I was thinking... Jobs

After struggling for weeks trying to write my thesis, once I was done with it, I lapsed into thinking nothing. My brain was free; no worries for the next day, no deadlines, no meetings, no more running participants and adjusting your schedule for the day according to them. And I enjoyed my new-found liberation by doing mundane things, such as riding the bus, doing my laundry, packing my suitcases (although I should say that was still a 4/10 on the stressful scale), watching shows online and reading. Nevertheless, I relapsed into thinking again at some point, but this time it was borderline philosophical: It wasn't about what I had to do in the next few hours, but in general what my life would be or could be like in the future.

Estimating from my performance and stress level scale in the past 2 months, the future is nowhere near a fun party, but rather a life-long performance that mostly asks you to sit on your ass and stare at pixels on something-inch rectangular frames. When you're in standing position, you mostly have to walk in anxious, hurried steps to wherever you have to make it, on time. Or stand in desperation in public transportation. Or if you've sat on your ass enough to afford the luxury, then ride in a fancy car, stuck in terrible traffic.

Well it's no wonder why we work our asses off: money. The strongest secondary reinforcer of our lives that enables us to buy all the other reinforcers that we want and need. I am in no position to cast doubt on the importance of money, but my wanderings were more about what usually is associated with money: jobs.

When you're born, your parents give you a name, and everybody usually calls you that. Or you might have a nickname, same thing. Basically, you are just a name. When people describe you, they say your name and they might also say something about how you look and your character. Perhaps these times when you're just a name (usually between the ages of 0-7) is when you're a person in your purest form, physically, mentally, emotionally (as we know and assume), (but) even occupationally. Because once you turn 7 and you are sent to primary school, perhaps the first innocent step towards a lifelong (literally) working, or even maybe for some, suffering is taken. Because once after you turn 7, you cannot just be a name; you will always strive to be something else, other than just your simple name. (Of course, for some this might start a little earlier or later, but it starts for everyone at some point.)

This fight for an occupation, status or position, whatever you call it is so fierce and demanding that the society even has a title for those who do not care to have a title. You could be an "unemployed Alfie", "homeless Harry" or "stay-home Stan". But you can never simply feel proud of all the good adjectives that meant so much as you were growing up. Being just (the good-old) "good Gaby" does not earn you applause anymore, you'd rather be the "good housewife Gaby" or  maybe "sweet stewardess Sally". It is also incredible to me that we are pulled into this competition, which underestimates our simple name and identity, so discreetly; we never question its necessity, and for those that do we do have a not-so-coveted -ist title: anarchist.

And many a times, having as many of these new shiny titles as possible is associated with money and fame. Think of the times you wikied a person and they were: a singer, recording artist, designer, writer, entrepreneur and an actress (i.e. Madonna) and you let out a little "Wow!" at how that person manages to do it all. There is a reason you wiki that person, they are probably rich and/or famous. But I also wonder if these people actually do have a life, a time when they are free to do anything with no worry about the next day. Of course in the case of some very famous people, it is those people around them who do all the planning and the menial stuff. But for most of us, our work is simply our life and even a significant part of our identity.

I came to think about all this after having read the wikipedia excerpt on Mila Kunis. In explaining why she quit That '70s Show, she mentioned: "[I had] and epiphany. I decided I wasn't going to take my career so seriously and make my job who I am. I just want to be happy with my life." The majority of us let work take over our lives and define who we are. And we accept sleep-depriving, hair-whitening stress as a normal factor of work life. Some of us are even so consumed by work that when given free time for a quite a long stretch of period, we do not know what to do with ourselves.

Should the shiny occupational label be as core to our identity as we make it and take it to be?