I’m convinced it’s the first day of school today. For the first time in twelve years, it’s not. Actually, if you include my time as a student, it’s the first time in thirty years. Man, this is gonna be a hard habit to break.
It’s an even harder feeling to shake given my many friends still in the game. Which is probably why my mind is drifting back to my last lecture, and why I left.
In real life, you never get a “last day” like you do in the movies. My final semester of teaching was filled with an endless series of “last” days. But on this particular day, I knew it was the last time I’d have a captive audience of eager young minds. Given that I wasn’t dying, I knew I wasn’t gonna get a Randy-Pausch-style last lecture going, but I felt I should say something.
The salient facts at hand:
1) The Daily Beast had recently ranked Vanderbilt as the 7th Most Stressed Out Campus and 52nd Most (or Least) Happy College in America. (All the more mystifying, then, that it was also ranked the 2nd Hottest School of the Decade.)
2) I had just seen Lewis Black live, and he’d made a convincing argument that no generation would be as good as his when it came to sitting around on couches and making shit up.
3) I’d also seen a talk by Mitchell Hurwitz, the creative genius behind Arrested Development, in the recent past.
You know how Michael Bluth was always surrounded by crazy narcissists? That's how I felt most of the time.
Did I cobble these three apparently unrelated things into a lecture? Oh yes, I did, and I threw in a little Greek philosophy while I was at it.
The Greek philosophers were big on eudaimonia, which most people translate as “the good life.” Since that sounds like something Martha Stewart would say, I prefer to translate it simply as “being happy.” So on that day, I lectured the students about being happy. Actually, I think it would be more accurate to say I yelled at them about being happy — this always seems to happen when I’m trying to make a point. Must be genetic or something.
First, I accused them of of not knowing how to sit on couches and make shit up, mostly because they didn’t know how to sit on their asses in the first place. They’re like sharks: they never stop moving, let alone relax. They take Adderall and Ritalin instead of smoking pot like normal college kids.
(True story: when I assigned a student group to report on college movies like Revenge of the Nerds and PCU, they disapprovingly and incredulously concluded that “these movies treat college as a place to party.” Like they were aliens analyzing a completely foreign concept. Heartbreaking.)
For them, sitting on your ass, even for a good reason, is a foreign concept. These kids are scheduled from dawn till dusk, and it’s a well-known fact that they reserve the hours of midnight till 4 am for their schoolwork because they’re doing so much other stuff before that — and not fun, normal, college student stuff like sitting around, drinking, and picking up girls/guys. No, they’re doing social clubs and sports and fraternities and sororities and they’re not doing it for enjoyment, they’re doing it to pad their resumes for the next rung on the endless hamster wheel. And some of them are also working at like three jobs, which is certainly understandable given what tuition costs. But still, it’s ridiculous the number of things they’re trying to do.
When I accused them of being overscheduled, no-fun, stress monkeys, they didn’t deny it. They agreed heartily. They told me that even partying was competitive — on spring break, Vandy just couldn’t “rage” up there with the Big Ten.
Then I told them that it wasn’t just them, the faculty was also 100% insane. Everyone I knew was running running running all the time, and the tenure-track people just accepted that they would be up at 3 am writing their book in addition to everything else they were doing, and the non-tenure-track people were up till 2 am grading, and what the fuck was wrong with this picture and why in God’s name did everybody think this was an OK or even a “productive” way to live??! (See, this is why I was always having Twilight Zone moments, where I was the only one saying something and everybody was looking at me like I was an alien.)
And then I told them the Isaiah Berlin quote I’d gotten from Mitchell Hurwitz: “Life is choice. Choice is loss.”
Yes, exactly.
People don’t make choices anymore. Either they’re naive enough to believe we can do everything we want to do in life (nope) or they’re so afraid of losing those other options, they try to leave every door hanging wide open. This choice-phobia is why people suck at editing (you must choose and cut brutally, often giving up your favorite phrase in the process), at time management (because God forbid you say “no” to anything), and especially at relaxation, because nobody wants to see it as a valid way to spend your time when you could be doing something else in pursuit of “having it all.”
Choice-phobia is a hellish plague on many campuses, but at places like Vanderbilt, it’s at its worst because it’s not enough to do everything, you’re supposed to be getting an “A” at everything — oh, and that’s all “demonstrating excellence” means if you’re a faculty and not a student. Yeah, good luck with that.
So really, all I was trying to say to the kids is that you’re never going to be an “A” at everything. And you’re gonna have to choose at some point, so you may as well do it deliberately, because if you don’t someone else will and that someone else might be your body telling you it’s done with this bullshit and it needs to sleep sometime and when it shuts you down by God you’ll listen whether you want to or not. Which is why sitting on your ass, on a couch, bullshitting with your friends over beer (substitute wine and hey presto you’ve got an ancient Greek symposium) is a totally valid choice at many points in life.
I wanted to spend my time with people who understood that, so I made my choice to leave academia. And I may end up working at a Starbucks because of it, but that’s OK, I knew that when I made the choice. So far, no regrets.
