Work and Self-Worth: An Overachiever Origin Story

Growing up, my parents were always working. My dad had a full-time job as a train conductor and a part-time DJ business, open for all your local wedding and bar mitzvah needs. Meanwhile, my mom's family ran a restaurant for the first decade of my life. There, my mom was a waitress, manager, back-room stocker, accountant, and probably a bunch of other roles I can't remember.

By the time I was eight years old, I was helping with both businesses. During the week, I was a bite-sized waitress and janitor at the restaurant, much to the surprise of our customers. Over the weekends, I was a part-time karaoke coordinator and chief balloon instrument inflator. (It was the 90s – if you didn't have inflatable instruments, did you even have a party?)

Work was a core part of my parents' identities, so naturally, it also became part of mine. I started (legally) working as soon as I could get my working papers at 14. However, as I struggled to balance work and my mental health challenges in adulthood, I started to realize how much of my self-worth was tied to my employment. Whenever I am between jobs or client work, I fall into this dark place where all I can think about is how useless I am, what a burden I am, and how I'm failing to live up to others' expectations. On the worst days, it makes me feel like I shouldn’t even be here anymore.

People like me, with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, often struggle with self-esteem and feeling worthy of love and respect. But how did my self-worth get so entangled with my job, specifically? And what am I supposed to do to fix it?

What is work for?

Dad's version

Each of my parents had very different approaches to work. On my dad's side, working for the railroad was akin to a family business. My grandfather had been a conductor for years, so perhaps my dad, the eldest son, was expected to follow suit. I don't know how my dad felt about being a train conductor; he never said much about it. But I do know that my father loved two things:

1. Being the center of attention
2. Music, music, music

He collected train tickets like he was performing a one-man comedy show, loved to play his guitar (not well – sorry, Dad), was obsessed with the Beatles, and made me listen to the classic rock station so I would get a "proper" music education. Very typical dad stuff, I suppose.

My dad died suddenly when I was in high school, so there's no way for me to confirm this hypothesis. But my guess is that DJing was his way of meeting his creative needs while still being able to pay the bills. It may not have been 100% necessary financially, but DJing was his way of sharing something he loved with those around him. What could be more fulfilling than that?

Mom's version

On my mom's side, work wasn't about creativity, meaning, or connection. Working was more like a moral obligation. For instance, after the restaurant closed, my mom made a lot of sacrifices – physically and emotionally – for jobs and people she didn't like that much. Think early mornings, late nights, missed family gatherings, and never doing an ounce of anything that could be mistaken for self-care. To be fair, though, no one in the '90s and early 2000s talked much about self-care. We were too busy starving ourselves with 100-calorie snack packs and styrofoam diet cookies to think about such things (looking at you, Snackwell’s Devil's Food Cake).

My mother was always more vocal than my dad about her trials and tribulations at work, often expressing frustration with lazy co-workers who were just there for a paycheck. Also, the women in my family usually had choice words for other family members who were under or unemployed. The gossip sessions would include how the unemployed were disappointing their families and lamenting that their children would never learn the value of hard work. I was usually there, listening and absorbing, though I'm not sure they realized I was paying attention.

Choose your own workventure

I never saw my dad get praise or support for his DJ work from his family. My grandpa never said anything like, "My son is an amazing DJ, and I love seeing him happy. Call him for your next birthday party!" The DJing may have been more tolerated than anything else. As long as he kept his day job, no one could argue with my dad about how he spent his weekends.

On the other hand, my mother would consistently get praise from others for her work ethic and sacrifices. So, if I also wanted praise and acceptance, I had to go the high-achieving, moral obligation route. And I did it. I was a top student juggling work and a college dual-degree program. Once in the work world, I worked for organizations devoted to social causes. And in each place, I tried my best to go above and beyond, because that’s just what you’re supposed to do.

After a while, though, I realized that all this overachieving in school and at work didn't result in praise or acceptance from my mom. Whenever I tried to share what I was doing, she preferred to talk about her work, family, and relationship problems, as her list list was never-ending. Instead of fostering acceptance, my work ended up making me feel more isolated from my family, as they seemed to either not understand or care about what I did.

Weird, right?

Since I wasn't getting anywhere at home, I tried to get that validation and acceptance from colleagues by being a standout employee. But eventually, a pattern emerged:

1. I'd throw myself entirely into work and do whatever was asked of me, even if it had nothing to do with my job responsibilities.
2. I would get frustrated with those around me for not working as hard or being as self-sufficient as me (sound familiar?).
3. I'd keep that frustration to myself because I assumed anyone with any influence didn't care what I had to say.
4. I'd burn out after a few years, leave, feel like I'm letting my friends and family down, and dwell in my sorrows until the next job made me feel worthy of being a person again.

Rinse and repeat for, I don't know, about 15 years. No wonder work has been so hard to manage over the years. How disappointing it is that it never had to be this way.

So what now?

An Early Retirement

I know, objectively, what I am supposed to do: accept that self-worth comes from within, not external validation. But in practice, I don't get how I'm supposed to do that. No one ever really explains the steps in detail.

Lately, however, I've been thinking more and more about my dad's approach to work. There hasn't been much opportunity to express my creativity in spreadsheets and client reports. In my heart, all I wanted to do was write, but I was too scared to commit. That fear sounded like my inner voice telling me it's not a "real job," I'll never make enough money to support myself or my family, and it's self-indulgent. Who the fuck cares what I have to say?

But now I see that's the moralism talking.

If self-worth is about seeing ourselves as "valuable, capable human beings deserving of respect and consideration," maybe embracing creative interests like my dad did is a way of building that particular psychological muscle. It's not that I’m letting go of my day job – we all have bills to pay. But as I try to disentangle my value as a person from what I do for a living, I feel like it's time to embrace the person I actually am instead of the person I was trained to be.

So with that, I’m pleased to announce my retirement as the classic overachiever. I will no longer sacrifice my mental and physical wellbeing for whatever thing pays the bills. I’m not going to look for belonging and acceptance based on what I do for work. But I will start to welcome the creative into my day-to-day life, in the hopes that sharing my experiences can be one small step in someone else’s journey to self-acceptance.

External validation is still welcome, though. One step at a time. 😊