Define Yourself?

How do you define yourself? What do you do? What are you?

This evening I sat down and asked myself these very questions. I probably think of myself as a web developer, software consultant, climber and amateur sportsman. But can I be all of these things? What about my other interests? I like to cook, does that make me a chef too?

Many people might say that your job is what defines you and lets face it, what you do for a living becomes a large part of who you are. My job title is "Senior Developer", but what does that mean? In reality, I probably spend about half my time at work "developing" i.e. writing code, while the rest of my time is spent problem solving, communicating within the team, mentoring, managing expectations,  investigating things that go wrong, planning ahead and learning. Does that make me a developer? Well probably, but that only tells half the story doesn't it?

Maybe time for a different approach. Starting with a blank sheet of paper, I wrote down as many skills, qualities and personal attributes for myself as I could think of, doing my best to group things together where possible. I ended up with 4 distinct sections on the page: development, collaboration, consulting and personal. Working with this I could say yes, I am a developer, but I could also be a technical consultant, facilitator, team player or any number of different things! The page defines my skill set, but does it define me? Not really.

So how do you define yourself? Maybe I'm simply a nice guy, who's passionate about what I do and likes to be challenged to better myself. Maybe it's as simple as that. That'll do for now I suppose, until tomorrow... then maybe I'll be a developer for a bit.