Self-Definition
I didn’t ask to be born into a Jewish family, but I did invite a certain amount of guilt into my life when:
- I became a Software Engineer out of college and later a Consultant, two jobs that not only didn’t exist 50 years ago but couldn’t have. I get the sense that my relatives assume that I’m always on the verge of financial ruin because I can’t explain to them what I do for a living in less than 3 words and it’s considered normal for me to lose my job once per calendar year.
- I moved from the suburbs to the heart of Downtown Cleveland, which to them is tantamount in safety to living on a bus in the Gaza Strip.
Their disappointment is palpable, and it doesn’t take a body language expert to discern as much. In reality, I’m far better off now than I was before I became a consultant, but it’s up to me to figure out why that translates to reactions that stop just short of “Ryan, why do you hate your family?”
I’m beginning to understand that part of being a knowledge worker (and an adult, for that matter) in the 21st century is having the courage to disappoint people who care about you, especially when that disappointment is borne out of generational misunderstandings. Because let’s be real: We’re playing a completely different game than our parents were. Time was, you could describe what you did for a living in a word or two, and most of the time people could probably tell that anyway just by looking at the clothes you were wearing.
Not anymore though.
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a Software Engineer.”
“No, but what do you do for a living?”
“I do a different thing depending on where I work. Companies hire me to solve problems for them.”
“No but what do you do?”
“I, uh, make computers do things.”
“Want to come over this weekend and figure out why my Yahoo! Toolbar is crashing my Internet Explorer?”
It’s hard explaining to people living fruitfully off of their 401Ks, pensions, and Social Security that you’ve chosen your career path in part because those things are no longer a promise. It’s even harder explaining that you’ve chosen your career path because you’ve become seriously bored at every full time job you’ve ever had after about a year anyway.
That sort of stuff is hard to explain, but explaining it is now part of my job description, like it or not. Similarly, it’s also a part of my job (as a member of a family) to allay their concerns, misguided or otherwise. That’s something that can only come with time. Maybe—hopefully—in five or six more years, when I still haven’t starved to death and sold the shirt off my back, they’ll see that I was on to something.
Truth be told, I’m still figuring out what that something is myself.