“Never let the things that you do, overtake the things that you are.”The statement rang in my ears as a reality check, sitting on stage in the Coliseum, waiting to give a keynote address to 3,000 people on the day before they began one of the most insightful journeys they would ever undertake. Words meant as advice for those who were just starting their college experience, not for someone who had endured through the bulk of theirs. They caught me off guard, as I stood to make my speech, aware of the irony of being asked to speak to a crowd not because of who I was, but because of what I did.
Fast forward to now – I work for a large, publically traded, conservative, well-established company. I design products. I am the quintessential biomedical engineer. And three years later, those words still hang on a wall in my room, a reflection for myself at the end of a day’s work.
I’m an engineer. But also, I’m a daughter. I’m a sister. I’m a dog owner, a friend. A recreational dancer. A passionate football fan and hardcore fan of all things Georgia Tech. And it’s deeper than that. I love city skylines. My least favorite thing in the world is bananas. I flinch when people try to touch my face. I rarely watch TV. I drink green tea in the mornings, and I love (really love) Starbucks vanilla scones. And I have a burning passion to design products to improve health for those whose problems are long forgotten. These are the things that make me, me. These are the things that make my life remarkable, and the things that will make a difference in the world around me. While I love what I have the opportunity to do, it’s (I hope) who I am that will be remembered when I can no longer do it.
The hallmark of my generation is that we’re not willing to give up the things that we are in order to pursue the things that we do. There’s so much research about Gen Y wanting to be engaged in something bigger, from day one. There is no waiting till after 5 o’clock to pursue passions, no paying dues to be able to have an impact 10, 20 or 30 years down the line. There is no concept of “work-life balance”, because life is about both work and life. Ryan Healy says this in a great post on Penelope Trunk’s blog:
“This whole notion of needing to separate work and life implies that your career, which takes up about 75% of your day, is something you simply try to get through so you can go home and do what you really enjoy for the other 25%. What a terrible way to live. … I would never dream of saying I want a Family/Life balance or I want a Friend/Life balance. Is work so terrible that people don't want to consider it a part of their lives?”
Part of building a remarkable life is being able to examine the things you really want, and finding a way to make them work for you. It’s harder to find things we love than it is to find a way to make them work in our favor. But understanding who we are – why we do the things we do – gives us the leverage to use our skill sets to do them, if we have the discipline. Build a career objective that is meaningful, and you can find work that lets you pursue that meaning. Build relationships that are worth having, and you can ways to make them work in the context and circumstance of your life. Build an understanding of the world you want to live in, and find a way to make that world a reality.
None of these things are easy to do. But not knowing enough about ourselves to know that we should be doing them, is near impossible. Don’t work so hard at what you do that you forget the importance of who you are. In the end, it’s the latter that matters most.
0 people have something to say:
New comments are not allowed.