Work
It’s Friday! I’ve forgotten the last time that I could actually look forward to the weekend. The last few weeks or months—whatever, it’s just been a long time—weekends have always meant work in one way or the other. Lately it’s been the “final” thesis revisions. How many times have I called those revisions “final”? And am I really still talking about the thesis??
Yes, it’s not quite official yet. I am meeting with my advisor next week to make sure that there really, truly isn’t any more revisions. If she signs that special Form TAS-7, then I can print out the monster one last time and turn it in. Oh, yeah, and fill in Form TAS-6. Then I will be able fill out another form to request a letter to submit with my contract renewal form and request for a salary increase. I think that letter states something to the effect that “This letter certifies that A M H has been in school way too damn long and should be really familiar with all the bureaucratic crap that academic institutions world-round waddle through. She should be qualified for slightly more than shit pay.”
Although it’s Friday, I am having one of those days. I’d call it a bad day, but I actuallly still feel a little happy. Maybe it’s not exactly happy but more like a bit of sarcastic pleasure. Frankly all those old stressors like advisor, thesis, and school seem out-dated, and my current stressors like work deadlines and keeping the boss happy also seem a bit unimportant. I’ve already bitched quite a bit today to anyone who would listen. But all those trivial work matters don’t mean too much now, do they? Because after all the talk, the forms, the earnest faces, and long hours, there isn’t really much to look at in the end.
Perhaps I’m being a little too vague. One of the biggest things that I have learned from the last year of my MPhil program is that the end result doesn’t mean much. It might not be too hard for other people to wrap their minds around this seemingly simple thought. But it’s been a real challenge for me. I still marvel at the thickness of the thesis document, all 228 pages of it. A part of me says “it must be worth something if it’s that many pages.” If I didn’t open it up, I’d never think any differently. But the moment I start to read it, I am hit by all the anxieties and uncertainties I had when composing it from blank pages. Every statement triggers a wave of criticism in my mind. I want to reach for a red pen to mark all the sections that I must revise. I want to hide it far away. I daydream about sneaking into the library after it’s been bound and stashing in between the shelves where it will never be found. I imagine my advisor shaking her head as she reads it. I have nightmares that my boss will find it and suddenly retract every compliment she ever made on my work. I fear my colleagues and classmates will get ahold of a copy and snicker together while they read it.
I’m not joking, I have really had all these thoughts. For a long time, all these thoughts seemed fearsomely reasonable to me. But lately, I am occasionally struck with a counter-thought that this hyper-critical, obsessive thinking of mine is just bizarre. You’d think that I believe the world exists just to criticize me. You’d think that if the thesis was really such an ultimate achievement or failure in my case, then there wouldn’t be much more point for me to go on anymore.
These little doubts in my way of thinking have finally made an impact on me. The great importance I have heaped on the thesis is tumbling down. I don’t really want my whole life measured by my thesis. It’s absurd. In fact, I don’t want my life measured by my academic career or even the work yet to come. “Work” is an interesting challenge, and it gives me a purpose. But how does any of this “work” really add up to fulfillment by itself?
Hong Kong provides all sorts of great examples of people whose life is work and work is life. I don’t actually think that the majority of these people are working themselves to death for money. But it does seem like one way to stave off all the insecurities and deeper questions that come up when you’re not working. What really does matter in this life? How to cope with those around who still pretend, it not wholeheartedly believe, that work is life?
On a day like this, even these questions seem a little too self-important.
