New Year, new job: new you?

摘要

As the chimes of Big Ben sound out across the land many of us set resolutions for the next twelve months, and the gyms, the headhunters and diet peddlers all peddle the New Year as the time to make a change. And sometimes the drive to make a job change can be the desire to be someone new, rather than just to do something new. But will a new job actually mean a 'new you? We spend more time at work than we do sleeping, eating, resting, playing, or with our families. Work, for most of us, is the defining aspect of life and thus of our identity. When someone asks us 'what do you do?' we nearly always reply with our occupation. The dictionary defines identity as 'who a person is, or the qualities of a person or group which make them different from others'. We derive our sense of identity from comparison with others, those we are like, those we differ from.