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67. The speaker claims that our jobs greatly influence our personal interests, recreational activities and even appearance. While I agree that the personal lives of some people are largely determined by their work, in my view it would be a mistake to draw this conclusion generally. In my observation, the extent to which occupation influences personal life depends on the nature of the work, and how central the work is to ones sense of self. On the one hand, consider my friends Steve and William. Steve works as a gardener, but after work he creates oil paintings of quality and poignancy. His leisure time is spent alternately at the sea, in the wilderness, and in dark cafes. William paints houses for a living, but on his own time he collects fine art and books in first edition, as well as reading voraciously in the area of American history. Their outside activities and appearance speak little about what Steve or William do for a living, because these men view their jobs as little more than a means of subsidizing me activities that manifest their true selves. At the same time, they have chosen jobs that need not spill over into their personal lives, so the nature of their jobs permits them to maintain a distinctive | 
