I went to see Dr. Strange twice since it has come out last week. The film makes many valid points. I would like to focus on one in this blog today.

Dr. Strange is a surgeon and the best there is and has the ego to go with that. He has a car accident and looses the use of his hands. He tries everything and spends a lot of many as he is very desperate to get back the use of his hands, so he can be a surgeon again. His hands are working, just not to well enough to operate on peoples brains and spines and so on. One night he just finished a Skype call with another surgeon who refuses to operate on him, his girlfriend comes in with food. They have an argument and she tells him that there are other ways to save people than to operate and that there are other things, that can give your life meaning, than your job. This made me think. There are many people that think that their job gives their life meaning and they identify a great deal with what they do for a living. When you go to a party or meet people for the first time, one of the first question they ask is: What do you do for a living? Why is that so important? Does that really tell you something about me?

I guess if your job is a vocation and it full fills you as a person than maybe. But there are millions of people out there who do a job simply to survive and earn money in order to survive or live. There are so many people that, as soon as they retire, get depressed and fall into a black whole, as if they have lost their identity. Why do so many people identify with their jobs? Many jobs can take over your life and who you are. I am very determined to keep my job separate from my identity. I was a teacher before, it is much harder to keep that job separate from my identity, than the one I am doing at the moment. Working in tourism I see a lot of ‘Blue badge guides’ (by far not all of them) who think that piece of blue metal around their necks defines them as a person, why? Shall I start wearing my degrees around my neck? That would be getting to heavy after a while 😉

I’d like to think that my hobbies and interest are what defines me as a person. I’d rather be seen and identified as an amateur writer than a ‘Shore Excursion Executive’, to be honest. I personally think that hobbies and interest define a person more than what they do for a living. There are of course the few lucky ones that can turn their personal interests into a job, for the rest of us still have to earn money the hard way 😉 What do you think?