The Survival of The Human Race Requires Undoing The Professional Persona

The answer to greater success (i.e. happiness, fulfillment, connection, positivity, love, reparation, healing, and sharing of resources) in the future of the human species involves us all exposing our self-worth issues, and dropping the professional persona.

I am so curious about the life experiences leading people to the professions they have chosen.

I have asked CEOs, as well as those considered on the bottom wrung of social-professional status alike, how they ended up there, and what made them choose this. I also have treated people in the context of psychotherapy, who come from all areas of the spectrum of “success”.

I now observe a recurring theme between us all. Many CEOs are actually very similar to those at “the bottom”. They are similar in the sense that we all struggle with self-worth, and have multiple ways we cope, whether successfully or unsuccessfully, by our cultural standards.

I believe this same challenge around self-worth, actually propels us all over the world to buy into the professional persona as offering an example of the upper echelon of human development. When, in reality, professionalism is often an act. The humans behind these suits, behind these busy and organized schedules, behind these beautifully and skillfully curated appearances, actions, marketing, advertising, and social media presences, struggle with self-worth, and often require a whole lot of energy, resources, pressure, and pain to keep up these personas of having it all figured out.

And, they feel they must do this, as a means to be taken seriously, for their product, service, or company to be “clean” and properly represented. They do this to be commodifiable. They do this to remain “relevant”, in a culture that is obsessed with gaining self-worth through acquiring or consuming what the professionals are offering. They do this, to even maintain their own fragile self-worth, that hinges upon the persona they have created, persisting, even when their personal life may be in shambles. At least they have their fans and their professional persona, and their “success”…

This culture of denying our humanity, and our collective issues with self-worth, and instead focusing on the curated perfection of professionalism, is creating a world that is increasingly Narcissistic, depressed, suicidal, and anxious.

What if we all decided to drop the act? What if we all could feel confident about the inherent gifts we each uniquely bring to the table as a byproduct of existing as our Self on this planet, and share them, without this professional posturing? What if we all learned to value our self, and not need to devalue another to feel valuable?

Think about what might be shared on social media, instead of just the best moments of people’s lives? Think about how much more connected we might all feel as a part of seeing what we have believed we needed to hide, out in the open? Think about how joyful we might be if we learned we are all in this process together, and can fully be who and how we are, and in many ways, celebrate it together? Think about how we might go about purchasing products or acquiring services if we could view the people offering them as humans, rather than through this fake, curated, professional persona?

Think about this for a few minutes. Talk about this possibility with your community. Challenge yourself to deal with your own self-worth issues, drop the professional persona, or stop buying in to the perfection and self-worth that this persona supposedly has to offer you.