The case for having more than one serious thing

Work remains a big part of who I am, and I care deeply about it. What has changed over the last few years is that it is no longer the only serious thing in my life. It works better for me when it sits alongside other things that matter to me. Being an equal parent. Building things I care about. Badminton and fitness. None of these are remarkable in isolation, but together they make sure that a bad day at work stays just that, and does not become a verdict on me.

I don’t think I arrived at this through some grand philosophy. I definitely did not sit down one day and decide to “diversify my identity.” If anything, I stumbled into it slowly. A few parts of my life grew into something important because I kept showing up, and only later did I realise what they were giving me. I should say I’ve had enough privilege in life to even ask these questions, and I know not everyone does. Even for those who do, most of us still do not approach this part of life deliberately at all. For many people, may be most, even asking what genuinely matters outside work can feel strangely uncomfortable. It’s far easier to immerse yourself at work. The treadmill saves you from having to know. As long as work is moving, you can postpone the question. You can tell yourself you will think about the rest later.

Work has a way of expanding to fill whatever space you leave open for it. And not just in terms of time. Even something as trivial as one bad meeting or one stretch of ambiguity can start affecting how you feel about yourself. I know what it is like when work becomes a little too central, and starts dictating your mood, your confidence, even your sense of who you are.

What helps, at least for me, is having other parts of life that I value. Being an equal parent means home is not some separate world I enter after work. It is my life too, with all the presence and responsibility that comes with that. Badminton makes me feel alive in a way few things do. Taking care of my health means doing what compounds, avoiding fads, and knowing when to push myself. And building gives me a way to stay sharp, act on my own ideas, and create optionality. I have been lucky that my wife and I have built a life in which both of our careers and ambitions have room to exist, and that has shaped what is possible for me as much as anything else.

There is a common fear that once you visibly care about things outside work, people start reading that as reduced commitment. It feels safer to look fully available for work all the time. For me, the opposite has often been closer to the truth. If anything, when work is not carrying the full weight of my identity, I seem to do better. I can focus on what actually matters, without worrying too much about how saying no will be interpreted. I find it easier to protect my time from noise, to push back on bad ideas, and to pick up ambitious work without treating every potential failure as existential. And because that usually leads to better outcomes, it gives me even more room to operate this way. Underneath all of this is something simple. I do not need every outcome at work to answer the question of what this means about me as a person.

Another thing I understood only later is that having more than one serious thing in your life brings you around different kinds of people. If most of your world is work, you end up in a bubble and it becomes easy to normalize your own privilege without really noticing it. That is one of the reasons I find the badminton court oddly refreshing. Someone for whom my job title is just a random set of words can still outplay me and move on with their day. I end up meeting people at different ages, stages, and priorities, and it grounds me a lot more.

I’ve come to believe that when too much of your identity sits in one place, life becomes more fragile than it needs to be. Building other serious parts of yourself is one of the best ways I know to make life more resilient. In a moment when AI is making white-collar work feel less predictable, I find myself valuing that even more. If work means too much to your sense of self, a moment like this can feel threatening before it feels interesting. If it does not, it becomes easier to see the opportunity in it.