Author Archives: Ingrid Biese

Julia and me, Part 2 (and some thoughts on being a (bad) feminist)

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The other day I was having lunch with a colleague and we were talking about how torn we both sometimes feel between having to be a good feminist and just wanting to be there for our children, without having to overthink whether or not we’re setting a good example. In many ways I do think I am a good role model for my children. I work with something I am passionately interested in and I regularly lose myself in this work, which admittedly often frustrates them. I hope I’m teaching them by example to dream big and work hard.

Like many women who have opted out and in, I also organize my work so that I can be there for my children when they need me, which feels both important and meaningful. For example, I work out of my home office several days a week and I have a lot to say about when and where I work, so I really am around when important things happen in their lives. One thing that I am especially proud of and that makes me very happy is that my children tell me that they can really talk to me about anything, and I believe one reason they feel that way is that I am actually around when they need to talk.

But also like many women who opt out and in, one of the results and perhaps downsides of organizing my life to better accommodate my care responsibilities, is that, as a result, I can take even more responsibility for childcare and household chores than I would if I had a job that kept me out of the house all day every day. So while women like me are able to better combine different areas of life, it really doesn’t do much for gender equality in the home sphere, nor in the work place to be honest. At least not in the short run. And being the gender scholar that I am, this bugs me a little.

Well, as my colleague and I were talking about this, we came to the conclusion that yes, it’s good to be a good feminist and set a good example, but we (women) also just need to give ourselves a break sometimes. Strange as it may sound, we are actually only human.

So I felt especially comforted when I stumbled across a book by Roxanne Gay called Bad Feminist. Gay is an academic and a feminist, but she calls herself a bad feminist because she just can’t seem to live up to the somewhat unrealistic expectations she argues many feminists place on women. She writes, “For whatever reason, we hold feminism to an unreasonable standard where the movement must be everything we want and must always make the best choice.” So in order to be a good feminist and a good example to other feminists, we have to always make the right decisions, always have the right opinions, and never slip up and God forbid do or say anything unfeminist. Well, we do. We slip up all the time. According to Gay, feminism should be about supporting equality in whatever way we can and do, and it is better to be a bad feminist than no feminist at all. And to be honest, like many other women I am often too hard on myself, so I feel pretty grateful towards anyone who gives me a break and permission to be human.

One feminist who I really admire is Julia Kristeva. As I’ve mentioned before, I became acquainted with her work while working on my doctoral thesis, and there was something about her take on issues like feminism and feminine identity that really appealed to me. Her approach to womanhood differs from that of many other feminist theorists, who, in turn, have accused her of being an essentialist (believing in traditional concepts and ideals) and just unfeminist in general. And she is neither. One reason she is seen as something of a threat to the feminist movement is that she has introduced the body to the feminist debate, and argues that motherhood is, in fact, “at the crossroads of biology and meaning”. The reason this doesn’t appeal to many other feminists is that they worry that bringing the body and motherhood into the debate could easily be misconstrued and used to argue that a woman’s calling is to have and care for children and that her rightful place is in the home. I want to be perfectly clear here and say that neither Kristeva nor I believe that. On the contrary, Kristeva recognizes that not all women even want to be mothers. But to be fair, I can also understand what it is feminists are afraid of.

But being a mother and having given birth to two children, I can certainly appreciate Kristeva’s thoughts. Although I am a strong believer in that we are shaped and conditioned by socially constructed societal norms and expectations (i.e. we are taught to believe that women are the ones who are best equipped physically and emotionally to care for children, which really isn’t true, men are just as good given half the chance), social construction still doesn’t seem to quite adequately explain the entire mothering experience. Giving birth and becoming a mother is a powerful physical and biological experience. And there is a bond between mother and child that goes beyond gendered expectations and norms.

So maybe, like Roxanne Gay, I am also a bad feminist. Or maybe, just maybe, being a bad (read: human) feminist is what makes me a good one?

Men who opt out

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Thursday this week was a big day for me. I was at a conference presenting papers, which isn’t extraordinary as such, but one of the papers I presented was on my research on men opting out. So now that I’ve spoken about it publicly I feel like it’s finally official! This research is really happening!

