A year and a half ago, after a cancer diagnosis and a good freak-out about what might happen to my 3-year-old daughter and my husband if I die, it occurred to me that I’d been a workaholic. After two surgeries, I was cancer free, but the breakdown I had at that time has stuck with me and reminds me, everyday, to do more of what I want and less of what I don’t want. At the time of my breakdown, while I hugged and kissed my daughter with an emotional intensity I’d never felt, and pleaded with God (the Universe…whatever) to let me live, it struck me that I’d been living a work-addicted life and, at this point, faced with the possibility of death, I deeply regretted my decisions to work rather than spend time with my family and friends. I suddenly wanted a do-over and thankfully I got one.
I’ve come to see that my work addicted self was the opposite of the person I actually wanted to be. “Workaholic Danielle” was a perfectionist, chronically anxious, obsessed with time, easily angered and irritated by others, rigid, self-righteous, and DEEPLY afraid that her to-do list would get derailed. Her heart always raced as she dodged others who were interested in her time and attention and focused on winning the race against the clock.
One reason I became an academic was so that I had the opportunity to overwork. Grad school trained me well for this and, due to childhood trauma, I found much comfort and safety in a culture where overworking was the norm: as I focused solely on work, I could avoid everything (and everyone) else that felt scary and uncomfortable.
My suspicion is that many academics enter academia for the same reasons and as we overwork, we can tell ourselves lies about why we’re doing it. Bronnie Ware names having worked too much as one of the top regrets of the dying. If I died today, would I be happy about the life I was leading? Yes! I can say that now. If I had died in 2016, I would have regretted almost everything.