Day 5: My Life If I Were A Professor / Lecturer

At some point in our lives (and for some people, every single day), we wonder how different our lives may be if we chose an alternative career path – we also wonder how different it could be if we made that change right now.

For the academics, the train of thought is usually how much more perceived fun they may be having with a career in the arts or the media industry. For the latter group, an office job always appears to offer the benefits, the remuneration, the stability and the respect that creative freelance work does not.

So for day 5’s blogging challenge, the idea is to find a job ad in the paper and to think about how different my life may be if I had that particular job. For the purposes of context, I should probably tell you what I do presently – I am the Online Content Producer for Hectic Nine-9, SA’s biggest TV show for the youth.

What this means is that I create the content for and maintain a consistent presence of the brand across its many online platforms. It’s a creative, technical, colourful, noisy, fun and chaotic space to be in. For these reasons, this is the very contrasting job ad I decided to write about: 

This choice was rather random, but if I were an Associate Professor / Senior Lecturer, life would be different indeed:

I wouldn’t be able to show up at the office with a slightly creased t-shirt or my slightly soiled All Stars. I’d need to take more pride in my appearance and dress with the polish befitting of someone in a senior, respected position such as this.

I would be able to take more holidays. Owing to a far higher salary earned from years and years of study, I’d be able to afford more regular overseas trips, experiencing many different cultures and ways of life. These experiences are likely to introduce me to fresh, new ways of thinking. They may alter many of the perceptions I have about the world right now, and they’d probably make me a more interesting person to share a glass of wine with at a social event.

I would have to face and overcome my fear of public speaking. In fact, I’d certainly hope the fear wouldn’t be there to begin with, considering the knowledge I’d have to impart to my students, and the knowledge I’d need to share with colleagues.

I would be able to tell people what I do without feeling as if THEY feel I’m:

A.     Just ‘messing around’ until I get a ‘serious’ job

B.     Enjoying hours and hours of laughter and fun in studio while the rest of the world slaves away

I wouldn't be surrounded by people all the time because I'd be able to spend time alone, in my own office, away from the bustle and noise of an open-plan setup. It’s always been a dream of mine to be able to work, at least some of the time, from my own office – one with a door that needs to be knocked on before I can be interrupted. And yes, that door will probably be closed most of the time.

I would be able to upgrade my car before the motor plan ran out (instead of having the same wheels for eight years), get insurance for all the things I need, watch Wimbledon in HD and rent a place in which I couldn't see my fridge from my bed (this does make midnight snacking easier though).

BUT, I would probably also lose my absolute appreciation for the many little things I can afford to do - spoil myself with an expensive dinner once per month, excitedly unpack that new appliance or save up for a new leather jacket that will be treasured. Less money = more to aim for and an increased sense of gratitude.

So, life would indeed be different if I were an Associate Professor / Senior Lecturer. But all of this is highly speculative.

Often, we have no idea of the professional challenges that even our closest co-workers face mere metres from us - we never will have a decent idea until we experience life from behind their laptop screen.

The lesson to be learnt – and remembered – is that very few jobs can be classified as easy. It’s up to each of us to choose one with a list of pros and cons that match up well to our individual desires and because of that (and my weather-beaten pair of All Stars) I don’t think I’m going to be applying for a post at Rhodes University anytime soon J

THE ‘I’M SOOOO STRESSED’ SYNDROME

The more things change, the more they… change.

The price of petrol today has little in common with the price of petrol when I was a student, except for the end result being the same – my car keeps moving. The amount of lovely, liquid chocolate filling the Twice As Nice ‘sucker’ I enjoyed as a kid steadily decreased through the years, to the point where said sucker became merely ‘nice’. And the search for that epic song that I JUUUUST couldn’t get to the name of has become, well, barely a search. All I really need to remember are two words in the lyric and – perhaps - the first letter of the artist’s name and just like that, I’ll be able to instantly identify and download the thing online.

Those are all some fairly non-destructive changes I've experienced in my lifetime.

But the subject of this little write-up and the specific change I want to speak of is the compulsion we modern, trendy young professionals have to constantly communicate to others that we are busy. Stressed out of our minds. Inundated. Burning the midnight oil. I could go on, so familiar am I with these expressions…

Are we really that busy, however? Or has the idea of being busy and stretched to the limit come to be associated with success, virtually forcing within and upon us a culture of chaotic pretence? I think it has.

Nobody really seems that interested in your small talk if all they’re going to hear about is how your sister’s son is doing at school, which beach you went to as soon as the Cape sun made an extraordinary appearance or even how the renovations on your apartment are going. These all come across as a pathetic little starter salad, complete with a browning piece of lettuce. Nobody wants it. What they do want is the main course. That juicy piece of sirloin you’re inevitably leading up to – it’s far weightier, drama-filled and also likely to leave you exhausted and almost unable to walk. Much the same as work stress, unread emails and overflowing schedules.