Before you get too excited let me start by saying that this research is really very much in the early stages. I’m still only starting out and in my presentation I presented preliminary, tentative impressions of the interviews I’ve conducted so far. But having said that, there are some things that can be discerned from these interviews that are really very interesting. And working on this presentation really reminded me how exciting and fascinating this research is.

The first main impression is that men’s opting out and in processes really don’t seem to differ that much from women’s. They basically go through the same stages from opting out to opting in. Like women they experience turmoil, fatigue and a lack of control; then they experience something that triggers them to take the step and actually opt out; and in their new lifestyles and/or alternative solutions for work that they opt in to, they gain a sense of authenticity and coherence, and a feeling of having more control over their lives.

And just like for women, a common denominator seems to be the hectic, high-pressure, all-consuming nature of corporate culture. Although their opting out and in experiences are anything but easy, I’m still secretly pleased to notice this because it supports the notion that there is something detrimentally wrong with the way we organize work as well as with the working cultures we create. Well, at least it is for many people and we really need to do something about this. We need to critically examine what it is we are doing to people in these working environments and what we can and should be doing instead.

And then there is the way we define successful careers. The career models that continue to be idealized by most organizations today are quite linear. You’re generally expected to progress up the proverbial career ladder in a timely fashion if you want to reach the top. Too much deviation from this path might define you as unambitious or not having what it takes. Now there is a lot of research on different career models that better correlate with how people today want to and actually do live their lives and manage their careers, but still, the linear career model continues to be the one most prevalent.

This linear career model is a remnant of the post-World War II career model that was developed by men for men. Typical to that era, these men generally had housewives at home to take care of the home front, and it has been argued that managerial jobs weren’t created for just one person, but for one and a half people. That is, for the man with the job, and also for his wife who did everything else for him. And considering professionals work longer hours than ever before, I guess its no wonder a lot of contemporary people seem to have trouble handling it all!

Because this career model was created by men for men, we call it a masculinist career model. However, as we all know, not all men are the same. They don’t all want the same thing and they don’t all want to work in the same way. Just as women are a diverse group, there are multiple masculinities, that is, different ways of being a man. So while these career models are created for men, in reality they’re created for a certain traditional way of being a man, which doesn’t really leave a lot of room for much diversity among men either.

But another thing I’ve found, is that there are a lot of assumptions about men; almost more, it seems, than about women. Or at least this is the impression I’m getting. When telling people that I’m interviewing men, I sometimes get comments about how men won’t open up and talk about their feelings, or how they don’t opt out, and if they do it’s for completely different reasons than it is for women. For example, many assume that relationships aren’t as important for men as for women, and sometimes I hear that if men do opt out it’s not about difficulties or turmoil but more about challenge and self-actualization. And even more interestingly, these comments often come from men.

Well, like I said before, I’m in the very early stages so I can’t make any generalizations, but so far I would say none of these stereotypical assumptions are proving true.

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. In the meantime I’m always looking for more men to interview so if you are a man who has opted out and in, or know of a man who has opted out and in, and who would be willing to be interviewed, please email me at theoptingoutblog@gmail.com. Thank you!

How time poverty kills creativity

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One reason I like my blog so much is that I never get writer’s block. I only write when I feel inspired and ideas for posts just come to me when I have time to think, like when cooking dinner or when I’m in the shower. If I can, I stop everything (which sometimes is a bit unfortunate, especially if I’m in the middle of preparing dinner) and I just quickly write it all down, and then come back later to edit and modify. So my blog really doesn’t cause me very much anxiety. On the contrary, I would say I get more energy out of it than I put in. And it’s perfect because I never sit in front of an empty screen not knowing what to write.

Except now.

For the first time since I started my blog, I sat at my desk thinking I need to post something, but I have no idea what. I have had a lot to do these past few weeks, and unfortunately I have been so busy and stressed that I have had little or no time for reflection. Which is actually pretty bad for an academic, because it is our ideas we live off, as well as the ability to write these ideas down. I have simply had too much to do. Since it never rains but pours, it seems like almost everything I’m supposed to do this academic year basically has to happen between August and November.

But not having time for reflection is really not that unusual. On the contrary, it is more unusual to actually have the time and space to think. In my previous career as a consultant I saw this all the time. When facilitating workshops or coaching business professionals, we would often hear how great it is to actually have a chance to stop and think, because that is something you usually never really get to do.

