How to reclaim your life from work

I once met this Chilean guy at a hostel.

"So what do you do?" I asked him.

"You mean for work?"

he responded as if I had just asked the color of his underwear.

(Laughter)

In the US, “What do you do?” is often the first question

we ask when we meet someone new.

This is drilled into us from an early age.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

we ask our kids,

already conflating who we are with what we do,

as if our jobs and identities were one and the same.

I think about this a lot.

I'm a labor journalist, and I wrote a book called "The Good Enough Job,"

in which I spoke to over 100 people

about the relationship between their work and their identity.

But before I was a professional writer,

I was a 22-year-old poetry student

trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.

It was around this time that I had the opportunity

to interview my favorite writer in the entire world,

the poet Anis Mojgani.

And so I asked him,

"Anis, how do you feel about the mantra,

do what you love and never work a day in your life?"

And I'll never forget what he told me.

He said, "You know, Simone,

I think some people do what they love for work,

and others do what they have to

so they can do what they love when they're not working.

And neither is more noble."

I think that last part is key.

We live in a society that loves to revere people

whose jobs and identities neatly align.

And here was my idol, a professional poet no less,

telling me that it's OK to have a day job.

If we want to develop a healthier relationship to work,

we can't just think about work-life balance

in terms of how we spend our time.

We have to think about how we construct our identity.

What we do is part of but not the entirety of who we are.

Let me be clear.

I don't think there's anything wrong with doing what you love for work.

We work more than we do just about anything else,

and how we spend those hours matters.

And yet, our current relationship to work isn't quite working.

A recent study found

that 48 percent of workers around the globe are burnt out.

48 percent.

That's half this room.

Actually, in this room, probably more than half.

And yet, the way that we commonly talk about burnout

doesn't address its root cause.

There's a reason why a one-week vacation doesn't magically cure us.

There's a reason why our intentions to practice self-care

and set better boundaries

inevitably break down.

It's like we're shielding ourselves from the sun with a cocktail umbrella.

If we want to actually change our relationship to work,

we have to go deeper.

It starts with our identity.

Certainly, we are all more than just workers.

We’re parents and friends and citizens

and artists and travelers and neighbors.

Much like an investor benefits

from diversifying the sources of stocks in their portfolio,

we, too, benefit from diversifying the sources

of meaning and identity in our lives.

But how do you actually go about doing so?

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel described Shabbat,

the weekly Jewish practice of abstaining from work,

as a sanctuary in time.

I love this image.

Rather than a physical sanctuary, like a synagogue,

Shabbat is a time sanctuary.

So the first step to diversifying your identity

is to create those time sanctuaries,

spaces in your days, in your weeks,

in your life where work is not an option.

Unlike mere intentions to work less or set better boundaries,

time sanctuaries require infrastructure.

Putting time on the calendar to learn a new language,

putting your phone in airplane mode while you play with your kids

so that work doesn't expand like a gas and fill all of your unoccupied space.

The second step is to fill those time sanctuaries

with activities that reinforce

the other identities you hope to cultivate.

The present father, the community gardener,

the amateur musician.

It may sound simple,

but if we want to derive meaning from aspects of our life other than work,

we have to do things other than work.

Now these don't have to be grand gestures.

In the reporting in my book,

I spoke to all of these hyperambitious workaholics,

and they'd say things like, "Diversify my identity. Got it.

I’m going to read 52 books this year.

Or I’m going to run an ultramarathon.”

We even convert our leisure into other forms of labor.

My advice is to start small.

How about a weekly walk with your best friend?

Or ten minutes practicing the piano after dinner.

The third step is to reinforce these identities

by joining communities

who couldn't care less about what you do for work.

For example, I love to play pickup basketball,

and one of the benefits of my weekly game is that the people I play with

don't care how many words I've written or how many books I've sold.

They care that I show up on time and that I'm a good teammate.

It’s a weekly reminder that I exist on this Earth

to do more than just produce economic value.

The irony is that diversifying our identity

can be great for business too.

Research shows that people with varied interests

tend to be more creative problem solvers and more innovative.

Hobbies are one of the best ways to recharge

so that you can be more productive when you're back on the clock.

And a diverse identity can come in handy in the face of a stressful event

like a recession or a layoff.

I spoke to all of these folks for my book who treated their work like their family

and then were unceremoniously let go during the pandemic.

If you are what you do and you lose your job,

who are you?

But in addition to the business case,

there's also the moral case.

If we want to develop more well-rounded versions of ourselves,

if we want to build robust relationships

and live in robust communities

and have a robust society at large,

we all must invest in aspects of our lives beyond work.

We shouldn't just work less because it makes us better workers.

We should work less because it makes us better people.

This isn't just about you and me.

This is about teaching our kids

that their self-worth is not determined by their job title.

This is about reinforcing the fact

that not all noble work neatly translates to a line on a resume.

This is about setting the example

that we all have a responsibility to contribute to the world

in a way beyond contributing to one organization's bottom line.

So the next time you're at a party,

instead of asking someone, "What do you do?"

I encourage you to add two small words to your question.

Instead, ask them,

"What do you like to do?"

Maybe you like to cook.

Maybe you like to write.

Maybe you do some of those things for work.

Or maybe you don't.

But “What do you like to do”

is a question that allows each of us to define ourselves on our own terms.

Thank you.