Read the full transcript of writer Simone Stolzoff’s talk titled “How To Reclaim Your Life From Work” at TEDNext 2024 conference on October 23, 2024.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Chilean Encounter
SIMONE STOLZOFF: I once met this Chilean guy at a hostel. “So what do you do?” I asked him. “You mean for work?” he responded, as if I had just asked the color of his underwear.
Identity and Work in America
In the U.S. “What do you do?” is often the first question we ask when we meet someone new. This is drilled into us from an early age. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” we ask our kids, already conflating who we are with what we do, as if our jobs and identities were one in the same.
I think about this a lot. I’m a labor journalist, and I wrote a book called “The Good Enough Job” in which I spoke to over a hundred people about the relationship between their work and their identity. But before I was a professional writer, I was a 22-year-old poetry student trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.
A Poet’s Wisdom
It was around this time that I had the opportunity to interview my favorite writer in the entire world, the poet Anis Mojgani, and so I asked him, “Anis, how do you feel about the mantra ‘do what you love and never work a day in your life?'”
And I’ll never forget what he told me. He said, “You know, Simone, I think some people do what they love for work, and others do what they have to so they can do what they love when they’re not working, and neither is more noble.”
The Identity Crisis
I think that last part is key. We live in a society that loves to revere people whose jobs and identities neatly align. And here was my idol, a professional poet no less, telling me that it’s okay to have a day job.
If we want to develop a healthier relationship to work, we can’t just think about work-life balance in terms of how we spend our time. We have to think about how we construct our identity. What we do is part of, but not the entirety of, who we are.
Let me be clear, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing what you love for work. We work more than we do just about anything else, and how we spend those hours matters. And yet our current relationship to work isn’t quite working. A recent study found that 48% of workers around the globe are burnt out—48%, that’s half this room. Actually, in this room, probably more than half.
The Root of Burnout
And yet the way that we commonly talk about burnout doesn’t address its root cause. There’s a reason why a one-week vacation doesn’t magically cure us. There’s a reason why our intentions to practice self-care and set better boundaries inevitably break down. It’s like we’re shielding ourselves from the Sun with a cocktail umbrella.
Creating Change Through Identity
If we want to actually change our relationship to work, we have to go deeper. It starts with our identity. Certainly, we are all more than just workers. We’re parents and friends and citizens and artists and travelers and neighbors. Much like an investor benefits from diversifying the sources of stocks in their portfolio, we too benefit from diversifying the sources of meaning and identity in our lives.
The Sanctuary of Time
But how do you actually go about doing so? Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel describes Shabbat, the weekly Jewish practice of abstaining from work, as “a sanctuary in time.” I love this image. Rather than a physical sanctuary like a synagogue, Shabbat is a time sanctuary.
So the first step to diversifying your identity is to create those time sanctuaries—spaces in your days, in your weeks, in your life where work is not an option. Unlike mere intentions to work less or set better boundaries, time sanctuaries require infrastructure: putting time on the calendar to learn a new language, putting your phone in airplane mode while you play with your kids, so that work doesn’t expand like a gas and fill all of your unoccupied space.
Cultivating Multiple Identities
The second step is to fill those time sanctuaries with activities that reinforce the other identities you hope to cultivate: the present father, the community gardener, the amateur musician. It may sound simple, but if we want to derive meaning from aspects of our life other than work, we have to do things other than work.
Now, these don’t have to be grand gestures. In the reporting of my book, I spoke to all of these hyper-ambitious workaholics, and they’d say things like, “Diversify my identity? Got it. I’m going to read 52 books this year,” or “I’m going to run an ultramarathon.” We even convert our leisure into other forms of labor.
Starting Small
My advice is to start small. How about a weekly walk with your best friend? Or ten minutes practicing the piano after dinner?
The third step is to reinforce these identities by joining communities who couldn’t care less about what you do for work. For example, I love to play pickup basketball, and one of the benefits of my weekly game is that the people I play with don’t care how many words I’ve written or how many books I’ve sold. They care that I show up on time and that I’m a good teammate. It’s a weekly reminder that I exist on this earth to do more than just produce economic value.
The Business and Moral Case
The irony is that diversifying our identity can be great for business, too. Research shows that people with varied interests tend to be more creative problem solvers and more innovative. Hobbies are one of the best ways to recharge so that you can be more productive when you’re back on the clock.
And a diverse identity can come in handy in the face of a stressful event like a recession or a layoff.