While living standards have gone up during the past decades, time has become a valuable but scarce resource. We use terms like time-poverty to describe what professionals deal with today. The pace is fast and hectic and having a (more than) full schedule is somehow strangely associated with importance or status. And research has shown just how detrimental this can be to our wellbeing and sense of self. Still, this is the way we live our lives, and it generates nervous energy in people, making it difficult to just sit around and do nothing. Have you noticed how when waiting for something or someone, you promptly whip out your cellphone and start checking social media or surfing the web? Try not doing that next time and see what happens.

But ironically, even though hectic is the norm, it doesn’t inspire or allow for creativity. Greatness isn’t borne out of stress and anxiety. In fact, according to Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, many of the greatest inventions and creations of all time have come about in moments of quiet solitude. That is, in places and spaces where reflection has been possible.

I want to share a poem, or part of a poem actually. It’s by one of my favorite poets and it seems to epitomize the multiple and sometimes overwhelming nature of contemporary life. In addition, I also think it quite accurately describes the struggle we often experience when opting out and in. At least it struck a chord with me:

But when I call upon my dashing being,

out comes the same old lazy self,

and so I never know just who I am,

nor how many I am, nor who we will be being.

I would like to be able to touch a bell

and call up my real self, the truly me,

because if I really need my proper self,

I must not allow myself to disappear.

  • Pablo Neruda

My favorite part

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One thing you have to realize when opting out and in, is that the lifestyle you dream about, and which you hopefully find a way to opt in to, isn’t going to be perfect. For years before opting out and in, I was very interested in people and what makes them tick, and I dreamed of being able to work in areas like psychology, social psychology, or sociology. And although this was what I secretly wanted to do, the path I chose after graduating from high school was quite different. My decision back then was based on a lot of factors other than what I was really interested in. But after years of dreaming and then gradually actually doing something about it, I am now a social scientist!

So this is my dream that I am living. Still, living my dream and working as a social scientist has its ups and downs. It’s not all rosy. It’s not all great. Sometimes it’s hard. It’s frustrating. And sometimes I have to do things that I don’t really like doing. But I also do things that I love and that I find absolutely fascinating. The important thing is that there are more good parts than bad; the balance needs to be in your favor.

But of all the things I do as a social scientist, there is one thing in particular that, hands down, is my absolute favorite. And that is interviewing people for my research.

When I worked on my PhD, I interviewed women about their opting out and in experiences, and right now I’m interviewing men about the same thing. I use a narrative approach to interviewing, and in practice that means that I really don’t have a lot of questions. I want my interviewees to talk freely about their experiences before, during, and after opting out. They get to decide what they want to tell me, in what order, and if there’s anything in particular that they want to focus on. If they’re worried what they’re telling my isn’t relevant or important enough, I quickly assure them that I am a sociologist, and that there is absolutely nothing they could say that wouldn’t be interesting to me, which is true. And it’s amazing, the stories they share with me are so rich; people who I have never met before and who I might never meet again. They talk openly and honestly and share their most personal thoughts and feelings with me, and I love hearing their stories. But more importantly what they’re giving me is a huge and valuable gift. Because they are willing to talk to me, I can actually do what it is that I am doing. And I am so grateful.

I just love the whole situation though. I say as little as possible in order to minimize my influence on the interviewee and his or her story. Often this is hard for me, partly because I’m a talkative one, but also because I recognize so much in what it is these people are talking about. It makes it hard not to turn the interview into a dialogue instead. I often want to share my experiences too, because I realize how much we actually have in common.

One thing that feels especially great about all of this is that my interviewees also seem to enjoy the interviews. For many it’s the first time they have really talked to anyone about their opting out and in experiences, and doing so gives them a chance to make sense of what it is they have gone through and why they made the decisions they did. Sometimes they tell me that the interview felt quite therapeutic, and often they thank me for the chance to talk about it, even though I am the one who should be thanking them. And that of course feels good, that they are also getting something out of it.

And it makes me think. We are all so busy going about our lives and making everything happen, that we rarely slow down long enough to really listen to people. I mean really hearing a person and not just hearing what we expect to hear or what we want to hear, which if you think about it is what often happens in regular conversation.

But in these interviews, I just sit quietly and I listen.

