The beauty of human skills and of maintenance

Do you ever grapple with work identity, or find yourself tying your sense of self to a job title? I know I have a long history of such struggles. I used to see this as a problem or a weakness, but over the years I’ve learned that if I go through a work identity definition every so often, I value having the flexibility to navigate that process far more than forcing myself to fit into a specific role that no longer serves me.

I know this comes with a particular energy consumption (psychological and physical) because exploring these identities typically involves activities outside of work that allow me to go deeper into whatever I’m doing at that particular time, or to change directions entirely. They also come with having anything but linear conversations with people used to hearing a simple answer to the question “What do you do?” (also, I can’t help but think of Lucy Darling when I ask that question 😂- go find Lucy the comedian character in Youtube if you don’t know what I mean).

Product management has been one of the roles where I have lasted the longest. I don’t think it’s because I define myself strictly as a product manager, but because I am fundamentally a generalist, and product management happens to be a very poorly defined role where a wide set of skills can be used in diverse situations. Also, the role happens to be so poorly defined that it varies between companies, and even between teams within the same business.

A lot of people dislike this being associated with what it means to be a product manager. They prefer that idea of the person identifying innovative solutions to problems worth solving to create stakeholder value or change the world in big and disruptive ways. I respect that. Don’t call me a product manager then, if you don’t want to. Meanwhile, I am convinced that my cognitive and social skills help make sense and small day-to-day decisions to combine the skills of business and engineering people into valuable solutions to users, whatever you call the job.

But I now feel there are more people grappling with this identity and not just in the role and industry I am in now. But in life. We’re living through a technological revolution that has us all asking whether our skills will remain valuable in the middle of the changes AI is bringing to the world. (I can’t believe it took me fewer than 3-4 paragraphs to bring up AI. Hey, we can run, but we can’t hide! 🤷).

So, naturally, being who I am, I’ve been trying once again to understand where my skills fit into this new world. A world that isn’t even settled yet. For a time, I was frustrated that I wasn’t able to keep up with everything being discussed in different product management and technology channels, that I wasn’t creating “skills” or building my own agents, or that I had not yet hooked my work to some MCP server. Naturally, those thoughts made me feel insecure and professionally worthless.

Just as psychologists recommend staying away from the news if you’re feeling stressed and anxious, I decided to take a step back from the channels where these discussions were happening. The bright side is that I believe in my capacity to learn new skills and get up to speed with whatever technological changes are happening, but I don’t have to do it at the expense of my own personal sense of security. I realized I have to create space to do it on my own time. Somehow I feel we are running somewhere, but without a clear destination and not even enjoying the ride! What is life if not for joy and purpose?!

So yes, I am using AI at work. I mean, can you NOT these days if you work in tech? I am certain I am not using it to the best of its abilities, but am I using myself to the best of my abilities? I think so. When observing what value I bring to the table, I tend to find myself in a similar situation I was in 14 years ago, when I came across this role. Context awareness, shared understanding, collaboration or team work, arriving at resolutions are things that I gravitate towards. Combined with certain skills I believe I can do valuable things, regardless of what you call the job.

There are other skills I am using that I think are valuable outside of tech. For example, seven months ago I knew very little about agronomy and carbon sequestration. Today I still know very little, but I undoubtedly know more than I did eight months ago. To gain enough new knowledge that is also actionable in my role, I had to be curious about the topic, filter information, monitor my metacognition (how much do I know, what gaps do I have in my knowledge), control distractions and avoid going down rabbit-holes just because a topic is interesting. Add to that, the fact that I like working with people and humanizing things.

So far so good. Sounds like I’m coping. The problem is that this particular identity crisis is being triggered not just by an insane technical revolution (and I mean, in-sane), but by another set of factors that are changing the way society and the economy function. We are not sure yet how these changes will affect but they surely will or are doing so already.

It does not feel good, honestly. And while some of my superpowers in adult life have been adaptability, and being comfortable with uncertainty, this time it feels so monstrous I am unable to make sense of anything.

Let me be specific, our population is aging. There is this number: the old people dependent ratio. That is the number of 65+ year-old people for every 100 inhabitants. This number is growing. This affects our pensions. Basically, we will not have the usual structure where a larger younger population keeps the economic engine growing allowing older people to retire peacefully. We are also living longer, thanks to developments in health science and our own understanding of how to take care of our bodies.

I believe I can adapt to that, by mentally shifting the idea of a fixed retirement age, and instead assume I will be better off continuing to be an active and contributing member of society. Good for my brain, good for my social skills. But will we the majority adapt to that shift or will we let ourselves sink into a sufferable aging stage of life?

Meanwhile the younger generation is being deprived of their early work experiences because AI? And a whole lot of humans with valuable experience are being discarded like garbage for the same reason? We have an army of lunatics fighting to control as much power and resources as they can. While we haven’t solved extreme poverty nor found ways to make the value of nature be the default.

Then there is the whole food security topic which I think about more often than before now that I work close to the farming industry. The degradation of our soils is real. The desertification of land areas is real. I mean, the fact that it is almost November and I have not been freezing to my bones (when usually by this time of the year I would have been covered in several warm layers for weeks) is very telling.

By now you probably got the point. I am in a crisis. People around me are in a crisis. As humanity, it feels like we are all in a crisis. Simply keeping away from the news and sources of information bringing in this dark vibe to my brain is not enough. It is everywhere I go. My optimism has reached a limit and I am fighting hard to find my way back to hope.

And so I am deliberately searching for and practicing things that can help me cultivate it. One such source was a video by Hank Green that touched me because of these words in particular:

“We build things to be beautiful and impactful, but they also need to be useful”… “And, almost always hidden in the beauty of human creation is another kind of beauty. Something that cannot be seen only known, that everything is maintenance, that we are layering our new abilities upon our old abilities like sediment laid down in a river delta, like layers of paint laid down by generations of workers and at every step always there is the constant labor of maintenance without which everything we make would fall apart basically instantly”

My hope is that we will realize we should go back to building things for their beauty and impact. My hope is that we will realize many things require our skills to be maintained, because they are worth maintaining. Ourselves. Our homes. Our lands. Our forests. Our art.

My hope is that we will realize that a good life does not need headless running around, endless stakeholder value, unstoppable growth, selfish individualism, and exponential technological development. It needs recovery, rest, maintenance, care. It needs intention, attention, focus, creativity, generosity, community and enough growth and development to help us all live better, not run over one another.

The key, I suspect, is to stay curious and walk the world. Explore skills, learn new things, and find ourselves ways to be useful. Not just for financial stability, which is admittedly hard to find and necessary, but for fulfillment’s sake. If your association with staying active is linked to the image of the infamous rat race, how about updating it for your favorite analogy? Picture a surfer riding waves, but also taking time to sit by the seaside and enjoy the sunsets. Or a hiker in the forest, taking in the fresh air, tackling the slopes, and resting at night by a warm bonfire. Whichever analogy resonates more.

Happy Saturday,

Maria 🌺

P.S. Proudly generated by this brain of mine, and written throughout several weeks of struggling to find the words, make sense of the thoughts in written form, and multiple editions.