{"id":7123,"date":"2013-03-04T06:25:35","date_gmt":"2013-03-04T11:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/?p=7123"},"modified":"2013-02-17T15:30:29","modified_gmt":"2013-02-17T20:30:29","slug":"dont-ask-me-what-i-do-instead-ask-me-who-i-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2013\/03\/dont-ask-me-what-i-do-instead-ask-me-who-i-am.html","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Ask Me What I Do, Instead Ask Me Who I Am"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I recently posted this piece on PsychCentral<\/a> about the need to separate what we do for a living from who we are as people. To read the article, click here.<\/em><\/p>\n

I carry a few different business cards in my purse. Because I never know what conversation I will have with a stranger at any given time.<\/p>\n

A month ago I fetched cream for my coffee at a caf\u00e9 in South Bend, Indiana. Naturally my family didn\u2019t know a soul in the joint. However, by the time I returned to my table, I knew some incredibly intimate (not to mention interesting) details about the daughter of the man next to me who was reaching for a napkin: his daughter is bipolar; she was anorexic as a teenage ballerina; and she\u2019s on some of the same meds as I am.<\/p>\n

I ended up giving him a business card with everything but my email scratched out.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t want to have the conversation of what I do for living.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t have anything to do with who I am.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why I get so annoyed that we have to start all of our conversations with that question.<\/p>\n

Click here to continue reading<\/strong>.<\/a><\/p>\n

Artwork by Anya Getter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently posted this piece on PsychCentral about the need to separate what we do for a living from who we are as people. To read the article, click here. I carry a few different business cards in my purse. Because I never know what conversation I will have with a stranger at any given…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration-and-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\nDon't Ask Me What I Do, Instead Ask Me Who I Am - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2013\/03\/dont-ask-me-what-i-do-instead-ask-me-who-i-am.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Don't Ask Me What I Do, Instead Ask Me Who I Am - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I recently posted this piece on PsychCentral about the need to separate what we do for a living from who we are as people. To read the article, click here. I carry a few different business cards in my purse. Because I never know what conversation I will have with a stranger at any given…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2013\/03\/dont-ask-me-what-i-do-instead-ask-me-who-i-am.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-03-04T11:25:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-02-17T20:30:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/2011\/11\/anya-blowing-flowers.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Don't Ask Me What I Do, Instead Ask Me Who I Am - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2013\/03\/dont-ask-me-what-i-do-instead-ask-me-who-i-am.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Don't Ask Me What I Do, Instead Ask Me Who I Am - Beyond Blue","og_description":"I recently posted this piece on PsychCentral about the need to separate what we do for a living from who we are as people. To read the article, click here. I carry a few different business cards in my purse. Because I never know what conversation I will have with a stranger at any given…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2013\/03\/dont-ask-me-what-i-do-instead-ask-me-who-i-am.html","og_site_name":"Beyond Blue","article_published_time":"2013-03-04T11:25:35+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-02-17T20:30:29+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/2011\/11\/anya-blowing-flowers.jpg"}],"author":"Beyond Blue","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2013\/03\/dont-ask-me-what-i-do-instead-ask-me-who-i-am.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2013\/03\/dont-ask-me-what-i-do-instead-ask-me-who-i-am.html","name":"Don't Ask Me What I Do, Instead Ask Me Who I Am - Beyond Blue","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2013\/03\/dont-ask-me-what-i-do-instead-ask-me-who-i-am.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2013\/03\/dont-ask-me-what-i-do-instead-ask-me-who-i-am.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/2011\/11\/anya-blowing-flowers.jpg","datePublished":"2013-03-04T11:25:35+00:00","dateModified":"2013-02-17T20:30:29+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2013\/03\/dont-ask-me-what-i-do-instead-ask-me-who-i-am.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2013\/03\/dont-ask-me-what-i-do-instead-ask-me-who-i-am.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2013\/03\/dont-ask-me-what-i-do-instead-ask-me-who-i-am.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/2011\/11\/anya-blowing-flowers.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/2011\/11\/anya-blowing-flowers.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2013\/03\/dont-ask-me-what-i-do-instead-ask-me-who-i-am.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Don’t Ask Me What I Do, Instead Ask Me Who I Am"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/","name":"Beyond Blue","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Therese J. Borchard","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75","name":"Beyond Blue","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/45c\/45c6e619a20a364bd981e9dda64eaa02x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/45c\/45c6e619a20a364bd981e9dda64eaa02x96.jpg","caption":"Beyond Blue"},"description":"Therese J. Borchard writes the daily blog, Beyond Blue, on Beliefnet.com. She is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist. You may find her at her personal blog, her website, or you may follow her on Twitter @thereseborchard.","sameAs":["http:\/\/thereseborchard.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/author\/tborchard"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7123"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7125,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7123\/revisions\/7125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}