Why Doesn't It Matter To Me If My Work Impresses People

Don't let the role you play in life make you forget who you are." ~ Roy T. Bennett

Everywhere I go I meet new people, they ask me, "What are you doing?"

I like to talk about what I do because I love what I do, but It’s not always what I do, and it’s certainly not everything I am. It’s part of who I am, but there’s so much more.

When we were young, we were asked to decide for a job. You know, the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" The problem is, does anyone in high school really know what they want to do for the rest of their lives? I would like to say that most high school kids don't even know who they really are right now.

When I was growing up, I got into direct education, an athlete, I wanted perfection, and I was overreacting. I learned at an early age that doing well was my ticket to feeling worthwhile. My accomplishments earned me the respect and admiration of many and gave me what I needed to feel happy.

Verification.

As a senior in high school, it was natural for me to choose to go to aerospace engineering college. I was interested in airplanes, but more importantly, when I told others about my decision, they nodded in agreement. A smart girl has to choose “smart work,” right?

Confirmation and approval pushed me forward.

After graduating from college with a BS in aerospace engineering at the University of Minnesota, I went to work for The Boeing Company in Seattle, Washington. I didn't like it. Part of it may have been homesickness, or the terrible weather of Seattle, but for the most part it was the life of the company cubicle that was not mine.

I thought something was wrong with me. After all, I had worked hard to reach this point in my life. I should love it, right? Have I not yet reached the end?

I fought it hard because on the other hand, I was afraid to go to work. On the other hand, when I told people what I was doing for a living, they just leaned on and listened. Even my own father was proud to talk about my engineering career and that I work for one of the top aerospace companies in the world, but since I moved to lesser-known jobs, he never once asked me about those efforts.

My work looked good and interesting and impressive on paper, but I was dying silently inside.

My husband and I eventually traveled all over the country to Savannah, Georgia, where I worked for another major aerospace company - Gulfstream Aerospace. I didn’t feel really different about my position there, until I transferred to a group called Sales Engineering.

In this area, I have been able to collaborate and collaborate with sales and marketing to create technical data that they will use to deploy Gulfstream vessels to potential customers. I enjoyed the challenge, but I really enjoyed working with other people who weren’t buried on their computers all day. It was at this point that I began to realize that I had a lot of fun with other people.

When my first child was born, I left the aerospace industry. We had just moved across the country and were going to Los Angeles, and it really made sense to me to be a full-time mother as I was not a breadwinner, and we didn't need a second income at all. Also, I didn’t like the whole engineering gig and, so in a sense, it was a way out.

Quitting a job I didn't like, on the other hand, was a relief. But on the other hand, apart from that layer of reassurance that kept piling up every time someone asked me “What are you doing for a living?”, I felt naked. I felt worthless. I felt like a loser in a real world.

My identity was wrapped up in my work that looked good on paper but didn’t feel good in my soul.

My ex-husband is a lawyer, and we went to events with many other lawyers and highly educated people. At these events, I was afraid of the question "So, Kortney, what are you doing?"

My response was always a little embarrassing, almost apologetic.

"I live at home with our son."

There has often been a slow crash, with an interest in hypocrisy, as if they were not sure what else to say about a stay-at-home mom.

Because I had a side-gig photography business, I could quickly add, "and I'm a photographer too."

That used to gather more interest.

“But I used to be an aerospace engineer,” I continued, with the final effort to get the approval I really wanted.

Bingo. Alarm bells rang. The crowd is excited. People are also brought back after something exciting.

That good friend, a normal old man, the confirmation was back.

I struggled for a long time to get my identity without all the “stuff” out there. It wasn't until I got divorced and I had to think about how I was going to support myself financially after my partner's support ended when I scratched myself "Who am I, really?"

Who am I besides my work, what I have accomplished, the external validation?

All those years, I have been living on one foot in the world of wanting to love myself for who I am rather than what I have done with one foot in the world to do more, to do better, to do EVERYTHING.

I lived between the realms of self-assurance and external verification.

I knew I wanted the first one, but I wanted the latter.

By working to find out who I really am, learning to love myself completely, and being able to prove myself without outside help, I realized that I was always asking the wrong questions.

As a society, we ask the wrong questions.

Instead of asking our children, "What do you want to be when you grow up?", I think we should ask ourselves, "Who do you want to be?"

Shouldn't we all want to be what we are?

Instead of pursuing goals that appeal to us because it brings us praise and attention, what if we were to pursue our goals?