Is your work your identity or identity crisis?

Does your work define who you are or does it burn you every day, slowly? What is work? Does it only mean your profession? Or it is your whole life that you have devoted to, Karma? Should you expect a 'praise', if do something good, and a 'criticism', if you are not up to it? Or should you be indifferent towards other's reactions, or as said in Geeta, (Karmanye vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana, Ma Karmaphalaheturbhurma Te Sangostvakarmani) ''do your job, don't have the expectation for the fruit(result)''?

We are always told to love what we do and do what we love. But that is difficult unless your passion becomes your profession and vice-versa. Sometimes, it may happen that though we do what we love, a constant expectation of perfection and pressure for perfection dries us up. We feel lost, we find ourselves disconnected so much that 'loves for work' becomes estranged. We lose the balance between what is a profession, what is a passion. For me, that's the ideal time to take a break; this situation happens in all creative professions. For writers, this is called 'Writer's block', but a similar situation can also happen to anyone. Almost all the artists feel at times that they are finished. Players, athletes also suffer from performance-related anxiety. For example, in Olympics, several athletes quit the event because of anxiety or fail to perform up to their own record.  We should take a break sometimes, we should take a deep breath to think if this is the real end or not. But, we should always keep in mind that's this is not the end of our life. We can begin our life afresh again.  At the end of the day our happiness matters, if we are not happy with what we are doing, we must find where we can work with joy.

We need to find our Ikigai, the reason for being, where passion, performance collaborate with each other. If we find that, we will be able to work happily, without worrying about anything. No expectations, no remarks will be able to bother us. The passion and the profession will then flow in harmony.