Finding Yourself Might Be Harder Than Finding a Job: Reflections on an Episode of a podcast, "MENtality with Ebuka"

I came across MENtality with Ebuka on Twitter a while ago. I honestly can’t remember who shared it, but I remember seeing people talk about how refreshing the conversations were. I told myself I would check it out one of these days and I kept postponing because there was always something else to watch, so I never got around to it.

A few weeks later, during a hangout with a friend, he put on an episode of the podcast. We didn’t even finish it, but we watched enough for me to know it wasn’t another podcast where people sat around saying things that sounded intelligent for the sake of sounding intelligent. I remember thinking to myself, this is actually something I could listen to during my free time.

When I eventually decided to listen on my own, one episode caught my eyes, “Finding Yourself Might Be Harder Than Finding a Job.”

Finding Yourself

The title alone was enough to make me interested because, if I’m being honest, I think almost everyone is trying to find themselves in one way or another.

Some people are just better at hiding it. Finding a job is already difficult enough. People literally spend months, sometimes years, searching for employment. So how could finding yourself possibly be harder?

A lot was said, and the more the conversation unfolded, the more I realized they weren’t minimizing the struggle of job hunting. They were simply comparing finding yourself to finding a job to emphasize how difficult it can be.

Ebuka said a third of the jobs that will exist ten years from now don’t even exist today. Ten years ago, careers like content creation and influencing weren’t considered real jobs by most people and today, they’re thriving industries. We put so much pressure on ourselves to have our lives figured out so early, when the world itself is constantly changing.

What do you actually want? What kind of life would genuinely make you happy? Which dreams are yours and which ones have you borrowed from society, your family, or even social media?

Ebuka spoke about the tension between purpose, pressure, and provider identity, especially in the context of men. He explained how many men are trying to balance discovering what they’re truly called to do while carrying the pressure of providing, succeeding, and living up to society’s expectations.

Although that particular conversation was centred on men, I couldn’t help but see myself in what he was describing. Maybe the expectations aren’t exactly the same, but the pressure to have your life figured out, to be successful, to make the right decisions, and to build a life that looks meaningful isn’t unique to only men. I’m not trying to divert the attention from men because that’s what the podcast is basically about. I’m just trying to say women experience those pressures too, just in different ways.

Most of us are trying to figure out who we are while also trying to meet expectations, our family’s expectations, society’s expectations and sometimes the unrealistic expectations we place on ourselves. Even though Ebuka was speaking directly to men’s experiences, I think the heart of what he said is something we all can relate to.

Another part of the conversation that really resonated with me was the idea that many of us inherit an identity before we’re old enough to choose one for ourselves.

We’re told to work hard in school, get good grades, graduate, find a stable job, make money, get married, have children, become successful.

None of those things are inherently bad, the problem is we’ve never really asked why we want those things. Are we pursuing them because we genuinely want them? Or because we’ve never imagined another way to live?

We know what industry we want to work in. We know what salary we hope to earn. We know where we’d like to live, but who are we behind all of these things?

I really appreciated how honest Mai Atafo was about his journey because sometimes when successful people tell their stories, they make it sound as though they always knew exactly what they were meant to do. Mai didn’t do that.

He spoke about leaving a secure corporate job to pursue fashion, but what I found most interesting was his admission that the decision wasn’t entirely an informed one. In fact, he described it as an emotional decision and even said if he had the chance to do it again, he would do some things differently.

He spoke about changing direction in a way it feels less like failure and more like growth. I think many of us are afraid of changing because we’ve invested so much time in our current path, so we worry about the wasted years.

One of my favourite moments in the entire episode was at the beginning, when Mai said we make the mistake of turning everything we love into a source of income. Just because something gives you joy doesn’t necessarily mean it has to become your career. Sometimes the very thing that brings you peace can become a source of stress the moment your livelihood depends on it.

Another idea I loved was the distinction between what you do and who you are as a person. We meet someone for the first time and the first thing we ask is, “So, what do you do?” If our identity is built entirely on our profession, then every career setback becomes an identity crisis.

Another thing I appreciated is the fact they acknowledged how difficult it is to tell people to “find themselves” in a country as difficult as ours.

Comparison is probably one of the biggest obstacles to finding yourself because it’s almost impossible to discover your own path while constantly measuring it against someone else’s. If nobody expected anything from us, what kind of life would we choose? Some of our decisions are influenced by expectations from family, from society, financial expectations and even expectations we’ve placed on ourselves

I’m not suggesting we ignore responsibility or stop caring about the people around us, but I do think we owe ourselves enough honesty to separate what we genuinely want from what we’ve simply inherited.

Finishing the episode, I realize the goal is to become a little more honest with yourself every day, to remain open to growth regardless of your age and to have the courage to change when necessary. I also left with a question I think I’ll be asking myself for a long long time; what makes your soul happy… like what genuinely makes your soul happy?