is gonna lock into a routine and you will be sucked dry. I hope to avoid this in every way possible.
GZA, although you bring up some very good points (which kinda made me pause to think & ponder, honestly) , but my conclusion is the the same as what SuperServal said above.. it is exactly my problem too: with work consumes around 3/4th of our life, how could it not be "part" of our identity? especially for those kind of people who work over-time, until very late at night, and then have to get up again at morning.. I personally just can't, in a century, imagine
why these people would choose to 'crush' their true identity and what they really want, and instead just put all their 'identities' into a job that they
know they dislike.. if it's for money only, I would soon just resign, I don't actually care if I'll starve and stuff like that, "I will survive" , much much better than become a
karoshii (death from overwork, very popular term in Japan).
Worse, is when society, and people around you just identify with you solely, purely just from what you're doing at your job/work, and that's it.
examples: have you ever come to a friends or big-family gathering, only to be asked (or concerned) with these 'boring' questions: "oh hey, so how's ur job?" and when you even half-heartedly answered "oh...yah..it's fine...i guess" , yet people KEPT ASKING you consecutively with more stuff: "oh! i heard the furniture business is now tumbling down...how do you handle that?" or "oh but it surely doesn't affect ur profits, right?" , and the climax is when some people praised me by saying "look at him, he's so succesful, will become rich, he'll definitely get married with beautiful girl, all girls will look up at him bla bla..."
sometimes I feel that I just want to yell at them and say
"I'M NOT LIKE WHAT YOU SEE!!!" , because god I just hate how these people kept viewing me as my job = my identity = I LOVE my job! NO, I don't like my job, in fact, I hate it, I despise it! it's not my *true* identity.
and yet when I play music passionately (which is always been my true passion), I just really hate it when people here said things like "oh how sweet...you really have such a
good hobby!"
my god...."hobby" ?? I've actually always intended to make it as my FULL-time career, but always these pragmatist people just kept saying how I should never - in my sane mind - choose Music as career, because
"it'll definitely make you broke & starving" , that's what they said repeatedly always,.and yet they kept placing such a 'fake' identity in me, by viewing me as a "succesfull furniture Export manager" !
how can i not get irritated by all of that?