Published via Ecency

How I Became a "White Collar"
I don't come from a family of workers—at least not in the classic sense.
Actually, my family reflects quite well how society transitioned from most families being farmers to only a few still are—and all that in a very short period of time.

My father worked as a clerk for a notary, and my mother was a civic education teacher in an agricultural high school.
Before becoming a clerk, my father wanted to be a farmer. He trained for that. But at some point, he decided he wasn’t going to achieve his dream of having a house and a family that way.
So he went back to law school—at almost 30.
His father (my grandfather) was already a “white collar” as a druggist, but my great-grandfather was a farmer—one of the French colonists who created farms and villages in Algeria.

On my mother’s side, her grandfather was an ambulant pasta maker who started a small factory, also in Algeria.
But he didn’t adapt to modern production lines. His son (my grandfather) had a short-lived experience in the factory before it went bankrupt.
He later found work in a bank.

So no, I’m not from a family of workers.
Still, I grew up believing I was.
And here’s more or less how that came to happen...

The starting point was this ideal of success: to be a “white collar” was the absolute goal.
But at the same time, I built a mask for myself.
I convinced myself that successful people were necessarily bad people. Either dishonest, or so obsessed with work that they had no time for family or life.
In contrast, the “good people” were the blue-collar workers, the artisans—those who worked with their hands and looked humble.

So, even though I graduated from high school and even did a year at university, I always went for manual jobs.
Or, at least, I did everything I could to avoid building a career in a company.
Every time someone liked me too much and wanted to hire me long-term... I fled.

The idea was: never build.
As soon as I earned some money, I would spend it. Not to enjoy myself, really—but to avoid accumulating.
To avoid creating something stable.

Most of this was unconscious.
But when I look back, the psychology is simple:

Building myself materially would have meant I was capable.
But I didn’t believe I was.

Yet in 2016, I joined Bolt, a fast-growing startup, as a customer support agent.
After a year, I applied for a more interesting position... and in 2017, I became a training manager.

Someone gave me a chance.
I took it.
And then—I chose to keep going.
I became a white collar 😅

What made me want to apply?
What changed?

Well... something in me had shifted.

I no longer saw companies—or society—as a trap.
I realised I could play the game.
I could take the risk.
And most importantly:

I started to believe I could succeed.

That gain in confidence came from one thing:

Seeing myself differently.
With affection.
With love.
Without pretense.
Without preconceptions.

Of course, it happened in stages.
But the big turning point was this:

I realised that deep inside,
I didn’t love myself enough.
I believed I wasn’t worthy—because I hadn’t been trained to believe I was.

In truth, it doesn’t matter what you do for a living—as long as it helps you feel fulfilled, even indirectly.

And if there’s one message I’d like to leave here, it’s this:

✨ Make children feel like they’re capable of anything they want.
The rest? They’ll learn on the way.