Escape the Ivory Tower

Is it good stress or bad stress?

It’s not often one of the myths of academia becomes suddenly visible, but it happened this week with the publication of a Forbes article describing the least stressful jobs of 2013. Professor was #1 — the least stressful job.

And then Twitter exploded

All of the usual stories were trotted out: Professors are off between May and September and a month over the winter holidays. They don’t spend much time in the classroom. Sure, tenure-track people have some pressure to publish, but there aren’t really any deadlines and the environment is so cozy and civilized.

I’m not even kidding about that last part.

I’d have more sympathy for the writer, who was reporting on a careercast.com list rather than creating one herself, if she had done any actual research, but she admitted after her comments section exploded that she hadn’t.

You can imagine the responses she got. Professors detailing the insane hours they work, especially during those times “off.” Adjuncts upset that all university teaching jobs get lumped together as if they’re the same. Tenure-track people pointing out that there’s one big hefty deadline and it’s a do-or-die sort of thing.

Low stress, my ass.

Good stress and bad stress

Pretty much every job is going to have stress. Stress is, in fact, just a function of human life. But there’s productive stress and destructive stress, and the difference is important.

Productive stress is motivating. It gets us going and dealing with it feels like an accomplishment.

Destructive stress is, well, destructive. It demotivates us, it exhausts us, it wears us down, it takes away the will to do much of anything. Burnout is the natural endpoint of unchecked stress. Destructive stress lived through doesn’t feel like an accomplishment. If anything, destructive stress can make you feel like you’ve wasted your time.

Whether a given person experiences something as productive stress or destructive stress depends on a lot of things: the situation itself, other responsibilities, interest in and desire for the situation, general personality type.

Some people are going to find the schedule, tasks, and environment of academia motivating. By and large, assuming other parts of their lives don’t explode and there’s a reasonable amount of work-life balance, these people will enjoy being in academia.

Other people are going to find that the schedule, tasks, and environment gradually wear them down and make them miserable.

What does it feel like to you?

At any given moment, we can be overwhelmed by even the best situation, because shit happens, and if a family divorce, a mental health crisis, and overscheduling all hit at the same time, well, it will be an uncomfortable few months.

If in general, the situation feeds you, in general, it motivates you, then rock on. You’ve got a good thing going.

But if it doesn’t, if it’s always a slog, then it’s not the situation for you, no matter how many “least stressful” lists it tops, and no matter how good it looks on (completely inaccurate) paper.

Be persistent; don’t push

Many years ago now, as I was leaving academia, I had the Worst Yard Sale in the Whole World.

No, really. It was.

First, it poured down rain the entire day. We had to have it in the garage instead of on the driveway/in the yard, and you couldn’t really see us unless you knew to look for us. We attempted to fix this by putting signs at the end of the driveway, but the only thing we accomplished was ruining our easel.

Second, we made $2. Gross. Net, it was much less, since we had paid to run an ad in the paper. (Back when running ads in the paper was the best way to get people to a yard sale.) Net, we lost money.

And we still had to schlep all that stuff somewhere. I’m sure you won’t be surprised when I tell you it hung out in the garage for quite a while.

Last summer, by contrast, we had a really smashing yard sale. People came by all day, we got rid of tons of stuff, and we made enough money to buy ourselves a new couch. By the end of that day, everything we had wanted to sell was either sold or donated to Goodwill. We even took down the signs we’d put up around the neighborhood advertising it.

So what was the difference?

No yard sale is easy. It takes a lot of time and energy to sort through stuff, decide what to get rid of, price everything, get it all set up, sit through the whole thing (usually in the heat of summer), and break it all down.

But the big difference between The Worst Yard Sale in the Whole World and the most recent one was this: The first one was all about teeth-gritted determination, while the second was all about persistence.

In the first one, everything went wrong. We ran out of time. We didn’t get to look at the whole house. We didn’t get to see if what we had warranted a yard sale or a trip to the donation center. We paid a late fee for the ad. It fucking rained the whole time. It wasn’t just that it was hard and took energy. It wasn’t even that we were unfortunate with the weather. At every step of the way, we had to stubbornly push ourselves to go on, even when everything in us was telling us to just let it go, already.

I can’t say everything went right in the second one. It triggered a fatigue episode for me, and we overpaid to have something delivered, and the inside of the house was a shambles for probably a month. But while it required a hell of a lot of persistence, it never had that same quality of pushing. We always wanted to have it, even when we were laying on the floor, despairing of going through another closet full of who-knows-what. There was no teeth-gritting.

This is not about yard sales

I’ve talked to a lot of academics who long-ago reached the teeth-gritting stage of things. They’re bound and determined to finish, not because they actually want the degree anymore, but because they’ve come this far, dammit, and they’re going all the way.

They think about all the time they’ve already put in; they don’t think about what forcing themselves to the end costs them in time, money, and energy, not to mention mental health.

Graduate school in particular and academia in general require bucketfuls of persistence. By definitely, they’re all about long-term projects, and long-term projects are marathons, not sprints. The whole path of academia is slow and ponderous, and you’ve got to have some stick-to-it-iveness to get to the other side.

But if you’re having to push yourself, everyday, not just on the days you’ve got a head cold, then ask yourself what you’re pushing yourself for. If you’re having to grit your teeth and talk yourself out of quitting, ask yourself why. If you can never say anymore that you honestly want this, you just can’t bear to quit, ask yourself what you do want.

Go after that. It’s going to feel really different.

Hey, I got interviewed!

Daniel Mullen of The Unemployed Philosopher was kind enough to interview me on his podcast series. He asked a number of thoughtful questions about the process of leaving academia from the humanities, and it was great to be able to articulate what I do and why I do it.

You can hear it all here: http://theunemployedphilosophersblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/episode-6-julie-clarenbach/

I’d love to hear your responses.

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