Of late, I’ve been curtailing my default responses to the ‘how are you?’ question. My mission is for these responses to not always be saddled with words such as busy, exhausted or pitted (as affectionately used by a few friends). Too often, I’ve been witness to these descriptions escaping my mouth when, actually, I’ve been quite okay. Things have been going well. I am in control and in fact not in pursuit of the nearest cliff face or shot of Tequila.

But very often, I’ve found the ‘I’m good, I’m okay’ space to be an uncomfortable one, for myself and for others. Surely if we’re okay and fairly well-rested, we’re not doing enough? And then, the paranoia kicks in. The moment I find myself feeling fine, I question why I am not using the time to get ahead – to hustle.  To gain an edge over my competitors, my colleagues and even the person I was a few months ago.

Where does this leave us? Well, I think we need to re-evaluate the stress in our lives and pinpoint how much of it is real, and how much is a mere fabrication. Beyond that, we need to go back to basics and become less reliant on stress as a means of defining who we are. We need to revisit the true meaning of stress.

It’s actually NOT a positive emotion. The dictionary defines stress as ‘a state of emotional or mental strain’ so by us constantly and boldly blurting out how stressed we are, we’re in fact admitting to whoever is listening that there is some sort of imbalance in our professional or personal lives – or both. Sure, a little bit of stress and anxiety helps to keep us on our toes, but these are sentiments that most certainly do not deserve to be wielded about like a trophy of competence.

Rather, we should be soaking up the periods of control, peace and self-assurance we all reach (or are at right now, without even knowing it!). Wouldn’t you rather complete seven tasks at 100% of your capacity than 17 in a frenzied state? Wouldn’t THAT engender a greater sense of satisfaction? Chances are, you’ll slip up less of the time and will actually have the capacity to look back on what you have achieved.

Too often, we value people based upon how thinly they can spread themselves between multiple tasks, rather than how much flavour and magic they can add to a single function. We’re missing out on the details because we’re chasing all that is mad, chaotic and consuming.

If I can leave you with one little morsel to chew on, it would be to resist the urge to forge a mind and a body that is stressed and approaching its limits. Think, really think, about how you are before telling someone else. Keep it simple. Be calm.

And always leave some room for dessert.

Are we work-obsessed?

“Great minds talk about ideas. Small minds talk about people.”

I don’t know who said it or where the above quote originated from, but it has certainly been doing the rounds on Twitter feeds everywhere.

And I must say, I beg to differ. When did we become a society so obsessed with big ideas, big deals and big clients that we regard these topics of conversation as more interesting than our fellow human beings?

Every piece of communication I see is crammed full of business-speak, with people either advertising their work or commending another on his or her achievements. In fact, these conversations dominate dinners out with friends and social gatherings with complete strangers alike. If you haven’t achieved something worth an aggressively-written tweet or status update in the last month, you’re probably not going to be very interesting to the next person.

Of course, a career-driven society has become quite necessary, spurring on the conversations I just mentioned – we need to be multi-skilled, ambitious, outspoken and bursting with ideas to make it anywhere. This is fantastic for the more outgoing personalities out there, but a nightmare for those (yes, like me), who value days and long periods of time spent “switched-off”.

Switched-off doesn’t mean lazy; it means placing importance upon reflecting on life, spending time with friends and family and engaging in quiet activities or hobbies that stimulate the mind in ways that work never could.

A few minutes online and I honestly sometimes feel as though I can’t keep up. I seriously question whether I am a complete nobody, or a total layabout, for not constantly seeking out ways to do more. So many people are doing an absurd amount of things, or working several jobs, and are constantly busy. I absolutely admire these people for their energy, drive, tenacity and ability to blur the line between business and pleasure, but that’s not me.

The unfortunate consequence of this busy individual is that this person is perceived as more successful, attractive and appealing than those of us who shy away from the limelight and the constant activity - or ‘hustle’ - as they like to call it. Many of us most certainly have goals and are achieving them, but place equal emphasis on the less glamorous aspects of our lives – for us, admitting that we’re spending a typical Sunday doing absolutely nothing besides buying an ice-cream and going for a short drive is not an admission of time wasted.

Going back to the quote that set me off on this mild outburst, wouldn’t it be great to see and hear more conversations about PEOPLE? Where has the emotion in our lives gone? It all seems to be an endless and highly calculated process of ticking off the right boxes, and then sharing those ticked boxes with the world, and then being patted on the back for it… repeatedly.

Let’s work hard, and fulfil our dreams, but not get so engrossed in it all that we lose sight of the people in our lives and the parts of them we appreciate outside of their careers or skillset. When we think of our very best friends, or those that have made a real impression upon us, it’s more often than not those little nuances about them that we remember first – their ability to crack jokes at the drop of a hat, their OCD tendencies or their knack for bringing a sense of calm to a tense situation.

Let’s go back to “how are you doing?” being just that, and not a veiled version of “how’s work?”

It’s the people in our lives, and not the work they do, that make us go out and spend unnecessary amounts of money on half-price sushi and cocktails. There are simply far more people in the world than there are jobs, and I feel as though we have lost sight of that, in our endless pursuit of ultimate success.

Without the people we share our lives with, the successes we achieve in wealth are empty. Let’s go back to paying equal attention to both.