The question on everyone's mind

The question that this article is referring to is "What do you do for a living?" At first, upon reading this, I wondered why the author was reading into the question so much. It seemed innocent to me. Many people might enjoy talking about their jobs. Jobs can tell you what someone's interests and passions are. However, perhaps if that was all you cared about learning you could ask directly about interests, hobbies, etc. The author of this article has a good point. There is a good chance that someone who responds to this question will be instantly judged. Once the author logically leads the reader to this conclusion, he actually applies it to Occupy Wall Street. He thinks that perhaps people mainly want to be accepted and valued, instead of looked down upon because they aren't all doctors and lawyers. By the end of the article, I think the main focus is just to remind people that jobs, money, etc. don't matter. Perhaps the idea of "money isn't everything" is a bit cliche, but it's still true. If you assume a lawyer is happy and a cashier at McDonald's is sad (the examples used in the article), you may be right. However, that does not mean money brings happiness. It just means that those workers, like the people who judge them, have been raised to believe that your career and how much money you make represent who you are. The author backs up his arguments with personal experience; he travelled around, meeting new strangers, paying close attention to the questions they asked first. "What do you do for a living?" sometimes came before "What's your name?" I agree with the author when he concludes his article by saying "Now it just all seemed so sad"


Article: http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/25/opinion/granderson-what-do-you-do/index.html?hpt=op_bn4