I recently found myself at the King’s Arms pub at Oxford, across the street from the newly opened Weston Library, where works such as the Gutenberg Bible and Dorothy Hodgkin’s drawings of the structure of penicillin are on display. I was\u00a0there discussing happiness with\u00a0Michael Plant, a DPhil student in philosophy\u00a0studying this very subject. While my life at Oxford revolves mainly around working in a biomedical lab up the hill, it’s these moments I came to Oxford for,\u00a0when the magic of the city of dreaming spires truly works its way into the mind through a pint in hand.<\/p>\n
The conversations I had with Michael revolved mainly around the topics of life satisfaction and happiness: what I’m trying to achieve with this website, and Michael with his projects. Recently, Oxford ran a series of pieces<\/a> on happiness, one of which featured Michael. Though addressed from various fields and perspectives, the issue of happiness seems to boil down to some pretty simple things:<\/p>\n So how do we apply this as scientists? During our discussion, Michael suggested that perhaps the issues in life satisfaction in the sciences were so prevalent because we place the search for objective truth above the search for our own personal happiness. In other words, unsatisfied people in other careers look for change; scientists stick around because they’re told the only path to meaningful success is by gaining a PI position.<\/p>\n In another\u00a0blog post<\/a>, author Velica explores the myriad of reasons people join and continue in science. Among these are\u00a0listed the pure love of science and a sense of duty, which fit perfectly with tips one and two above. Unfortunately however, Velica points out the truth that despite what we tell our funding agencies, “most academic research will not have a direct impact on people’s lives. At least not in the short term.”<\/p>\n Of course, Velica also points out two other motivators which, taken to the extreme, can lead down a path to extreme unhappiness and dissatisfaction: the needs to be the most intelligent person in the room and to climb the career ladder:<\/p>\n “While chasing career achievements is a necessity, there is today an excessive pressure to make this the predominant drive in science, squeezing out any vestiges of other motivations. Even worse, when taken to the extreme such pressures can lead to the dark side of scientific misconduct.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I liken the desire\u00a0for high-impact publications and post-doc or PI positions to laypeople’s desire for money and power: as a scientific society, we’ve become addicted and obsessed, and have tied\u00a0the accumulation of these things to our self-worth. If we take the tips above into consideration, along with anecdotes from highly unsatisfied and stressed postdocs and PIs, we can see that a change in attitude is needed if life-satisfaction is desired.\u00a0Granted, the culture and system unfortunately self-select for this behavior because it is rewarded with grant money and positions. Changing these attitudes will take time and great conscious effort. However, reaching a level where we once again publish what we research instead of research to publish doesn’t seem so farfetched. Just remember how you felt during your first discovery\u00a0or “Aha!” moment.<\/p>\n Because the searches for truth and happiness need not be mutually exclusive, taking small steps can go a long way in your personal life. \u00a0I suggest going through the essays linked above or the free Science of Happiness<\/a> course for a more in-depth look at these topics, as well as checking out Michael’s app<\/a> (Android only at the moment) to track what makes you happy during your day. The cherry on top: studies in other fields have shown happiness drives creativity and productivity. A happy scientist is a better scientist. And when all else fails, there are always the evening trips to the pubs and bars with your labmates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n