Identity

There's something pathetic about a guy who gets a job with a corporation, then basically adopts that corporation as his identity.

We've all known people like this. They feel proud to be associated with this corporation, they sport company logos when possible, and their friendships revolve around the office. They even grow to love their company, in a way.

It's as if they just shuck off whatever identity they had before they were hired. Whatever other interests they might have had, whatever other loyalties they might have had, whatever else they'd done in their lives which might have been a source of pride, are all quickly forgotten.

People like this are rarely bright. Yet they often do well. If you're a CEO, you'd prefer to have guys like this than people with mixed feelings about their jobs. Guys like this make better soldiers. Except the patriotism they feel is directed not towards a country but a money-making operation.

Make no mistake, it is a sort of patriotism they feel, however misguided that may be. True believers like this would have done well in Mao's China, carrying around his little Red Book of quotations. Whatever organization they belong to, they drink the Kool-Aid.

Same personality, different situation.

Your personality should be an amalgamation of everything you've ever experienced and done and thought. If you're able to assume a new identity just like that, it shows there wasn't -- and isn't -- much to you.