Thread by @raulpacheco

Students of the world (faculty, ECRs and postdocs): buckle up and let me share my story of the past few years and the rationale why, this 2019 holiday season you should take a few days off and NOT use all of them to catch up on reading/writing/fieldwork.

I am perfectly aware that I may sound like a total hypocrite because the reason why I am awake at 6:25am on a Saturday morning is precisely that I want to do some reading before I leave town on vacation, and I'm writing this thread as I wait for my coffee to brew.

ANYHOW...

I have A LOT of experience with overwork. I was brought up as an overachiever. My life as a child was pretty regimented and (because 2 of my grandparents were in the military), quasi-militarized.

I do not regret my upbringing and I'm grateful to my parents that they did this

I grew up expecting to balance and juggle a full-time school load, piano lessons, swimming lessons, and volunteering teaching adults how to read and write in gang-riddled neighbourhoods. I switched piano for theatre and competitive dancing (note I didn't just dance, I COMPETED)

I switched from swimming and basketball to volleyball. I THRIVED while playing volleyball, and trained 4 hours every single day. I reached juniors national-level competitive team-status and travelled the country and abroad to play tournaments. All of this, while balancing school.

To me, my friends and my social life were irreplaceable, so I balanced competitive volleyball, competitive dancing, volunteering, a full-time school load (chemical engineering, which isn't an "easy' undergraduate degree) with having a social life, friends and a close-knit family.

I have plenty of experience with big workloads and the challenges of juggling activities trying to keep a semblance of balance. I had tough and rigorous professors, and I do not regret having faced these challenges at all whatsoever.

HOWEVER...

When I entered grad school...

... more specifically my PhD, I felt that trying to manage the workload was like drinking water through a straw that was coming from a firehose.

I am 5'11 and often felt that my workload was like 7 feet tall. I frequently felt like I was drowning.

Note, I DO have special skill

I speed-read, I touch-type over 100 words per minute, and I have quasi-eidetic memory. To me, preparing for comprehensive exams was a total breeze, and when I defended my doctoral dissertation, I basically hit the ball out of the park.

But even with those skills, I STRUGGLED.

When I transitioned to being a professor, I reflected on the fact that even with my skills and extended experience being a systematic planner, I WAS STRUGGLING, I thought

"what happens with everyone else who doesn't have the privileges that I do?

How much do THEY struggle?"

Being in a highly competitive environment drives up self-imposed excessive workloads. In graduate school I started getting tired regularly (despite playing competitive volleyball on a regular basis too), and this has followed me through my professor career.

THIS IS NOT NORMAL.

I'm ok with being competitive, working hard, but I also like playing hard and more than anything, RESTING HARD. I regularly face this challenge of having a fulfilling academic career all the while trying to achieve some semblance of balance.

I've written about this since 2013.

One of the problem is that we glorify busy raulpacheco.org/2017/05/glorif… and in doing this, we make academia an ableist zone, where only those who do not face mental health challenges, physical disabilities, etc. are the ones who may potentially "succeed".

And even then, not 100%

I don't mind being vulnerable and open about how I struggle with this on a regular basis raulpacheco.org/2014/12/on-sel…

Every end-of-the-year I say to myself "next year, I'm not going to overwork".

Every year, I end up doing it, in some way or another. This is not uncommon, it's ok.

2018 brought a really bad chronic pain episode, and 2019 started with a similar case. My first 2019 pain-free-day was February 15th, 2019. Over the second semester of 2019, I developed a terrible case of psoriasis/eczema/dermatitis combined with chronic fatigue/chronic pain.

I am grateful that for the most part, I lived in Paris with relatively low-levels of pain, or pain-free (for the last few months of my visiting professorship at Sorbonne Nouvelle's Institute D'Etudes D'Amerique Latine"). Because at least, I got extended periods of time to THINK.

I keep saying this: "no academic accolades are worth your life".

https://twitter.com/raulpacheco/status/1026646387243532289

I still think this way. I am working hard at trying to force myself to rest, and my chronic pain and dermatitis forced me to actually rest and focus on my health.

So, in conclusion...

I understand that you may need SOME time to catch up with the accumulated workload you have.

FINE.

Take at least a few days off, in the way "off" is important to you (I can't stop reading scholarly literature, so "time off" = "reading a nerdy book at a leisurely pace")

The take home message is:

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, ALWAYS.

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ADDENDUM: I am well aware of the fact that contingent faculty may be forced to overwork precisely because of the very nature of their labour precariousness.

This is why academics’ wellness should be also higher education organizations’ responsibility. It’s a structural issue.