You Aren't What You Do (Even if You Do What You Love)

Editor’s preface: Below is an adapted excerpt from The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work, which goes on sale today. You may recognize the author, Simone Stolzoff, from his monthly Every columns on topics like work-life balance, purpose, and career crossroads.

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For Americans, “What do you do?” is often the first question we ask when we meet someone new. 

Of course, we do all manner of things. But in the United States—and particularly in tech hubs like New York and the Bay Area—how we make money is shorthand for who we are. Our livelihoods have become our lives.

Over the past few decades, work has eclipsed faith and friends as a source of meaning for Americans. When analysts from the Pew Research Center asked Americans what gives their life meaning, respondents were nearly two times more likely to name their career than to name their spouse. Another study found that 95 percent of American teenagers—teenagers!—ranked having a career or job they enjoyed as “extremely or very important to them as an adult.” A fulfilling career ranked higher than any other priority, including making money and helping people in need.

And yet the fetishization of work is not unique to the United States. In an increasingly globalized world, busyness knows no borders. American work culture and management systems are cultural exports as much as Big Macs and Levi’s jeans. Those of you reading this outside of the U.S. know that many of the trends and examples of Americans’ relationship to work echo the experience of workers in other countries, too—especially among the highest earners.