50% of your waking hours are spent at work. The person you are revolves around your working hours, the problems you solve the concerns you have, the money you make the persona you display at work.

Saying you are not your work is wishful thinking. Try giving it up and check in on how much of you is still the same.

Maybe you wish to be more than your working self. That’s honorable and desirable. Just declaring it isn’t going to cut it though.

> Saying you are not your work is wishful thinking. Try giving it up and check in on how much of you is still the same.

I retired a few years ago, and I believe and insist that I am very much the same person.

To see a person only as what they do at work seems awfully limiting. Even when I was working, I was also a sailor, musician, woodworker, home brewer, cat person, chess player, leather guy, and a good number of other things. And yes, even after retiring, I am still a computer guy. I even like hobby coding projects more than I did.

I only ever feel like "me" when I'm not at work. I work in retail, and every minute I'm at that job I feel my soul dying just that little bit more. But I go there because I like to not starve, which by the way I've done and lemme tell ya: it ain't fun.

Beyond this, you are what you do.

And you are what you do for other people.

Besides providing support and entertainment for our friends and families, the concrete things we do that bring value to society are through our jobs.

Society doesn't run on hanging out or hobbies.

I'd only become more "me" if I stopped working. Work isn't a place I go to self actualize, it's a place I go to earn money to do the things I want to do.

This idea that you are not your job is ridiculous because of the amount of time that you spend at your work. And it’s not just fifty of your waking hours, right? There’s also time spent preparing for, commuting to, and winding down from that work. And also, you know, how much of your work are you doing in the shower? It stains the rest of your life; it soaks into everything.

This concept goes hand in hand with...

(oh, to say nothing of the many years of your life dedicated to developing this vocation through school and training or whatever. So it’s not just hours of the day; it’s years of your life that revolve around developing this vocation. It’s deeply disingenuous to suggest that it’s possible to separate yourself meaningfully from your vocation. Frankly, it’s insulting—to suggest that such separation is possible or even preferable, or to judge people for failing to separate their vocation from their identity when it’s impossible.

It makes me think of some of the impossible requirements placed on women: that they not be too slutty while at the same time not wearing a hijab or being too conservative. They get pressure from both sides, and there’s very little space, if any, that goes unjudged or unremarked upon. Having children too early, too late, or not at all—women will get flack from one corner of society or another. Likewise, workers get flack for overidentifying with their vocation, but it’s really impossible to extricate ourselves from it. For that reason, I find the whole idea offensive.)

...this concept of not making friends at work—or of distinguishing between your “work friends” and your “real friends.”

People tell me, “Your manager is not your friend. Your co-workers are not here to be your friends. You shouldn’t expect loyalty from them.” And okay, I get that. I understand the economic realities; I’ve had co-workers say things like, “Hey, I agree with you on this one, but I have a mortgage. I have kids in college. So I’m not going to speak up. I’m not going to join you in this complaint or in this effort to improve working conditions.”

I understand there are real economic constraints on the friendships, the loyalty, and the relationships that we establish in the office. I’ve also had co-workers who were loyal, empathetic, caring, honest, earnest—decent, good people—and they were groomed for management in a way that basically meant that once a week they’d be taken into a room and grilled about everyone else’s behavior. They were made into unwilling spies, and that has a chilling effect on the depth of friendships you can create. What’s tragic about that is, as I said at the start, because so much of our lives are dedicated to our vocation, the fact that we cannot establish meaningful, trusting, loyal relationships—that we’re forced to snitch on and betray one another—is a stunning, fundamental, disgusting injustice.

It’s an enormous violation of human liberties and possibilities. It is an utterly debased compromise that we’ve made as a society, one that wrecks us. It is a deeply troubling flaw in our foundation—that the majority of our hours, days, and years are dedicated to an environment where mutual trust and free association are fundamentally compromised.

> 60% of your waking hours are spent at work.

More like 15% of you work from home for a small company and shut the fuck up about wanting to be a career man. If you're not a homo consumator and play your cards right that's enough to check out of the corporate life before 45