The person you are at work may be real without being the whole person you are.
REFLECTION
REFLECTION
The work version of you is not a mask over a real one. It is a genuine part, shaped by what the setting rewards, and it is partial rather than false. The mistake in either direction is treating it as the whole person or dismissing it as pure performance.
If work has been taking up more of the definition than you want, notice which parts of you have nowhere else to appear. Give one of them an hour a week somewhere else. Being partial in one setting is fine as long as the other parts have somewhere to exist.
What do your colleagues never get to see in you?
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.