It’s that time of year when performance review conversations happen at my company. I left the meeting with my manager one afternoon feeling rather deflated and angry. Afterwards, I sat on the floor in front of the freezer in our kitchen, my feet unsteady. I’d avoided looking directly at her as she spoke in vague terms about my performance, gesturing as if weaving together invisible cobwebs with her fingers. In essence, while my work is “high quality,” I just didn’t have the “conduct and cultural impact” needed to merit a high rating. That’s corporate speak for: If you’re to make any progress in this place, alongside churning out excellent design work, you have to actually be visible and charming and way chattier than you currently are.

This is not the first time I’ve been told this, and while I try to do my part, chiming into small talk with my two cents about the weather and showing up to most of the team bonding activities, it often feels like I’m stuck in a cycle of having to play a character I can’t master on a stage unfamiliar to me, reading a script written in another tongue.

In the days since receiving that review, I’ve been more sullen than I’d care to admit. I’ve swallowed back a few tears and allowed myself to indulge in a petulant sort of self-righteousness– taking longer to reply to Slack messages and opting out of facilitation duties in a kind of silent protest. I’ve been stewing in a fog of shame for the past week and I’m honestly surprised by that. I’m surprised because I like to make much ado about how unlike some people, I’m not defined by my work.

One of the prayers I’ve said many times in the 3.5 years since I started working at this company is Psalm 17:14: Deliver me from the men of this world, whose portion is in this life, the people so defined by what they can achieve, including in the workplace, that they use others as scaffolding to climb to greater heights. Those who drown out others’ voices in meetings and take credit for others’ work and talk about others behind their backs as a way to build rapport. I’ve prayed for protection against such people because– well, because I don’t identify as one of those people.

I’ve believed myself instead to be one of those brimming with a longing for a more enduring promise. Those steadfast in their pursuit of God-honoring excellence, and unyielding under the ever-mounting pressures of deadlines and unwieldy coworkers and all-consuming workplace politics. Those who are somehow able to maintain a sense of identity that’s fully grounded in God and are not shaken by the not-so-great things that happen at work. But surely such people wouldn’t care too much about a mere performance rating, or would they?

If I’m being honest, there’s a certain restlessness at the core of the way I’ve been approaching my work. Between working late nights and rehearsing for presentations until my mouth dries out, I’ve been striving for excellence– which can be a God-honoring thing. But often, the all-permeating disappointment felt in the wake of a clunky presentation or unfavorable feedback from a respected mentor shows me that while I’ve been pursuing excellence in my work as a way to please God, I’ve also been doing it as a way to derive meaning.

I led a workshop recently with a bunch of engineers about a project whose details were so technical and ungraspable to my non-engineer brain that I mostly sputtered through it– and afterwards, wondered if my brain was actually broken. Then I wondered if I could ever walk into the office again and try to hold a normal conversation with the same coworkers who’d seen me fumble so badly, with any kind of dignity. Then I had an actual meltdown that had me questioning how I even got a job that requires me to facilitate workshops. And then I wondered how someone who has any real understanding of the unconditional love of God could be so shaken by something so small and insignificant.

I’ve been behaving like one whose portion is in this life, who has no enduring promise beyond what I can achieve here, much like the people I’ve been praying for protection from. And that has meant being beholden to the things a good career can bring, like the praise I receive for a job well done, the admiration that lingers across the faces of acquaintances when I tell them where I work, being able to hold all the poses in my impossibly difficult Pilates class because I walked in with my company’s sweatshirt on (it’s a thing!). It’s also meant being beholden to the torrent of emotions felt in the aftermath of, and sometimes in dread of things not going well– the anxiety and shame and ever present fear of saying the wrong thing or being found out.

The verse I referenced earlier– Psalm 17:14, when you read a bit further to the next verse, the psalmist says – as for me I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake I shall be satisfied with your likeness. I’ve been praying for that kind of satisfaction, the kind that comes from truly beholding the likeness of God. Partially while on this earth and in this body, and then fully when I finally see Him face to face. I want to be so captured by the anticipation of one day looking like Him, that I can live unencumbered by the weight of toiling for significance from my work. That I’ll be free to work with zeal and fervor, and free to cry when things don’t go according to plan but not so much that I forget who I am altogether. Free to love colleagues in spite of my every natural inclination to sometimes tend to my own desires at their expense. And I know as I write this that I cannot do any of this on my own, so I ask that He would work through me for His good pleasure.