{"id":2254,"date":"2026-03-13T17:50:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T17:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/?p=2254"},"modified":"2026-04-09T09:36:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T08:36:22","slug":"we-are-what-we-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/2026\/03\/13\/we-are-what-we-do\/","title":{"rendered":"We Are What We Do"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\u2019s a quote, (mis)attributed to Aristotle, that begins \u201cwe are what we repeatedly do…\u201d I\u2019ve always like the quote for its resolution – \u201cexcellence, then, is not an act<\/em> but a habit<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lately the first bit, and what it captures about our odd relationship with work, has been on my mind (for probably self-evident reasons<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of us spend most of our time \u201cat work\u201d – it\u2019s literally what we repeatedly do – and for many of us it becomes a defining aspect of self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m a carpenter.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m a lawyer.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m a nurse.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m a software engineer.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s right there, hidden in the contraction. We\u2019re not saying I do<\/em>, we\u2019re saying I am.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, at the same time, most of us look forward to the day we can choose to stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe you\u2019re not \u201cmost of us.\u201d Maybe you\u2019re someone who – like a former colleague of mine – \u201cwould do this [job] for free.\u201d If that\u2019s you, I\u2019m not sure this will make much sense. Sorry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question that\u2019s been rattling around in my head lately is \u201cIf we are what we do, and mostly what we do is work, what are we<\/em> when we\u2019re not working – when we aren\u2019t doing<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grew up in a \u201cvanishing middle class\u201d family. Both my parents spent their working years working \u201cfor someone else\u201d – and nearly all of my friend\u2019s parents did, too – so it\u2019s probably my plebeian background that makes being able to opt out of someone else having claim to most of my time – while continuing to maintain a comfortable lifestyle – feel like an incredible<\/em> luxury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, prioritization was a recurring theme in my up-bringing. It wasn\u2019t always explicitly talked about<\/em> as prioritization, but in retrospect prioritization was the kernel of many of the lessons my parents worked to impart. Time was a scarce and finite resource, so you did what needed<\/em> doing first, and once that was done you did what you wanted with whatever time was left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you don\u2019t eat your meat, you can\u2019t have any pudding. That sort of thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I internalized that lesson really<\/em> well. Maybe too well. I remember times as a kid, being burned out working on some \u201cneeds doing\u201d thing – like homework – and not letting myself take a break. Even though a short break would would likely let me get done faster and better. Because this thing needed doing, and \u201cneeds doing\u201d things come first<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somewhere along the way – probably in college, when all the things that needed doing would overflow the available time – I got more intentional about prioritization. I stopped just thinking about something \u201cneeding doing\u201d and started thinking about what would be \u201cthe best, most valuable, use\u201d of my limited time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was \u201cvaluable\u201d was a bit \u2026 subjective. Learning<\/em> was valuable, so reading<\/em> – even fiction – qualified. So did spending time with friends, almost irrespective of what we did with that time, as long as it was interactive. Watching TV was not valuable (unless it was what Dawnise and I have come to call \u201cedutainment<\/a>\u201d on PBS<\/a>). Ditto video games, which basically never qualified. On the other hand, \u201cneeds doing\u201d things were valuable unless proven otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where did that leave \u201cwork?\u201d It turned out that many of the things I wanted<\/em> to do required money. And since I didn\u2019t have the foresight and fortune to be born into a wealthy family, work<\/em> was how one got money<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the interview questions I used to ask software folks just starting out in the industry was \u201cwhere does your paycheck come from?\u201d It\u2019s not a trick question – the goal was to see if they could turn their mental crank enough to get to some version of \u201cthe work I do is valuable to someone, that someone trades money for that value, and my paycheck is some of that money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So work, by definition, is (must be) valuable. Or, put another way, if the work you\u2019re doing isn\u2019t valuable to someone, you probably won\u2019t be doing it gainfully for long. The Faustian bit is that to get money, you trade time – and the more time you trade for money, the less you have left to do the things the money lets you do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of that comes back around to me, having stepped away from full time work \u201cfor a while,\u201d not having a particularly satisfying answer to the question \u201cwhat do you do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve tried \u201cI\u2019m on a sabbatical,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m taking a career break,\u201d and even \u201cI\u2019m test-driving retirement.\u201d They\u2019re all basically true, and they all trigger the same follow-up: \u201cwhat did<\/em> you do?\u201d which often quickly segues into \u201chow do you fill your time now?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not unreasonable to ask. To try to find some sort of handle on \u201cme.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s surprising, and doesn\u2019t feel entirely reasonable, is my emotional response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question makes me angsty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because, at least right now, all the answers I have fly in the face of a deep seated long standing belief that I should be doing \u201csomething valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turns out I\u2019m basically still that kid. Still struggling to take a break from my homework, despite knowing a break is sensible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m really<\/em> not sure how I fix this. It\u2019s been \u201cme\u201d for as long as I remember. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s right, it just means it\u2019s hard to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the nagging voice in my head is right – perhaps I do<\/em> need to \u201cfind something valuable to do.\u201d Either by deciding that something I want<\/em> to do is valuable, or by finding something that\u2019s valuable and deciding I want to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or perhaps I need to ignore this feeling for a bit and see if it goes away\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a quote, (mis)attributed to Aristotle, that begins \u201cwe are what we repeatedly do…\u201d I\u2019ve always like the quote for its resolution – \u201cexcellence, then, is not an act but a habit.\u201d Lately the first bit, and what it captures about our odd relationship with work, has been on my mind (for probably self-evident reasons). … Continue reading “We Are What We Do”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-the-universe-and-everything"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2254"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2298,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2254\/revisions\/2298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}