Are you happy?

The title of this post is a question that I have been asked TWICE this week now.  So it seems as if the heavens above are compelling me to 1) ask myself this question and REALLY think hard about it; and 2) write about it so that I can share my thoughts/feelings with others who may benefit from this post.

A masters student asked me today, as I was advising her about the journey of becoming an academic (she is interested in doing a doctorate), whether I am happy that I have chosen the academic job route.  It's a tough question, though, because on the one hand, I do absolutely love my work.  So much so that it's a little bit of an addiction.  In fact, my late advisor said it well: "Jason, being an academic means that you'll always have a mistress.  You have your wife ... but she'll always be jealous of your work and all the time that you'll spend with it instead of with her."  Being an academic is, in many ways, a completely selfish act.  I seek knowledge because I want to know more (I'm just so darn curious!).  I spend countless hours toiling over things that other people would consider minutiae (but it's NOT minutiae ... I'm building knowledge here, for goodness sakes ... pushing the frontiers of what we know!).  And I do all of this, at least for me as an emerging scholar, because I find it intensely interesting and, quite frankly, because I want to be employable at a top-notch institution.  So I do spend lots of time trying to get published ... trying to think of really awesome ideas that can get funded by people with deep pockets ... the sort of stuff that takes absurd amounts of time ... time that could have been spent with my family, had I not been so addicted to my work (see post entitled "Debt").

So yes, I'm happy that I chose this route because it fulfills my career aspirations, and because the job just really suits my dispositions well.  But ...

It also means that spending those countless hours working my tail off really puts a strain on the other parts of my life.  I'll be frank here.  The academic life is not family-friendly.  I am constantly being pulled back to my laptop because I'm always thinking, "I need to get _____ paper out for publication ..." or "I have to meet with _______ and discuss how to write our NSF grant," or more commonly (at least in my immediate future), "I have to GRADE PAPERS!!!"  I do see a small number of people who have families and seem to be able to handle it quite well.  But, they ARE the minority for sure.  In other words, I have yet to find a way to balance my work life with my family life so that the one (work) does not consume the other.  At this point in my life, Amy and the kids are most definitely getting consumed by my work.  As a postdoc, finances are TIGHT, especially with 2 kids.  So we are a family of 2 working professionals who are scraping by (financially) to make ends meet.  That's a big cause of unhappiness.  Also, at the end of the day, Amy and I are so strung out from work that we barely have time or energy to even spend quality time together.  That's also a cause of unhappiness.  Yet, it's what I've chosen.  So I own it ... all the happiness AND the unhappiness that comes with the choice.  

As an academic, it really helps if you have a spouse who borders saintliness.  Amy is my personal hero.  And ultimately, whatever I "achieve" in my academic career won't mean a thing unless that work can contribute to and support other people in the same way that Amy has contributed to and supported my own happiness.  And for that, I defer to St. Bernard of Clairvau:


There are those who seek knowledge for the sake of knowing; that is curiosity.
There are those who seek knowledge to be known by others; that is vanity.
There are those who seek knowledge in order to serve; that is love.


I doubt that I can say in earnest that I am really happy that I've chosen this route unless I can say that I have sought knowledge in order to serve.  Unfortunately, my perception of how things are in my field is that, as a junior researcher, you simply do not have any room to do such things ... yet.