As discussed in our previous post on this topic, academics face a tough challenge with self-care because the work has a tendency to become all-consuming for both structural and passion-related reasons. The structures of academic work instil a sense of being behind all the time. The care and passion that academics bring to their topics easily transmutes into perfectionism and self-criticism. Together, these two factors make taking time for self care sometimes feel like self-betrayal.
Here is some sensible advice all academics have received: get better at time management so that you can have more time for self-care without guilt. There’s just a small problem: academic time is unmanageable, ungovernable, and undomesticated—a mess! This mess seeps past even the best-conceived boundaries!
Acceptance
One of us (Alex) was fortunate to get some words of wisdom from his supervisor: “How do I do all the things that are expected of me? I don’t. It’s not possible. The best I can do is to arrange to collapse into a hammock.”
Wise words! The first step in dealing with a problem is accepting the dark side of our choices. Being an academic just means being a few steps from overwhelm at the best of times, and in overwhelm at the worst of times.
We’ve written about overwhelm in a few places. There’s a plethora of knowledge, skill, and wisdom about how to move through it gracefully. But we have to understand that choosing to be academics means choosing to live with the possibility of overwhelm at all times; it is a choice to learn to dance with it.
More specifically, accepting this situation means accepting that our boundaries between life and work can never be as categorical as those of a 9-to-5 job. They just can’t. Opportunities arise here and there, seemingly randomly. Our working routines might look very different month-to-month. That has some benefit. But it means that rigid boundaries will inevitably break.
Commitment
After acceptance of the bad comes commitment to what is good and worthwhile. Accepting the bad allows a clearer-eyed assessment of the good in academic work.
There’s a kind of freedom, flexibility, and agency that comes from being an academic. Not many people get to exercise as much choice as academics do in what they spend their energy learning and perfecting. (One might say it’s too much choice sometimes!)
Academics are one of the few job categories where understanding the nuances of one’s agency makes a big difference for job satisfaction. Specifically, we need to learn that our boundaries in academia can, at best, be semi-permeable. We need to learn to say no much more and to guard our energy, but we must always be on the lookout for opportunities. It’s an essential part of the ethos!
This constant looking-out makes the schedule unmanageable, but it’s worth it, at least sometimes, to hold the tension. There is, unfortunately, no one-size-fits-all solution here. The right attitude evolves with the ebbs and flows of academic work.
In sum, we need to accept the negatives so that we may enjoy the positives. Whether the positives are worth it is part of a larger conversation.