Redefining Success: Beyond Your Job Title

In the modern world, our job titles tend to be the centerpiece of our identities. When you meet someone new at a social gathering, the first piece of information that they will likely disclose to the question ‘what do you do?’ is the details of your chosen profession.

Your answer to this question will dictate how you will be perceived by others.

If you tell your new acquaintance that you have a senior or executive level position at a high performing business, you will be met with praise and admiration. You are someone who went to elite universities, wears trendy suits, sleeps in posh hotels and works late hours – the epitome of a success story. People will flock towards you with great interest and enthusiasm. You are seen to have high status, and in their eyes, your efforts should be celebrated.

On the other hand, if you tell this new acquaintance that you are a blue-collar worker in a low to medium paying career, getting dirty and working with your hands, chances are that you’ll be met with disinterested emotionless faces. People may be much less enthusiastic to learn about the specifics and nuances of your life.

Leonardo Dicaprio from the The Wolf of Wall Street

What I want to explore in this article is to assess why we place so much of our self-worth on a single piece of information – our job titles. Yes, I agree that ‘making it to the top’ of the career ladder is a great achievement. Work can also provide a sense of price and source of meaning.

However, I think that our careers should not subsume one’s whole identity.

What about one’s hobbies, intellectual pursuits or more importantly one’s character. There surely matter – don’t they?

You Are Not Your Job

Objectification is when our humanity and uniqueness is reduced down to a single characteristic or trait. In a hyper-efficient productivity driven society, the complexity of intricacies of our individuality can often be limited to our role in the economic system. This can happen on both sides of the employment relationship. Namely, when someone views an employer or employee as an instrument or tool to achieve their desired economic objectives.

The issue with this type of mindset is that it can lead to stress, burnout and a dissatisfaction in life. We become confined to a singular identity. Friendships or familial relationships are neglected as we become constricted by our work.

We try to distract ourselves from an existential void that cannot be filled by possessions or materialist notions of success.

Status Anxiety

It is human nature to constantly compare ourselves to others. The advent of digital technologies have given us many more ways to judge ourselves against our peers. Browsing our smartphones, we may get envious of the seemingly perfect lives that our friends from high school have crafted. Our self-worth and self-esteem take a hit when we come to the belief that they are higher on the imaginary ladder of success than we are.

The philosopher Alain de Botton coined the term Status Anxiety to describe the fear of being labelled as ‘unsuccessful’ by others or looked down upon. He claims that those who don’t attain our societies conception of success are anxious with the fear that they’ll be judged by others with a lack of dignity or respect. They see themselves as failures who’ve lost in the competitive game of the free market.

But why conform to the expectations of others.

Why not craft your own path?

Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.
Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety

Redefining Success

There are at least two problems with modern society’s proclivity towards defining success in merely economic terms.

The first is that it negatively impacts one’s physical and mental health. If one finds meaning and purpose only through work, they are then inclined to work unreasonably long hours and make unrealistic sacrifices for their jobs. In a strange reversal of ideals, working late hours and ‘burning the midnight oil to the point of exhaustion’ has become to be seen as a badge of honour. Busyness is now a status symbol, something that high achievers and self-help gurus boast about on their social media accounts. While this may seem honourable, we all have productivity thresholds. That is, there will come a point when working more hours will lead to less productivity. You will make more mistakes. Remember we are humans, not machines.

The second issue with the mainstream view of status and accomplishment is that it restricts the freedom of the individual. People should have the autonomy to define what success means for them. Rather than merely accepting the social expectations placed on you by others, we can always make the decision about what goals, values and ambitions we would like to achieve.

Perhaps what is most important to us is our religious or spiritual practice, family life, a passion project or our work dedicated to a social cause that we deeply care about. The point is that there are many paths towards contentment. You have to find what resonates with you.

Breaking Free

You are not your job. You’re not how much much you have in your bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet.
Chuck Palahniuk , Fight Club

External things don’t define a person. Most likely, you won’t be remembered by your relative status compared to others or the contents of your CV. In the final analysis, your relationships and how you treat others will likely take precedence over your career.

People will come to judge you by your actions, character and virtues. That is, who you are as a human being.

Escaping the Rat Race: Lessons from Buddhist Thought

Republishing this article with edits, as it aligns with similar themes in the Work and Leisure series

As humans we spend most of our lives in a state of perpetual craving and desire. We land a big promotion at work, but soon fantasize about continuing to move up the corporate ladder. We become consumed by discontent and dissatisfaction as we constantly compare our social standing to that of our peers. Wealth, status and power are engrained in our cultural ethos. However, all these pursuits are elusive. The temporary pleasure that we receive from these aims quickly fades as we relentlessly try to fill the void.

Psychologists call this phenomenon the ‘hedonic treadmill’ (also known as the hedonic adaptation). The concept states that despite the events we experience (positive or negative), we always revert back to our ‘baseline’ level of contentment or happiness. While we may feel initial euphoria after experiencing something pleasurable, diminishing returns kicks in and we soon crave for more. Look at the surprising fortune of lottery winners. Many think that if only I could I win the lottery than surely all my problems could be solved. They imagine this would enable them to live a carefree life of eternal bliss.

Despite these fantasies, this reality is quite different. One study demonstrated that lottery winners were not any happier than those who did not win the lottery 18 months after wining. The excitement and dopamine rush that you once felt when you won soon fades. Moreover, the grand lifestyle that you become accustomed to inhibits you from finding joy in the everyday mundane aspects of life. The same is true of attaining other milestones in life such as winning a championship or getting a promotion.

