Hi. My Name Is Justin And I Am A ......

Last Friday, I was introduced to a group of people that I was meeting for the first time. They were youths from a church cell group, ranging in age from the early to the late twenties.

When each individual took turns to introduce themselves, everyone started with, of course, their names and their birth country. They also included the following introduction:

"I am a pre-med student."

"I am a professional blogger."

"I am a counsellor at a school."

"I am a designer."

When it came to my turn, I had the temptation to introduce myself as anything other than an auditor. I wasn't embarrass by my profession, although it did appear that I had probably one of the squarest occupation in the room. Instead, what made me hesitate was this question.

 Are we solely defined by the tasks that people pay us to perform?

For example, can't someone say "I write software codes for a living, but I'm an aspiring guitar player for the local band at the pub down the street".

Matt Cutts, an engineer from Google gave a presentation in TED (http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_cutts_try_something_new_for_30_days.html) sometime last year. In his presentation, he spoke of people who pledged to write a 50,000 words novel in the month of November. He tried it, and after completing his novel within that 30 days, he can now introduce himself as a novelist, even though his work has never been published (and probably never will) and he has not been paid a single cent for his novel.

We are more than our occupation. The slash that comes after our names separates different but equally important roles that we play. Although it shouldn't be an aim to have as many slashes as possible in one's lifetime, it is critical to recognise that as human beings, we are not one dimensional.

I hope to one day be able to introduce myself in the following manner:

"Hi, I am a father to two beautiful children/ husband to the prettiest and most loving head family chef within a 30 mile radius (and an owner of a car that can only travel 29 miles before breaking down)/ collector of well-read superhero comic books/ lover of alternative rock and certain kind of jazz music (the non-boring type), and on my spare time when I'm not all those things, I perform statutory financial statements audit for corporations and organisations."