Who do you think you are?

So how much of your identity is wrapped up in what you do rather than who you are?  I ask this because of two incidences I witnessed recently.  The first was rather innocent.  A friend of mine’s mother is depressed.  To the point she's faking illnesses so her family will have to pay attention to her.  Why?  Because now that she’s retired she's bored to tears.  She hates being around ‘old’ people – all they want to do is sit around all day and talk about the ‘good ol’ days’.  This ain’t her idea of fun.  Plus, she can only watch so much T.V. in a day.  This poor woman has no clue what to do with herself now that she isn’t working and she’s become a widow.  My suggestion was to find a really good charity for her to volunteer for or find the lady a man or both.  The second case was a wee bit scary.  A friend’s husband is gravely ill and for months she’s been trying to get him to retire early.  Well, he finally did.  However, after only a few days, he was finding things to do around the house.  Fine, as long as the chores he was doing weren’t too taxing.  Then one day, she goes to the store and comes home to find a horror movie scene in her kitchen with her husband in the middle of it.  There was blood everywhere, including on him.  Once she had him taken care of and the kitchen cleaned up, she learned what had happened.  He had climbed on a ladder to trim some limbs.  And this is a guy who isn’t the steadiest on his feet while standing on flat ground.  Well, he trimmed the limb the ladder was resting on, the ladder fell, taking him with it.  He was bruised and scraped in numerous places but it could’ve been so much worse.  As they talked, she learned he felt worthless now that he was no longer working.  He just wanted to contribute more to the household and not be a burden.  He had a hard time seeing he had worth to his wife simply by still being there by her side.  We spend our whole lives working for someone else and apparently lose ourselves along the way.  Is it because we work only for a paycheck and not because it’s what we're passionate about?  If that’s the case, well, that’s really sad.  I’m doing what I love right now – sure the pay may not be the best being an independent author.  But I’m happy, I’m not stressed out and I know who I am.  I could stop working tomorrow and I’d be just fine.  So, how about you?  Are you more than what you do?  Could you start a conversation with something other than describing your job?  For example, what's the funniest thing you did or happened this week outside of work?  Me, I got a letter, in Spanish, offering to help me with my immigration problem.  Never mind the fact I'm so white I'm practically a ghost and my Spanish is no bueno.  Yup, pretty funny.  Let's have a conversation about that...