A layoff fundamentally changed how I perceive work

That's what happened during my first job almost 10 years ago. "we're different than other companies, we're family", "business is always personal", yadda yadda

Then one day out of nowhere "hey btw we're not going to renew your contract, we're nice so we give you an extra 10 days of vacation don't bother coming back tomorrow, oh and all your accesses have been revoked". At least I got the reality check right away, some people get that way down the line when their whole persona has already been built around their job

I think one has some deeper issues to tackle if one is basing their whole persona around their job. This is not a healthy thing to do, regardless of layoffs.

At one extremum there's e.g. Brad Pitt, how could you tell him not to base his whole persona around its job ?