But who are you really?

How tightly we cling to our work identities - at parties, in public. I tried shedding mine for a few days. It was awkward, sobering... but I would highly recommend it as a reality check

- Charles Assisi

Some years ago, I was at a party where the host introduced me to a stranger as "a business journalist who has been around for a long while now". I smiled and extended my hand, but before I could say any more, the stranger lit up and said, "Tell me, what's your take on crypto?"

I don't remember much else about that conversation. I probably mumbled something incoherent (crypto has never been my thing). But what stayed with me was how uncomfortable it all felt.

Whenever I think about the incident now, I think about how tightly we wear our professional identities.

So much of the time, we are not really presenting ourselves or being perceived as people in a whole sense; we are being equated with what we do.

I am Charles, the journalist. You may be Vinicia the techie, Rohit the baker, or Sunny the stay-at-home parent.

It's not entirely our fault; it's how we've been conditioned to think about each other, and ourselves. This hit home harder recently, when scrolling through my phone contacts.

What started as a casual attempt to delete defunct numbers quickly turned into a philosophical thought experiment. For each entry, I asked myself: "Is this name here because I care about this person? Or because of the title this person holds?"