>"Reducing yourself to any single characteristic, whether it be your title or your job performance, is a deeply damaging act." Are you a self-objectifier in your job or career? Ask yourself a few questions, and answer them honestly. Is your job the biggest part of your identity? Is it the way you introduce yourself, or even understand yourself? Do you find yourself sacrificing love relationships for work? Have you forgone romance, friendship, or starting a family because of your career? Do you have trouble imagining being happy if you were to lose your job or career? Does the idea of losing it feel a little like death to you? The great irony is that by trying to be special, we end up reducing ourselves to a single quality, and turning ourselves into cogs in a machine of our own making. In his 1964 book Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan famously said, “The medium is the message.” He noted that in the famous Greek myth, Narcissus fell in love not with himself, but with the image of himself. And so it is when we professionally self-objectify: Our work is our medium, and it becomes our message. We learn to love the image of our successful selves, not ourselves as we truly are in life. Don’t make this mistake. You are not your job, and I am not mine. Take your eyes off the distorted reflection, and have the courage to experience your full life and true self.