The Myth of the Main Job

On professional ecosystems, multidimensional careers, and the pressure to pick one thing.

I had this thought on the train the other day:

What if we stopped forcing ourselves to identify a singular “main” job?

Why does one role automatically become the “real,” “money making,” or “bill paying” career while everything else gets reduced to a side hustle, passion project, backup plan, or “the thing you do after work”?

I’m a professional ballet dancer.

I’m a Licensed Dietitian Nutritionist.

I’m a co-director and owner of a contemporary ballet company.

And I give my full attention, care, energy, and professionalism to each of those roles.

The amount of time I spend in each space changes from week to week, sure. Some seasons are heavier on rehearsals and performances. Other seasons lean more into client work, program development, administrative projects, or company leadership.

But shifting time allocation does not suddenly make one role “real” and another one secondary.

I’m not balancing a main job and side hustles.

I’m sustaining a professional ecosystem.

The Pressure to Pick One Thing

We live in a culture that loves simple answers to complicated questions.

“So, what do you do?”

Most people expect a single sentence. One title. One clearly defined lane.

And if you give multiple answers, there’s often an unspoken follow-up:

“But which one is your actual job?” or, my favorite, “So, what pays your bills?”

As though only one thing can count.

As though legitimacy requires hierarchy.

I think many of us flatten ourselves to appease others or because who we're talking to is not REALLY interested or listening to our response. Artists downplay their artistry. Creatives minimize their businesses. Healthcare professionals hide the parts of themselves that exist outside the clinic. Entrepreneurs are encouraged to “focus on one thing” even when multiple areas of work meaningfully intersect.

But many careers don’t function in neat, isolated categories.

Especially in creative industries, healthcare, education, and entrepreneurship, work overlaps in ways that are deeply interconnected.

I also think we’ve become conditioned to associate professionalism with singularity.

People prefer clarity.

One title feels easier to understand.

Cleaner. Simpler. More marketable.

But multidimensionality does not automatically mean distraction.

Sometimes it means depth.

Sometimes it means lived experience.

Sometimes it means building a career that reflects the full scope of who you are instead of only the easiest part to explain.

That isn’t confusion. It’s integration.

My Careers Don’t Compete With Each Other

My work as a professional ballet dancer directly informs the way I support dancers and athletes in my nutrition practice.

My background in nutrition shapes how I think about the studio/rehearsal environment, recovery, performance sustainability, and leadership within our ballet company.

My experience as an educator influences how I communicate with clients, dancers, audiences, and students.

None of these roles exist independently from one another. They actually work to strengthen each other.

That’s why the language of “main job” versus “side hustle” has always irritated me. It suggests that one role carries legitimacy (usually based on ability to pay bills) while the others orbit around it as hobbies or supplemental income streams.

But that’s not how my life functions.

This is not a hierarchy.

It’s an ecosystem.

Different Seasons Don’t Change the Legitimacy of the Work

Some weeks, Ballet Embody takes center stage.

Other weeks, my nutrition practice requires more of my attention.

Sometimes one role is more financially sustaining.

Sometimes another role is more creatively fulfilling.

Sometimes one role creates opportunities for another.

And sometimes the value of a piece of work cannot be measured cleanly in income alone.

But temporary shifts in attention are not permanent statements of value.

I think we confuse visibility, income, or hours worked with importance.

The role that makes the most money is considered the “real” one.

The role consuming the most hours becomes the primary identity.

Everything else gets categorized as extra.

But life is more dynamic than that.

Professional ecosystems evolve, responding to seasonality, opportunities, capacity, creativity, health, community, and growth.

We Are Allowed to Be More Than One Thing

I don’t think this conversation is only about careers.

I think there's a piece about identity, too.

We have a quiet pressure to package ourselves into something easy to explain and easy to market. One clear label. One polished elevator pitch. And EVERY marketing or business/entrepreneur class you take WILL tell you this; I don't dispute it, it is important, and it's difficult to apply this rule to my career ecosystem, overall.

As individuals, we are more layered than that. (insert Shrek's quote about being an onion here)

We are allowed to hold multiple identities with care and seriousness.

We are allowed to create lives that don’t fit neatly into conventional professional structures.

We are allowed to be artists and clinicians.

Leaders and performers.

Educators and entrepreneurs.

And beyond all of that, we are also allowed to simply be people.

People with relationships, communities, hobbies, rest, joy, and lives outside productivity.

Maybe the goal isn’t narrowing ourselves into a single professional identity that can be summarized in one sentence.

Maybe the goal is building a life where multiple parts of ourselves are allowed to coexist fully.

Not in competition. Not in hierarchy.

But in conversation with one another.

That’s not a side hustle culture.

That’s an ecosystem.