#492 – Who would you be if the world didn't shape you?

How much of your Self is molded by external forces and how much is it truly you? And can you even tell the two apart?

Looking for full-time work to support my son's case transfer has me sorting through my unconventional career path. Trying to explain my resume to potential employers, a deeper question emerged: why didn't I pursue writing from the beginning?

In 2003, when I was sure I wanted to write, what made me start working on my linguistics dissertation instead?

Patti Smith's new book, Bread of Angels, gave me one of the answers: like her younger self, I always thought artists were others––not me. Being the daughter of a music-business executive, I assumed I didn't belong in the artist category.

The other answer was: fear. Would I be successful?

When Patti Smith decided to commit to art, she writes, she didn't know whether she had the skills, but committed to develop them.

Me? I thought that if I didn't have the skills right away, that meant I wasn't a writer.

But, like a cross-armed nightclub bouncer, a more prosaic force kept me out of art: I needed to earn money.

Instead of "What do I want to do?," I asked "What will the market pay for?" A PhD sounded credible, marketable. Writing was just a pipe dream.

So I shaped myself into someone the job market would accept.

And when I left soul-crushing, politics-ridden academia, I discovered the job market had no place for a linguist. So I ventured further: coaching, consulting, workshop facilitation. Always asking: what will someone pay me for? Never: what do I want to create?

Only when I stopped requiring writing to earn money did my true Self emerge: I am a writer, unbounded by economic constraints.

Which raises the question: how much of our True Selves is constrained by the demand to survive in a market economy?

What part of you would you drop if you didn't need to pay the bills?

Love,

Carolina