Finding Identity and Purpose While Losing Our Jobs
So, what do you do?
This is one of the most commonly asked questions in American society. You can hear it spoken during conversations between strangers at parties, networking events, bars, and long waits. Second to our clothing choices, it’s probably the easiest way for us to categorize someone new. Doctor or lawyer? Probably makes good money, drives a BMW, educated, married with kids. Musician or artist? Probably broke, recreational drug user, rides the bus, showers optional.
The ubiquitous question of our employment status is either the cause or result of how we tend to wrap our identities around our jobs. For most employed Americans, our jobs consume the majority of our waking hours. Jobs put food on our tables and keep the lights on. Work is the primary reason we wake up to the annoying sound of an alarm clock.
For many people, a job also provides a profound sense of purpose. As fast food workers or mechanics or executives or pilots, we have some purpose in life — feeding America, fixing cars, managing companies, flying planes. If we’re lucky, we can make money doing it, and maybe even enjoy it. Of course, there are other great purposes in life, like parenting or helping the poor. But if someone in a social situation asks you what you do, the assumption is they’re asking about how you make a living — not why.
So, what happens when the answer in that context is, Nothing?
As a result of the coronavirus epidemic, millions of Americans are unexpectedly finding themselves unemployed. In some cases, this is temporary, as furloughed workers are simply waiting to go back to work once stay-at-home restrictions are lifted. But in other cases, their employers have gone out of business, or their own companies have been forced to fold. An untold number of people will have to start over or professionally reinvent themselves completely to survive.
Even more distressing than the tangible loss of income or shuttering of a storefront is the psychological toll of losing a huge chunk of your identity and purpose. I know, because it happened to me fifteen years ago.
As 2005 approached, I had a great military career in the Air Force as a Special Agent. I was doing all sorts of cool stuff like counterintelligence and counterterrorism, and I fashioned myself to be a real badass. I loved it when people asked me what I did because their shocked and impressed reactions were always so deliciously predictable.
Then in January of that year, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and medically retired from the Air Force five months later. I was a newlywed with no job, an incurable disease, and a very uncertain future. If someone would have asked me at that time what I did, I would have broken down in tears and replied that I didn’t know.
This brings me to discuss another (and more existential) question: Who are you? Not many people ask this question, and understandably so — especially now. Who are we if we’re not teachers or plumbers or engineers or accountants? How much of our human identity is superglued to our jobs, and how much of our purpose in life hinges on the next promotion or that bigger office down the hall?
Fifteen years later, I’m asking myself these questions all over again. Back then, I got on my feet quickly as an intelligence analyst, author, and prominent subject matter expert. I eventually started using a wheelchair, then traveling solo after my divorce. I’m now an award-winning travel writer and photographer, and run my own travel agency. My identity and purpose have largely been wrapped around advocating for safe accessible travel for wheelchair users.
In case you haven’t heard, none of us are going anywhere any time soon. My travel blog and agency business are dead in the water, and I have no photos or stories to feed my social media channels. I have two amazing adolescent children, but they mostly live with their dad, and are doing their distance learning there. I recently started venturing into TV and commercial auditions, and even got cast for a travel-related project. That’s all on hold. I have two books that are half-finished and a dozen blog posts that need to be written, yet these are the first words I’ve typed in over a month. For the first time in a long while, I find myself without purpose, and if you look at my rumpled pajamas and Netflix watch history, it shows.
I’m one of the lucky ones. Travel will eventually pick up, and clients will start calling again to book trips. I’ll board a plane or cruise ship at some point, and have new material for my blog. I can still maintain the identity of writer or disability advocate if someone asks me what I do. But in the midst of fear, illness, panic, and uncertainty, is that who I want to be? Can digging into who we really are help us form a more authentic identity separate from our jobs as we emerge from this pandemic? And can we develop a purpose more profound than showing up for work?
If you’re looking for solid answers from me, I’m sorry to disappoint. It’s not easy to take a hard look within to find palatable answers to small-talk questions, and I’m doing this again for the second time. For now, I know who I am. I’m a strong woman, a thinker, a loving mother, an overcomer of challenges, and a cheerleader for the vulnerable. As for what I do, I know that I laugh a lot. I smile at strangers. I relish my mastery of sarcasm, and I like helping other people. I try to be an example for my kids, and for the wheelchair community.
I don’t know about you, but that sounds a lot like purpose.
About the Author: Sylvia Longmire is an award-winning accessible travel writer, a service-disabled Air Force veteran, and the former Ms. Wheelchair USA 2016. She travels around the world, usually solo, in her power wheelchair to document the accessibility of her destinations through articles, photography, and video. Sylvia is also the owner of an accessible travel agency, President of the nonprofit scholarship fund The PreJax Foundation, and a staunch advocate for accessibility in Central Florida. She is a brand ambassador for O, The Oprah Magazine, the author of three accessible travel books, and the creator of the Spin the Globe accessible travel blog.
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