For many of us, work has been a defining part of our identity for as long as well, we’ve been working. It’s been a quick way to build ourselves up or sadly, tear ourselves down. It’s been a shortcut to size others up, too. For better or worse, having the great job with the corner office OR not having meaningful or appropriate work has impacted how we see ourselves and each other.

Depending on who you ask, post-COVID work has been better – more remote and self-employment opportunities that allow for flexibility and balance, or worse – less connection between us, more layoffs, less employer loyalty, and difficulty separating work and home life due to the very remote work others may celebrate.

How “work” looks has changed, starting with our workplaces. For example, in the corporate world, where cubicles and offices were, now there are makeshift desks in dining rooms, or shared desks on mostly-vacant office floors. There are fewer boardrooms and more virtual ones, fewer suit pants and more pajama ones. In some ways COVID has been an equalizer – position or status didn’t protect people from job loss or change, not to mention illness. In some cases, it shifted priorities and zoomed in on health and self-care.

For the most part, we’re still evolving. Yes, some industries have bounced back seemingly to the before-COVID days (is that a good thing?). And yes, work remains important - it’s how we earn income to meet our needs and acquire our wants (when we’re lucky). It’s what we do. But work is not necessarily “the” source of connection and identity anymore. That is, I think, something to celebrate as well as something to mourn.

So, letting go of being a “fill in the blank” first and foremost may be good – scary and confusing and yes still, good. What about you? Have you evolved into a new version of yourself based on the changed world we live in, or are you still grieving an identity or station in life that no longer exists? What do you need to reconcile who you were with who you are now if anything? If identifying ourselves so effortlessly by our work no longer fits, we must ask ourselves, “Who and what else am I?” Is “What do you do?” the right opening anymore, or was it ever? Perhaps it’s time for a new salutation. But what?