Nice post; there is nothing more invigorating or terrifying than knowing you’ve made a life-altering choice, and yours is commendable. I too can’t really think of a better way to spend my time than discussing/debating with friends while laying around sipping wine (well sometimes the wine, but wine is sneaky and you can be having completely rational conversations drinking wine and get up for a refill and your legs don’t work anymore…probably the reason they kept the chase lounges low to the ground; less distance to fall.) Anyway, I will heed your advice and try to remember to slow down.
Hmm, not sure it’s commendable yet, but I’ll keep everyone posted. And thanks!
Good post!
Right back at ya.
I think the competition aspect was the biggest thing with me, and the people I knew. We all felt like we were competing with everyone else, to get the best grades, because everything was cumulative. Its ingrained from the first day of 9th grade–everything you do from this point on will help you get into college. Then in college–everything you do will help you get on the Dean’s list, get into a good grad school, end world hunger, or whatever! Over here (in England), as far as I’m aware, you have exams at the end of the year and that’s what counts (or what mostly counts). Maybe for procrastinators, or people who don’t test well, this is a shit way to make your grades, however, it seems awesome to me now.
Yes, the competition element is what keeps this system working! Good enough isn’t enough, you’ve always got to be better than someone else…and yeah, that whole invisible carrot thing, where you’re always working towards something and it’s not even your own choice. I don’t know if I’d want a one-exam system, but it does sound attractive in a lot of ways.
Considerations from the prospective of an italian who lives in Ireland, shares an apartment with 2 canadians , has many american friends/colleagues & IS GENERALISING. North american people:
* have an impressive level of energy so I am not surprised that they can handle so much more than I, for example, could ever do;
* their enthusiasm can be contagious or annoying;
* they are not afraid of hard work so I am not surprised they start so soon getting used to it;
* high expectations translate into stress;
I believe that here at work I am surrounded by those that you are describing. This approach is slowly taking over the word, is there any way to stop it? I admire you for trying.
I might add that we are not that stressed in Italy (cos we aren’t, not in college) but we are far more frustrated (:
Thanks for the international perspective. American pride in working hard is great, but it has become an excuse for asking waaaay to much of employees — since when does “pulling your weight” mean you’re expected to let work rule your life?
I’m so very glad I got to spend some time in Italy, where I saw a different approach to life. But like you, I fear that the crazy American way of life is taking over. The only way to stop it is to say “NO” to ridiculous demands, politely and firmly. Or less politely and firmly, which is why I’ll probably end up at Starbucks.
I keep trying to explain to people why chilling out and relaxing, and every once in a while saying “fuck it” about your homework is important. I think I’m slowly corrupting all my friends
I’m all for that kind of corruption. One of the hardest parts of maintaining the professorial facade was not snickering at hungover students. As long as they didn’t whine, I just thought it was funny if they didn’t have their homework because they’d been out barhopping.
Ha, Starbucks! An open forum and endless supply of inspiration via the mystical ’3rd place’. I used to work there during college. I say, we start plans for a new kind of coffee shop with your lecturing (yelling) as part of the ‘experience’. Probably not the greatest idea, but it provides for some great mental imagery
A friend and I have always joked about starting a symposium service (hire us for your next book club!) but I like the idea of a yelling coffee shop even better. It’s a lot like the ancient Greek cynics and Socrates, who just annoyed the shit out of everyone in public. And yes, I’m trying to think of a way to gather all of the cool disgruntled teachers I’m meeting into some sort of think tank…
There has never been a moment when I regretted my choice to leave academia. Remember what Miley said–it’s the climb
lol
Good to hear. And yeah, if you want to quote Miley, you don’t want to do in anywhere near academic buildings
I have always loved Arrested Development. And now that you mention it, the parallels with academia are pretty convincing.
I’ve always thought so. Fun fact: the show was inspired by a psychology textbook’s definition of the family structure, which Mitchell Hurwitz promptly subverted. I think this is what needs to happen with all our history….
Good post. As a sometime teaching assistant-come-cover-for-the-real-prof, not snickering at hungover (and sometimes still clearly drunk) students was hard. Oh, and I never got too mad about missed homework as long as they did it 95% of the time. And I never told them I was expecting a lot from that. That seemed to keep them happy.
And the parallels between Arrested Development and academia are, like athenap said, spooky.
Yeah, it’s good to be mellow but I’ve found that it can bite you in the ass when the students read “not terribly upset” as “going to give you an A for B work”. And I think the Arrested Development thing could be a good test for whether someone’s an asshole or not: if they get it, they’re probably OK but if they don’t they’re probably a crazed narcissist!
Not choosing also means you never really focus on anything. Eventually, you wind up doing a half-ass job on everything, and you’re exhausted to the point of throwing up. In a weird way, I’m glad that the human body is able to stop us from this foolishness.
In job interviews, when people ask me about my ability to multitask, I joke, “I am good at juggling three balls at once. Anything beyond that, and I’ll throw the balls back at you.” Usually, the ones who laugh at that are the ones who hire me, and I probably wouldn’t want to work for people who don’t laugh at it.
I agree, the lack of focus produces poor quality work. And that’s a great test for future employers! Anyone who’s survived academia should get a free pass on the multitasking question.