Think about it: You walk into a room where no one knows your title, achievements, or what you do for a living. Who are you in that room?
For most of us, the answer is unsettling. Losing a job often means losing the number 1 thing around which we’ve built our identity.
Psychologist Carl Jung believed that the human psyche is made of masks, basically, personas we wear to navigate the world. For many of us, our work is our primary mask. Strip that away, and we’re left staring into the unknown, asking: Who am I without it?
It’s a tough question, but it’s also a powerful one. And the answer could reshape your life.
Your job owns you more than you think.
The discomfort of losing a job goes beyond losing money or routine. It comes from the stories we’ve believed about ourselves for years.
Sociologist Erving Goffman coined the term “role engulfment” to describe how a single role, like your job, can dominate your entire identity. When that role disappears, the sense of who you are gets uprooted.
Think about it:
When someone asks, “What do you do?” how do you answer?
How often do you equate your worth with your productivity?
This connection between identity and work runs so deep that losing your job can feel like losing your foundation. The real question is what remains and what you’ve shaped from it.
And here’s the hard part: If your job defines you, losing it will break you.
Your job isn’t your purpose. Stop pretending it is.
“Man is not made for defeat,” Ernest Hemingway once wrote. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
But what happens when the “destruction” is self-imposed, when we tie our self-worth to external titles and achievements?
Strip away your title. What’s left?
Let’s flip the script. Instead of seeing job loss as an end, consider it a beginning. This is your chance to rebuild your identity from the inside out.
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