Watch who you call “just” a cashier or “just” a cook. “Just” is how ambition turns snobby.

One small word can shrink a whole person’s work, and it usually slips out when you are busy measuring yourself against other people. Wanting more for your own life is fine. Deciding that other lives are smaller is where it goes wrong. The word gives away a ranking you did not mean to say out loud.

Listen to yourself for a week and catch it as it leaves your mouth. When it shows up, finish the sentence differently and say what the person actually does. If you work a job someone else might belittle, you do not have to carry their ranking either.