What Do You Do All Day?

Untangling my identity from other people's perceptions

It was summer and my friend and I were sitting outside a hair salon turned museum in Joshua Tree, waiting for his wife and my sister to retrieve dinner recommendations from the owner inside. Knowing the chatty owner would keep them for a while, we sat down on two old fashion salon chairs by the door, shielding our eyes from the bright desert sun. He broke our silence by asking me, “So what do you do all day?” 

One of the downsides of putting off my return to the corporate world is I get asked this question a lot. Struggling to be vulnerable, I often tell people I’m working on “creative projects” and change the subject. 

As an American, I’m used to the idea of tying my identity to my work. My old labels weren’t necessarily impressive, but having a full time job gave me credibility in my network. I was working at a bougie tech company, selling software to other bougie tech companies. My job wasn’t necessarily an interesting bar conversation, but I fell neatly into other people’s perceptions of a contributing member of society. 

During this time, I had achieved a life that was my young version of the American dream. Living in San Francisco, I built a life of fun that I saw reflected in sitcoms about young people in big cities. I shared a kitchen with four people so I used that and a thriving food scene as an excuse to eat out all the time. Sushi was a staple. I drank and went out a lot, often falling asleep in my Uber home. The next morning, I’d be up a little before 7:00am to embark on my hour commute to work. I learned to keep a steady hand as I applied eyeliner on the train to my office. 

My passport collected a respectable amount of stamps. One week I’d be ziplining through a forest in Puerto Vallarta and the next I’d be drinking beers the size of my face at Oktoberfest in Munich. So many people would come and visit me that my roommates would joke that our apartment was a hotel. It was better than a hotel though because I had perfected a tour of the Bay Area. One day we’d do a light hike along the edge of the Bay and the next I’d be giving my 100th tour of Napa wineries. Tired and hungover were my default modes. 

People in my life validated this lifestyle. My coworkers would see my instagram pictures tagged #livingmybestlife and say, “I feel like you’re always doing something cool!” My friends would joke that they had to book time with me weeks in advance if we wanted to hang out. I’m a happy person but what I defined as fun started to feel overwhelming and unfulfilling. 

My dissatisfaction with my so-called ideal life snowballed. I had been feeling restless for a while, but when I moved apartments in San Francisco, I ended up paying more in rent to be in a less safe area. Even today, when I think about that basement apartment, I feel dramatic saying I was unsafe. I had normalized the risk saying it was part of living in a big city. However, I started waking up screaming with sleep terrors. It became undeniable that I had some unaddressed anxiety. 

I decided to force change into my life and left San Francisco for a new job in Austin. I only knew one person in Austin, but I still decided to limit my social life for a few months so that I could have space to slow down my lifestyle and breathe. What felt like a safe life change ended up being a drastic one when the world locked down in March of 2020. Like everyone, this was a stressful time in my life. However, when I was alone, I found I was making healthier decisions. My mornings would be filled with Sun Salutations and journaling. I quit drinking. I also dedicated myself to being an amazing employee because I thought if I worked hard enough, I could save my unstable job. That wasn’t the case. My team members were let go one by one, and at the end of 2020, I left my job. On December 31st 2020, I wrote in my journal, “I am single, unemployed and moving back home with my parents. Yet, I’m very excited for what’s coming next”.  

In 2021, with some money in my savings account, I decided to not look for another corporate job and instead focus on building creative projects. Moving into my parents' two bedroom apartment in the Bay Area was a bit crowded as my sister had also recently moved back home. My Indian parents did not care and absolutely loved that their forever babies were back home. My sister and I used this time to launch the podcast we’d been dreaming about. 

My sister and I built a habit of recording our podcast over the weekends. I edit and produce our podcast which takes a few hours every week. At the end of 2021, I told my parents I appreciated living with them but I was ready to move out. Coincidentally, my sister got a stellar job offer in a small town desperate for a medical provider. She asked me if I would move with her and I said, “no way”. Then I calculated my runway in a big city versus a small town and I changed my mind. Dividing my savings with my projected living expense in both areas was eye opening. I could buy myself an extra year if I was willing to move to a place with a low cost of living. In my heart, I was also afraid that moving to a big city would push me back into my old lifestyle. The new life I was building felt young and precious. Living in another big city felt like jumping into quicksand.

I’m so happy with that decision because I did need to be away from everything to open up space for myself to grow. 

When I left my life in San Francisco the first time, I had intended to make a small change to shake up what I felt was a comfortable but unfulfilling life. Peeling away the things I was indulging in helped me realize I was living my life around other people’s perceptions of me. 

My first move was deleting my social media. I caught myself living for the perfect photo instead of enjoying the present moment. The epitome of this was when I was in a sugar induced coma at Candytopia, a colorful candy inspired museum that had no purpose outside of taking photos to share online. I remember thinking, “this is the last time I fall for one of these instagram traps”.

Once social media was gone, I stopped doing things that were only good for Instagram and focused on my interests instead. When I moved from San Francisco to Austin, I decided to say no to any event or person that I wasn’t interested in. If I wanted to do something that no one else did, I would go by myself. In Austin, I started to teach myself how to cook. Turns out, I enjoy cooking and my food is pretty good. 

On top of those things, an unstable work environment showed me that I could work hard, but that I was still collateral damage during hard times. Knowing I could do hard work though taught me I could apply that energy to the projects I wanted to pursue. 

In Joshua Tree, squinting into the blinding sun, I consider how to respond to my well intentioned friend. What I wish I said is that I wake up every morning to the sunlight peeking through my blinds instead of the beep beep beep from my alarm. My morning coffee is paired with the soothing voice of the latest podcast or audiobook I’m listening to. My weekends are filled with recording and editing my podcast. My weekdays vary but I’ve identified three projects to focus my time on. I choose podcasting, writing and launching an Etsy printables shop. All three are early stage creative endeavors and none have made me money yet. However, I’ve learned to enjoy the creative process and have let go of anticipating the outcome. 

Those words did not come to me at that moment. I respond to him saying, “I podcast, I consume information and I contemplate existential dread”. 

“Don’t you get bored?” He asks. 

“No.”