“So, what do you do?”

And there it was. He finally asked it. The question.

The question haunting flocks of diploma grasping young adults. Frantic, the crutch of “I’m a student” kicked out from beneath them, they reach out in every direction. Eager for something, anything, to hold up their identity. To be something, someone. A career. A marriage. A dog. A child?

It’s a race, the trigger pulled years ago by our parents and teachers with the innocent question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” We were fooled. It never was a fill in the blank. There were appropriate answers, all of which being careers, job titles. Ingraining early on that our “being” is one in the same with our profession.

The inquisitor in my case was an acquaintance from the undergrad days who unfortunately came stumbling into the same Greenwich Village bar I occupied one Tuesday night. He spent 15 imperious minutes recapping his past 3 years. Slow strokes to his ego. His way of getting off. The words combining into a most prosaic story. One I’d heard before, and can assume I’ll be forced to endure again. He had been faithful in his pursuit of singular definition. Excelling at the same real estate firm since 2009, and he had just closed a $20 million deal. He was reaching up, agile in his ascent of the corporate ladder.

Through glazed eyes I could recognize the satisfaction his tale brought him. His pupils eagerly glancing up to mine, longing for approval. The curve which came to the side of his lip after his prompt reply to “what do you do?” I could imagine him going to cocktail parties just to be asked. He was rounding a new corner in his lane of life, taking stride, following the carrot held out by society. He has company. The lanes are crowded. Each participant peeking over their shoulder, mentally tallying their position. Going around and around, looking for linear progress, seemingly unaware of the shape of tracks.

Facebook is faithful reporter of this jockey for position. Everyone laced up, on their quest to being a comparative success. A comparative success. Quick to acquire outward displays of their position. A new car. A promotion. A corner office. Anything to confirm to themselves and their relatives that they are someone, something. All similarly twisted in their logic. Allowing themselves to be defined by what they do. Shouldn’t who they are define what they do?

I had no clear response for him. The real question was how I made money. An attempt to take his apple and put it next to mine. To compare our worth as humans by our past years tax returns. I don’t want to play this game with him. I don’t pay my taxes. I don’t define myself by what I do for a living.

And how could I? Where would I even begin?

At our common ground? I too had been a real estate broker for a month or so. But then a tutor. Then CMBS analyst. Standardized test grader. Grad student. Architect Intern. Investment banker. Consultant. Writer. PR guy. Entrepreneur.

Yet I don’t identify with any of those things. I am always looking past them. Allowing myself to fall to the seduction of my day dreams. Of the future. The next jump. The thrill of becoming.

I wandered, not just geographically, but professionally. Restlessness drove me. I followed fleeting interests. Tried new careers. Abandoned them when they no longer fit. Followed my gut to a point where now I have no quick response to the question posed.

And why not? In this, America, the greatest career fitting room of them all, how could anyone settle with just one look? It’s overwhelming. A first world problem above all over first world problems.

The picture I attempt to paint is far from the lone crusader. There are countless others with the courage to take a similar meander. They are the people I identify with closest. For clarity, I am referring to them, and myself, as one.

All of us, gassed up on the American Dream, rocketing towards every star which brings a twinkle to our eye. Eager to bring our various fantasies into our everyday existence. High on the excitement of becoming. In the new. Charging through life in a frenzied daze, desperately holding onto the coattails of a rioting soul.

Experimenting in the largest lab out there–life. All convinced at the core we are headed towards a brighter future, yet consciously aware that the “real world” has been evaluating us on a different set of standards.

It’s intimidating. To appear to have no direction, to admit your job that you went to school no longer interests you, to face starting new, are all generally frowned upon by society. My former professor even chimed in, emailing me three words “You lack focus”.

Perhaps. But while laser-like focus creates easily identified careers, does it make a more successful person? An interesting one? Dare I ask, happy?

Does a second grader dream of becoming a “real estate broker”?

I don’t know. I doubt it though. But it is a valid response. An accepted one. A warm cloak to wrap around your exposed self. A distraction, affording you the luxury of never having to think of what is underneath.