There is actually one person I know who does this in regular conversation: my father-in-law. When conversing with him there are very few interruptions. You take turns talking and when it’s your turn to talk he really listens and then he expects you to return the favor when it’s his turn to talk. The conversation is always good and interesting, it’s amazing how much you can learn when you really listen. But more than that, after having a conversation like this you feel seen and you feel heard. And that can really be a pretty great feeling.

Dreams do come true

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When my daughter was little, her greatest dream was to be able to fly. Not too unusual I suppose, people have probably wanted to fly since the beginning of time, that’s why the airplane was invented. But she didn’t want to fly in an airplane, she had done that many times, she wanted to fly on her own.

One evening as I was sitting on the edge of her bed at bedtime, and tucking her in, she looked at me and said, there’s no point in dreaming because dreams don’t come true.

Yes, wow. I think she was about four years old and this statement completely floored me. I mean what do we have if we don’t have dreams? And especially to hear that coming from a child!

I tried to sound as casual as possible and I asked her why she said that, is that what she thinks? Well, it turned out someone – a grown-up – had told her that people can’t and will never be able to fly and neither will she so there is no point dreaming about it. Something inside me died a little.

And I was outraged. Who has the right to kill a little girl’s dream like that? To kill anyone’s dream for that matter? Flying may be unlikely, although with the technological breakthroughs that are constantly being made you never know. Never say never, right? Still, she would eventually have figured that out on her own, if of course she doesn’t actually end up inventing some gimmick in the future, which will actually allow her to fly. But either way, you can’t just go and kill a child’s dream like that. It just isn’t right. Why would you even want to?

Because dreams do come true and I am living proof. I used to have a dream. I had many, of course, but there is one in particular that I want to write about today. I’ve always loved books and I’ve always thought it would be so cool to actually write a book some day. Now no one told me I couldn’t, although I didn’t talk about it very much. I was old enough to understand that writing a book is a lot of work. I also had the impression that it really is very hard to get a novel (which was what I equated with a book) published. Plus, I didn’t even think I had it in me. But I thought it must be the ultimate thing, to have a book to your name.

Well, little did I know then that this was actually going to come true for me: I signed a book contract with an international publisher last week! Opting out and in is going to be a book! At this point I’m not exactly sure how long the process is going to be, but hopefully it will be out by the end of next year or the beginning of 2017.

As for my daughter, I hope and know she still dreams. At the time, sitting on her bed, I gave her a short lecture on dreams and dreaming, stressing that what she was told was absolutely not true. Dreaming is never silly or irrational. It is wonderful and important and we should all do it more. Dreams do come true, and you really never know, humans may even be able to fly some day. The important thing is to never give up dreaming. And I think she believed me. I don’t know how the flying dream is doing today, but she still dreams and I just know that with her imagination, creativity, and resilience many of them will come true.

On slowing down to smell the roses

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I once participated in a roundtable discussion with Finnish academic and writer Merete Mazzarella, who I admire very much. It was several years ago and I can’t even really remember what exactly we were talking about, but I do remember her telling the rest of us about reflections she had made as she was standing at a bus stop watching the other people who were also waiting for a bus. Again, I don’t remember what these reflections actually were, but I do remember thinking I wished I was the type of person who stood at bus stops and drew philosophical and intelligent conclusions about humanity or whatever contemporary phenomenon I had recently been pondering. Afterwards I mentioned this to my colleague, whose immediate reaction was well why don’t you? And I thought right, why don’t I stop and make interesting observations about people and phenomena as I go about my daily life? I didn’t really know why, but I did have a feeling that I wouldn’t, and I was right, I didn’t. After the roundtable, I continued living my life the way I always had: rushing from one place to the next, and simply not having the time nor peace of mind to slow down enough to have any deep thoughts about people at bus stops. Besides, I always took my car so I hardly ever frequented any bus stops.

The other day I was sitting on a rock reading and I got that same feeling of longing again. I was reading Primates of Park Avenue by Wednesday Martin (a very interesting, entertaining, thought provoking, and at times somewhat horrifying book about motherhood on the Upper East Side) and in the book Wednesday describes how she decides to make an anthropological project of trying to understand and gain social access to the high-status mothers of her new neighborhood. Her reasons are personal as these mothers effectively shunned her when she moved there. What she does, is she spends days, and perhaps weeks, sitting in her car just observing these women as they go about their daily routine. This routine includes sessions at gyms, lunches, and shopping so they move around a lot outside, hence being able to observe them from her car. But that’s not the point. The point is that she is sort of doing what Merete does, except systematically and as part of a project. She is taking the time to simply observe people and her surroundings and she makes the most interesting observations. And it made me remember the roundtable discussion from years ago, and again I wished I could do that too. So I’m wondering what is this really about? What is it that is really triggering this feeling of longing in me?

