What Do You Do?

When new people come into the yoga room, I ask them a million questions.

But I never ask them what they do for a living.  

Never.

I’m as curious about other people as anyone, but we’re not supposed to ask that question anymore.

Instead, we’re supposed to ask about their projects or things they’re excited about.

And I approve of this approach. 

Wholeheartedly.

Because I used to be a stay-at-home mom, and this “What do you do?” question bugged the hell out of me. 

Mainly because the image of the stay-at-home mom was one of domestic drudgery: endless dishes, laundry, and carpooling, with no acknowledgment of the subtle skills that went into intelligent parenting.

And even when I got a real-world job with that real-world paycheck, I still got the squirms when I was asked the “What do you do?” question, because that thing that I did, which resulted in that paycheck, never felt like a living. 

It felt like working. 

The living was what came after the working. 

And then I opened the yoga studio—a one-woman operation in the smallest of markets—with rent due, and a class schedule, but it didn’t feel like a job.

It felt like what I was supposed to be doing. But it wasn’t my whole life.

 I know people whose jobs are their whole lives. These are the ones who get paid for doing something they’d do even if no one paid them.

They call their jobs careers. They’re trained professionals. They’re doctors, nurses, lawyers, musicians.

They sometimes call what they do their vocation. They say things like, “ A musician is who I am, not what I do.” Or,  “I wouldn’t be myself if I couldn’t (fill in the blank) play the oboe, see patients, write books. 

Their job isn’t what they do, it’s who they are. 

I don’t think of yoga like this. It’s not my career. It’s not my vocation. It’s not a job. What is it?

A few years after my yoga certification, I also became certified as an Integrative Health Coach.  At the end of this pretty rigorous one-year course of study, there was a unit devoted to The Business of Health Coaching.  In this unit, they kept saying,  “Don’t think of your Health Coaching as a Jobby—something you do on the side. Think of it as a JOB, and yourself as the professional you are! 

This word, “Jobby,” irked me. It seemed to sneer at the idea that a person could do something with both the professionalism of a job, and the joy of a hobby.

I thought: “What could be better than a Jobby?” Isn’t that what we all aspire to do? To get to do the things we love, without tying ourselves, ball-and-chain-like, to one thing?

I thought these people who spoke disparagingly of Jobbies were snobby.

People I know, when they retire, experience an existential crisis about not knowing who they are anymore. The loss of professional identity is the loss of their whole identity. They mistook their job title for themselves, so now what?  

 Many people in retirement wish they could still do what they used to do, just not as much, or be able to pick and choose and just do the fun stuff now. 

And they can! This is where the Jobby comes in. Why not take an aspect of your old job and turn it into a hobby? You don’t have to pick some random activity (mahjong, pickleball) just because AARP says you need to get a hobby. 

What seems like a better idea is to take something you already know how to do, and like to do, and used to do as a job, and make a jobby out of it. 

You could even charge a little for this skill set if you want, by hiring yourself out as a freelancer in your old field. 

Or you could teach or tutor in your area of expertise. 

Or do something just for the hell of it. 

Any of the arts can be done as a jobby. Painting, music, writing, collage.

You could do social justice work or focused volunteerism on behalf of animals, the environment, or the homeless. That would make a wonderful Jobby.

So this most-hated question, “What do you do?”, can become a most interesting question if it’s followed by “for fun?”, “to feel happy?”, or “to feel most alive?”

What do you say when someone asks what you do? Do you tell them the truth? Do you tell them what you’re doing now, or what you used to do when you were getting paid? I’d like to know!