Who has not watched intelligent, educated, good-hearted people unable to create the lives they desired, who eventually give up, consumed with despair and anger? They flail like gorillas on roller skates, with great strength, but no leverage at all. Why does this happen? One possible answer is that they had theories, models for everything around them in life, but no way to check the accuracy of their ideas. They failed to grasp that EVERYONE deletes information from their conscious input. It is simply impossible to take in all the data that streams past our senses. Note the recent experiments proving that those self-identified with either the political Right or Left can see the flaws in the other party’s arguments, but not in their own. This is typical of religious or gender bias as well. Men and women, Christian and Mosley, Believer and Atheist…all are vulnerable to this tendency. Upon a little reflection, I have work-life balance. It takes a bit of work to make it that way, and sometimes in the middle of all the work that is life, I wonder if there is a returns department for this whole existence thing. But the tiny, serendipitous, spontaneous moments of joy I find in all the things I do, brings me all the balance I need.
On the positive side, it helps a lot that I am in love with my work in an embarrassing way. I will be mid-protocol and be struck by the fact that not only am I living my childhood dream, but I am even more fascinated by my field than I was one, five, or ten years ago. I know what hating your job is like, to the point of being physically sick over it. A day in lab that lasts ten or twelve hours is more often invigorating than demoralizing, motivating me to come in even earlier the next day; whereas in some previous jobs I felt trapped by every new responsibility. I feel like I might have mentioned this all before, but I can’t help but tell people I made the right decision about what I want to do with my life (so far).
Loving my job or not, I still need to find time to explicitly exist in the given moment. To those who have known me throughout my life, maybe it’s hard to imagine that I am not laid-back, ready to go whichever way life takes me. Then again, maybe it’s not – I grew up in a family of Type A personalities. My spouse is constantly… lovingly?… reminding to me “relax,” and in doing so, only making me more stressed that I am not relaxed and reminding me that I am somehow so bad at doing something that is supposed to be natural instinct. A valuable lesson my PhD is teaching me, however, is to make space for that time to “relax.” Granted, I will probably fill it with chores or a run or dithering about all the things I’m not doing. If I’m lucky, however, my step-daughter will ask to do a craft and I will pull out multiple mugs, so she has a good model. Maybe my spouse will suggest we watch a movie I’ve been wanting to see in the middle of the afternoon. If my cat is lucky, it will catch me at the right time with a forlorn look and adamant “meow” for attention, pets, and scratching. For twenty minutes or an hour or two, my life will only exist as the moment I am in.
If we are to be successful salesmen, artists, leaders, teachers, or simply human beings, we must be a sincere in our work.
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