How an immigration officer helped me overcome identity loss
«What is your occupation?»
So there I was, facing an immigration officer at Augusto C. Sandino International Airport in Managua, Nicaragua, asking me the question about who I was. Aren’t we all our job?
There was a long queue behind me, hence no point in getting into a long discussion on this topic. I would have wanted to tell him how I had quit my life-long career in finance for an uncertain future just a few weeks ago. This was actually just a coffee farm training I was about to embark on. There were other projects I had planned to work on. How to earn a living was still a big question mark.
Did he care? He certainly didn’t. Rightly so. To him it was just the process of completing the form on his screen. It meant so much more to me, but did it really?
«Barista!»
My response seemed to satisfy him. It actually had the same effect on me. Sure. I came here because I was serious about my new coffee truck venture. My learning curve was still terribly steep, but I was ready to put in the hard work to eventually become a decent barista.
However, I then also realized that I was a baker, husband, number cruncher, father, career coach, someone’s best friend, mentor and cat feeder. Aren’t we all the sum of our experiences, passions and skills irrespective of whether or not we earn a salary for putting them to work?
I have never taken myself and my job too seriously. This has helped me tremendously in this career transition process. Could such attitude even protect us from career loss depression?
Funnily, I was asked the same question upon departure from Nicaragua. Obviously, barista I was. I gave the immigration officer my best smile, picked up my passport and moved towards an unknown, yet exciting future in the world of coffee.