Yuval Noah Harari summarizes this sentiment in his book Sapiens,

When the mind experiences something distasteful it craves to be rid of the irritation. When the mind experiences something pleasant, it craves that the pleasure will remain and will intensify. Therefore, the mind is always dissatisfied and restless. This is very clear when we experience unpleasant things such as pain. As long as pain continues we are dissatisfied and do all we can to avoid it. Yet even when we experience pleasant things we are never content. We either fear that pleasure might disappear, or we hope that it will intensify.

As I argued in my previous article, our desire for pleasure makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. Humans need a signal to motivate them to ensure their survival, to eat, to reproduce pass on their genes to the next generation. Yet our inability to detach from pleasure and our longing for more is one of the main causes of human misery. It is synonymous to being on a treadmill, running faster and faster, yet going nowhere.

So the question remains – how does one end this cycle of discontent and get off the ‘hedonic treadmill’? One piece of wisdom comes from the Siddhartha Gautama, also known as the Buddha. He taught that we ought to accept things as they are without craving. Refrain from immediate intuitive judgements about our experience, and let things be as they will be. For instance, if we experience something pleasant, be cognizant of the fleeting nature of this emotion and do not be distressed when it passes.

To achieve this state of mind the Buddha developed a set of mediation techniques which were aimed at allowing one to be aware of the contents of their consciousness and focus on the present moment. While it comes in many forms the most common form of meditation is ‘mindfulness meditation’ in which one pays attention to their present experience using the breath as an anchor. One will quickly realize the inherent chaos and noise in their minds. In meditation the task is straight forward, acknowledge the thought and return back to the breath. However, as many who have attempted meditation know it is far too easy to get distracted and lost in thought.

What this practice allows us to do is to detach from our thoughts, emotions and yearnings. It enables us to see the futility of our efforts to intensify or extend pleasure. In Buddhism, the ultimate goal of these meditation techniques is to achieve a state called ‘enlightenment’. Enlightenment is a state of mind in which an individual is liberated from the ego, the constant ‘mental chatter’ and from the cognitive and emotional distortions that are so pervasive in our day to day experience.

As Joseph Goldstein states, it is “the mind of non-clinging, non-fixation, nonattachment to anything at all. It’s the mind of open groundlessness.” Attaining enlightenment doesn’t require us to achieve a particular goal or chase after an experience. Rather, it is available to us when our minds are grounded in the present moment, and we are liberated from our ego.

The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves
Alan Watts

Interview with Mindfulness Teacher Paula Vital: Getting in the Right Relationship with Work

To help us navigate the increasingly blurred lines between work and home life, I interviewed mindfulness teacher Paula Vital to provide her insights and advice on how to regain a greater sense of balance and perspective.

1. How would you define a healthy work/life balance?

I prefer using the term ‘balance in life.’ Life balance is about being clear on what you would like to achieve with your life. It is about acknowledging your priorities and organizing your time in a way that helps you work towards those goals.

Spending a lot of time at work can become unproductive and unhealthy when it becomes an unconscious choice.

The key is to be aware of your intentions and establish the right balance for yourself when it comes to different aspects of your work and home life.

2. In the age of remote work it is difficult to establish concrete boundaries between work and home life. What is some advice you can offer to help us disconnect from our work, and how can we prevent overwork or burnout?

It is important to be transparent and ensure that there are clear boundaries within your organization. In a hyper connected world, the ability to disconnect is important to maintain one’s mental and physical health.

Government or workplace policy can assist in making the line between work and home life clearer. An example of this is recent legislation in Ontario, Canada which requires employers to develop policies and expectations for employees to disconnect from e-mails and calls outside of regular work hours.

Openness and clear communication are also significant when letting your employer know about your physical and mental health boundaries.

It can sometimes be seen as a badge of honour to work long hours late into the night, and shame can set in for those who don’t fulfill these societal expectations. However, research indicates that this has a negative effect on both productivity and on the quality of your work.

Time to recharge is therefore not only beneficial for our mental health but also benefits our organization.

3. In the modern age, it is so easy to get caught up with never ending to-do lists. We are always busy and on the go. How can we reclaim meaningful leisure time? What leisure activities do you engage in to help recuperate from work?

We need to alternate between states where we are ‘goal or task oriented’ and states of spontaneity or ‘flow’.

Leisure that is rejuvenating and refreshing for me involves pursuing activities which allow me to cultivate a degree of presence and embodiment. It is being grounded in the present moment and doing things not because I care about the outcome per say, but rather for the sake of themselves.

A way to break through the mindset of productivity and efficiency is to practice spontaneous movement and non-linear movement.

Sometimes our best thoughts and ideas come when we least expect it.

4. How does mindfulness and contemplative practice, or more generally the time you spend outside of work, fit into your idea of the ‘good life’?

It is often thought that we have to achieve a certain goal or milestone in life to be happy. However, we seldom realize that happiness and contentment is available to us in each and every moment. Being mindful and present can turn any seemingly mundane task, such as washing dishes, into an act of joy.

Our desires for fame, status and fortune often reveal a deeper yearning for affection, love and recognition. As the acclaimed actor Jim Carey said,

I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.

We should always ask, how are we defining ourselves?

If we step back and look at the earth, we can see how we are all closely interconnected to other humans as well as to nature in general. This perspective can inspire us to feel connected to something greater than ourselves and motivate us towards a life of service.

You can view a previous interview with Paula on mindfulness here: A Mindful Approach to Uncertainty: An Interview with Mindfulness Teacher Paula Vital – A Life of Virtue: Philosophy as a Way of Life

To learn more about her work through her free course of 3 Minute Meditations: 3 Minutes to Your Greatest Self check out her website www.livethepresent.ca.

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