But we all dream of a life less ordinary. We all have that epic thirst to be more than what we are. That feeling. To be our own tragic hero on the stage of life. In this early act, how can anyone confidently define their role? How can we ever?

If we must be applied in our considerations: What happens when the world doesn’t need another broker (or lawyer, or accountant, or whatever you are)? What is his competitive advantage? What are his skills? Competitive advantage comes when you can combine skills/attributes in a way other cannot. When a soul is quickly corralled into a career, how can one grow their skill set? Find what makes them tick? They can’t. They are a one trick pony soon to be glue on the next sucker’s nameplate.

And happiness? Does that come into play? Happiness comes from pursuing a passion. Everyone has a passion. Living with over 1,000 people in the past year I can say that as fact. It is rarely as obvious as we would like to assume. But you feel it. Always will. Remember when you were a kid? Exploring the boundaries of your curiosity? Taking apart a radio and examining each part within?

Slowly, parents, teachers, peers, managed your expectations. Bullied you into a more traditional path. You watched TV. Learned about money. Abandoned your unique interests.

This evolves into two major departures. Two that haunt you, haunt me, and create the majority of unhappiness in life:

- The difference between what we are doing, and what deep down we want to be doing.

- The difference between what we know we are capable of doing, and what we are doing.

As the clock marches forward and these difference widen, unhappiness fills the void, guilt playing piggyback. The feelings lay their invasive roots, suffocating what made you unique. Thriving in your neglect. Your true self crying out, tangled in the thicket of self-reproach.

So you scan society for a muzzle. Attempt to drown it in alcohol. Throw yourself into 9-5 busywork in an attempt to overpower the voice. Jump at any distraction possible to keep you from it. Which only widens the gap, greases the feedback loop, and grinds your spirit. In those sparse times between invented distractions, you hear it, feel it. Starting up at the fan blades unable to sleep. Looking in the mirror as you brush your teeth. You live with the pain, or maybe you no longer live at all, the clash too savage to endure.

One day the voice is going to give a final rally. Summon all the energy it has left and wake you in a cold sweat. You will no longer be able to reconcile the ambitions of your yesterday and the predictable regret of your tomorrow. You’ll buy a sports car. Divorce your spouse. Marry a teenager. Offer your soul to any god or devil that will hear your whinings.

And its your fault. The pen is in your hand and your rigid strokes have created that plain picture you dare not catch a glimpse of. You made this casket, you deserve to be buried alive. To exist as one of the living dead careerists.

You know the remedy. You always have. But now it’s time. It’s always time. Grab hold of that fierce dream. Obey your interests, trust them to lead you. Muster the self respect to say no to 30 years of regret. Attempt. You won’t starve. Each failure, each iteration, will bring you closer to the calling. Your self growing in spirit, success, and skill.

Or don’t. That is the cruel amusement in it all. The part which cuts the deepest. It’s your choice. It always has been. So stay course. It isn’t anyone else’s care. Broker that next deal. Cast increasingly shallow smiles when you talk about your profession. Dismiss the feeling, the “unfocused,” as pipe dreams, failures waiting to collapse.

Success, after all, is typically gauged by the opinion of someone else. As is failure. Maybe I’m failing. Not a comparable success. I guess that depends on who I’m next to in the Newsfeed.

I didn’t just close a twenty million dollar project, probably won’t next month.

But for me, and you, there is a bigger project at hand. Relax the focus, bring the zoom out, and you might just capture the one true project out there–yourself. That is your full time career–the endless development of the self. Becoming more than we currently are. Running through the aisles of life and pulling down as many different items as we can. Shoving this fuel into our individual dream machines with an eagerness that leaves us aching at the seams. That is what you do.

Maybe the comfort and pride in our anti-definition will one day explode in spectacular fashion. Our conservative peers standing near, eager to say “I told you so”. Keen to deflect the word failure. Finding the ultimate rationalization for their own dreary path. Maybe. I don’t know. Don’t particularly care.

But my goal isn’t broker to the next deal, its to broker the next Brent.