Friday Introductions
The Peek Perspective on Identity Unrelated to Your Job Title
“What do you do [for a living]?”
It’s the first question many people ask when they meet you.
But I bet your job title is not the most interesting thing about you.
Why do we seek so much of our identity in careers, job titles, professional accomplishments? Certainly, we spend a good portion of our time at work, and it is an honorable thing to contribute to society in a meaningful way. Work is good and necessary to survive.
But.
What if we instead defined people by who they are instead of what they do? What if we asked where people find enjoyment in life and what makes them come alive? What experiences have marked their lives in the most impactful ways? I have a feeling we would find more connections and less assumptions about each other.
Who are you?
I’ll go first…
Hi! I’m Leigh. I have 2 middle names. I love being a mom to my 3 young girls and wife of 13 years to my college sweetheart. I love connecting with people’s stories and learning from new perspectives. I’ve left a piece of my heart on 5 continents around the world… I’ve skinny-dipped in the Amazon River, pulled a tribal leader’s teeth in west Africa, swam with elephants in Thailand, watched the sun set over the Aegean sea from a villa on Santorini, and spent a summer loving on orphans in Albania. I’ve stood at the alter as my sister’s Maid of Honor and realized I forgot THE RING. I’ve moved across the U.S. while 7 months pregnant and purchased a house sight unseen. I’ve given birth to 3 daughters without any medication and consider them among the 3 most beautiful experiences of my life. My toxic trait is being late.
I’ve jumped out of a perfectly good airplane over the plains of Oklahoma, run a marathon on the rugged Outer Banks, rode a motorcycle through the Blue Ridge Mountains, and learned to surf in Hawaii. I love Jesus and consider His love to be the greatest gift in my life. I hated college organic chemistry, but pretended to understand it because it was required for pharmacy school admission… I never asked for help, and I nearly failed the entire class.
I once pulled my car over outside the entrance to Target when I saw a screaming pregnant woman being dragged inside by the security team…being detained for shoplifting, but her water had clearly broken…I went toe to toe with the store manager and ultimately called 911. I rarely can remember where I parked my car. I still love snowboarding at the age of (almost) 40.
Oh, and I’m a pharmacist…
See? My job title is definitely not the most interesting thing about me. And yet, ironically, it’s probably the thing many people learn about me when we first meet, upon asking “so, what do you do?”
Sure, my career has shaped my life in so many ways, but it is truly the people I’ve met through my career– the patients and colleagues - who have deeply shaped me… not the skillset I carry or the professional knowledge I have gained.
That summer I spent in Albania, I met a man walking along the beach who heard my American accent and excitedly ran over to practice his English. Our conversation led to his observation of the American lifestyle… “all you do is work, work, work. Americans are ruled by their watches.” I was young, then, and I didn’t fully grasp the depth of his observation. But years later, I tend to agree. Productivity, efficiency, and busyness are king in our culture.
Granted, I am a pharmacist in a profession well-known for productivity, efficiency, and busyness. But…I’m a pharmacist who has been found speechless by witnessing miracles in medicine and also stopped in my tracks at inexplicable losses. I’ve been at the bedside of a precious child taking his final breath and at the celebrations of many others who walked out of the hospital against all odds. A pharmacist who has brushed against death during CPR that didn’t save a mother’s life, and a pharmacist who spontaneously ended up riding in a hospital elevator at work with that previously pregnant woman from Target…over a month after I had dialed 911 on that fateful night.
See? Our stories are all woven together. We aren’t as confined to the boxes we put ourselves in, as we might imagine. It’s the threads that are woven through the people we meet and the experiences we have that define our lives. They may be related to our work/profession/career…but they are far more interesting than our actual job title.
So, who are you? If your job title, educational degree, and your career identity was stripped away, what makes you, you?
I would be willing to bet you are far more interesting than people expect…and I bet it has nothing to do with your job title.
Okay. Here’s your challenge that I’m prescribing for this weekend…
Take 10 minutes to write down a description of yourself that has nothing to do with your job/title/career accomplishments. Write down defining experiences, current hobbies, passions that excite you. Then, the next time you introduce yourself to a new person, avoid the urge to let your initial identity description be your job title…choose something else you wrote down that’s far more interesting.
Ready? Go be you… not the you people expect you to be. The real you outside of the title they already know and the assumptions they may already have.
Nice to meet you,
Leigh