Millennials have this new thing called ‘options’. In fact, there are too many options. I mentor a lot, and I’ve always thought it was unfair and really silly to expect an 18 year old to know what they want to do the rest of their lives. Even at my age, so many of my friends are struggling to choose a path. We all have this notion that life should be worth living. We watched our parents and grandparents grind everyday in a job they didn’t like for 50 years until they retired and they never got a chance to really enjoy and live their lives. Millennials don’t want that.

BUT, we all have to make these decisions. When we do, and when I advise people and consider my own path, I tend to come back to this phrase, “if you don’t take your work home with you, you work for someone that does”. Neither option is better than the other. Its just a fact, and a decision we all have to make for ourselves. Now, I know, technically everyone works for someone. But if you want to leave your work at work, you need to find a job that lets you do that. That likely includes letting someone else bear the burdens of upper management to allow you to let go of the daily grind when you clock out. If you don’t want to work for someone else, or at least have some semblance of independence, you’re taking your work home with you. What I mean by that is, your work will bleed into your personal life. This is true for every job I can think of, and if there’s an exception I’d like to hear it.

Some days I hate bringing my work home with me. Academia is all-consuming, and it is not possible to walk out of the lab at 5pm and let go of the deadlines and projects you deal with all day. Other days, I can’t imagine being micro-managed. Even my PhD advisor allows/expects me to be pretty independent. I’m allowed to come up with my own ideas and curiosities, mentor my own students, and manage my own projects. In fact, that’s expected- bare minimum. Why? Because I gotta get used to the ‘cloud’ of research that I am committing to living in for the rest of my life. If I were a CEO, an entrepreneur, an independent stylist or personal trainer- I would also bring my work home with me. I would argue teachers that develop their own curriculum also have to bring their work home with them. Some days I work 5 hours, some days I work 15. Some weeks I get 4 days to myself, and some weeks I get none. Some days I hate it and I hate my life, other days I couldn’t be more grateful.

I went to school with people (that are much smarter than me) who made decisions that allow them to leave work behind them when they close the door. They research in a hospital and they let someone else worry about the projects and funding, or they do military research and work on big grants that other people wrote. Others are healthcare practitioners who work long hours, and while they carry a massive emotional burden, they aren’t suturing or diagnosing strangers after they leave the hospital. They’re happy. Healthy, and happy.

Truthfully, I’m not sure which one I will ultimately prefer.

We spend more time working than we do living. So, when we choose a path, we all must reconcile with the life we want and what makes each of us happy. That path can, and likely will change as we grow up, but only because we get a firmer idea of the life we want to make for ourselves.

 

*photo of a science sketch for my dissertation, because science really is an art