Well, sitting on that rock, I came to the conclusion that the reason I don’t and the reason I want to are basically the same. The reason is of course that I always seem to be in a hurry. Or even if I’m not in a hurry, I feel like I need to be in too many places at the same time, which is kind of funny, because being in anything more than one place at a time should really be physically impossible, but in this day an age we regularly and instantly get transported in time and space through the little screens in our hand-held devices. Some would argue that’s part of the problem.

I’ve also read somewhere that when you do many things at the same time, i.e. multitasking, you actually get an acute sense of time running out, of it just slipping through your fingers. And I can vouch for that; I hate multitasking. When I do it, I feel like everything I do gets done a bit worse than if I gave each task my undivided attention. I like doing things one at a time.

Life is hectic and I know I’m not alone. But I also know that I really like it when I slow down enough to notice the pretty silhouette of leaves against the sky. Or the graphic pattern on the trunk of a tree. Or the stark contrast of yellowing reeds against that particular shade of blue the sea gets in September. I need to do that more. And maybe I need to spend more time at bus stops. Or not.

For the love of working from home

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I was at another conference last week – the Work2015 conference in the beautiful city of Turku – and I have to say it was a really great conference with excellent papers and presentations and some really good conversation. And yes, I may still be dazzled by the fabulous, designer Marimekko bags they handed out as conference bags, but it really was a great conference.

There was one presentation that was particularly intriguing for me as I have set out to change working culture as we know it; and as I ponder the alternative solutions for work I come across in my research, as well as what it is about these solutions that appeal to people and make them say things like “I could never imagine going back to working the way I did”. This particular paper was by a Swiss scholar who had done a quantitative study of the advantages of working from home, examining the correlation between working from home and work effort.

Previous research has argued that there are advantages to working from home, and the list is actually quite long. It includes flexibility, the ability to plan one’s work according to one’s personal rhythm, less distractions, reduced work-related stress, better work-life balance, higher job satisfaction, and more autonomy. However according to this Swiss scholar, there really hasn’t been a lot of empirical evidence, so this is what she set out to do. I’m not going to go into the details of her regression analysis (mostly because I’m a qualitative researcher and it eludes me) but the conclusion she came to was that working from home leads to greater work effort, and not only that, she also found that when you work from home more often, work effort also increases.

Now as a qualitative researcher, I have to point out that things are seldom as simple as we like to portray them, and when analyzing quantitative variables we also need to understand and critically examine what lies behind these variables and the assumptions we are making about them. In this study effort was measured as the hours a person works beyond the hours specified in his or her work contract (i.e. overtime), and we need to be careful when equating overtime with effort or commitment to an organization, which she was also arguing.

For example, those of us who have worked from home a lot know that some colleagues can be quite suspicious of people who don’t come in to the office daily. People gossip and speculate whether or not you’re really working. I’m sure we have all been conscious of things like when we email people so that they can see that we are actually at our computers like we said we would be, as well as a little (or a lot) longer than we are expected to be. Since most organizations still don’t have much of an established offsite working culture, people who work from home may put a lot of energy into managing others’ perceptions of them. In short, what drives a person to put in the extra hours may not simply be related to their commitment to the organization.

And, related to this, there is also research that shows that more hours don’t necessarily make us more productive. On the contrary, energy levels plummet if we do very long days and it has been argued that we may even get more done if we did shorter days and didn’t get so tired. So longer hours is not necessarily something we should automatically strive for.

So one needs to be a bit careful about one’s assumptions, but still this study is an indicator of something that is definitely worth thinking about. We need to question the belief that a working culture that demands working in an office environment during certain designated hours according to a certain script is the best and/or only right way of working.

As someone who truly loves working in my home office and needs to do so as much as possible for my sanity and peace of mind, I got quite excited about a study that examines the advantages of working from home. But most of all I rejoiced at the mere existence of this study because I can use it and show it to the organizations that have policies for working offsite but also admit that they generally don’t allow people to do so because how could they possibly know they were really working. After all, for whatever reason, this study did show that people who work from home tend to work more.

