As AI reshapes careers, a deeper question emerges: Who are you beyond your title?
When identity centers on work, role loss destabilizes meaning, self-worth, and direction.Expanding identity beyond work builds resilience as roles evolve or disappear. In 2006, my husband and I did the thing so many overworked people talk about on vacation and never actually do.
and decided to take a break. Like many people, we had gone somewhere, fallen in love with it, and said, “We could live here.” The difference is that we actually did it. We packed up eleven suitcases and moved from downtown Chicago to the middle of the jungle in Costa Rica. Years later, in 2013, that experience became the basis forWhat feels striking to me now is how relevant that story has become again. What prompted our sabbatical then was burnout. What feels relevant now is that many people are being pushed into a different version of that same reckoning, not by choice, but through disruption.is already changing work in real time. Roles are shifting, narrowing, and even disappearing. While much of the conversation focuses on efficiency and economics, there is a deeper consequence hiding underneath it: for many people, work is not just a job. It is where they have located meaning, structure, validation, andYou would think the hardest part would have been the lack of basic necessities. We did not always have running water. Electricity was inconsistent. There was no point having a phone. After all, we were deep in the rainforest.I had not realized how much of my value had become attached to my title, my work, and the structure of corporate life. Even before we left, I could see it. I remember going to networking events with one foot still in and one foot out. People would ask, “So what do you do?” and I would answer with what I used to do. I would go right back to my old title.I thought moving to the jungle would automatically change my perspective. I thought the distance alone would do the work. But when you are in a place like that, there is no familiar ladder. No achievement structure to lean on. No routine to hide behind.What I was going through was not simply a transition. It was an identity crisis. That is the part I keep coming back to now. I do not think the biggest challenge of AI will be purely operational. Of course there are economic implications. Of course people will need to adapt. But if too much of your sense of self is built around what you do, then when work changes dramatically, it is not just your role that gets disrupted. It is your identity.in the first place. I have always been interested in what happens when a life built around achievement starts to crack. So many people look successful on the outside and yet feel disconnected from themselves on the inside. They are capable, driven, and productive, but they are not living a life that feels meaningful outside of performance. When we came back from Costa Rica, the question for me was no longer, “How do I get back to work?” It was, “How do I build a life where work is part of it, but not the center of it?” Before the sabbatical, work was the bullseye and everything else sat around it. Coming back, I wanted to flip that. I wanted my life at the center and to build work around it in a way that still felt fulfilling.When work structures and titles fell away, our marriage began unraveling dramatically because we did not really know who each other was outside of those identities. I still remember the surprise of reading each other's reflections. It revealed how little we understood each other beneath the roles we had been playing. In the end, that experience helped us reinvent not only ourselves, but how we moved through life with one another. As AI continues to reshape work, I believe more people are going to be confronted with questions they have been able to avoid as long as the machinery of achievement kept humming:What remains true about me when the title falls away? These are not abstract questions. They are deeply psychological ones. And if we do not do some internal work around purpose,A story that began in 2006 still matters now, not because everyone needs to leave their job and move to Costa Rica with eleven suitcases, two cats, and two laptops, but because more people may soon find themselves facing the same underlying challenge:EmailFind a Career Counseling TherapistSelf Tests are all about you. Are you outgoing or introverted? Are you a narcissist? Does perfectionism hold you back? Find out the answers to these questions and more with Psychology Today.
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