We need to shatter prevalent but dated ideas of what an acceptable way of working is as well as where it is appropriate to work. But we also need to get better at measuring the quality of work achievements and not just the quantity of the hours put it. By focusing on quality and not so much on quantity we don’t have to be so suspicious of and constantly monitor employees and their use of their time. We can allow and perhaps even encourage them to work wherever they feel they want and need to work, and if I’m any indicator, that might just have a huge impact on the quality of their work, their quality of life, and their wellbeing.

Opting out isn’t an end in itself

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As I’ve mentioned before, I often get asked for advice on how to opt out. And when people hear me speak, many get very excited about opting out, and about how things turned out for the people in my study. They dream of opting out too, and of adopting a new lifestyle where they can be freer.

Well I’ve thought about this a lot. Some people have suggested that I take up coaching and help others figure out what they want to do, and help them opt out so that they can do it. And when they suggest this I say hmm, ok I’ll think about it, but to be completely honest I say that mostly so that we can move on and talk about something else because I’m not an opting out coach and I don’t plan to become one.

Why is that you may ask. Please don’t get me wrong; I have nothing against coaching. On the contrary, coaching can be very helpful. I even wanted to become a coach at one point, and was going to get certified (a process that I never finished) and I have done a fair share of coaching myself as a part of my job in my previous career. I actually really liked coaching and in my current job I get to supervise students, which in a way is similar, and I like that too.

But an opting out coach I don’t think I will ever be. And the reason is I don’t necessarily believe that opting out of a career is an end in itself.

Now this may surprise you since I’m doing all this work on opting out and I have opted out myself. But people often mistakenly think that if you research something you are also advocating this very thing. And yes I find opting out fascinating; I love talking about it, after all I did it myself. But as I research opting out, I look at and analyze both the good and the bad; and with opting out there is both good and bad. So no, I am not trying to encourage everyone and anyone to opt out of their career.

If opting out is good for you then by all means do it. But we also have to recognize that not everyone wants to opt out, and not everyone can for whatever reason, and that has to be okay too. Besides, I don’t think having everyone opt out of their corporate career is necessarily a constructive, not to mention proactive, solution. Although organizations would have to react and start developing more sustainable working cultures if more and more people started opting out, wouldn’t it be even better if we had organizations and corporations that made it possible for people to set up ways of working so that they don’t want to opt out in the first place? Most of the women I have interviewed say that they never originally planned to opt out, and that if they had been able to they would have loved to continue doing what they were doing. So wouldn’t it be great if we could enjoy the sense of authenticity, the coherence, and the control that my fellow opt outers have achieved and still be able to do the work we originally dreamed of?

So no, I don’t see myself coaching people on how to opt out. What I see instead is a future where I work with organizations to help them join the rest of us in the 21st century. What I mean is, I want to help them create mindsets that allow for different career models and real, sustainable, and individualized solutions for work so that they can become places of work that people don’t feel like they want or need to opt out of.

In the meantime, I’m doing my research, which I love and which I think is very important, because it’s going to give us a clue as to what it is these organizations need to do, develop, and provide in order to not to only attract but to also retain talented employees. And that, my friends, will have a long run positive impact on both the organizations as well as on everyone’s wellbeing.

It’s a state of mind

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A while ago I published a blog post titled The five main myths of opting out. Looking back, I now realize it should actually have been called The six main myths of opting out; I forgot one myth! But since it’s never too late to make what’s wrong right, here it is:

Myth #6: Opting out is forever

Many people think that when you opt out and in it’s forever. That you finally find the real you and figure out what it is that you want to do with the rest of your life, which you then set out to do forever. But nothing is forever; things change. We change, our lives change, our preferences change, and our needs change. For those of us who have children, they grow and their needs change. And sometimes we just want or need to take a break, leave temporarily and get some distance, so that we can then come back and get on with it. And sometimes we just change our minds, and that has to be okay too.

What I have found is that opting out and in isn’t so much about what you do; it’s about adopting a different mindset. It’s about a certain attitude to work and life.

People who opt out think long and hard about what their terms are. They want to live and work on their own terms and not according to social expectations or corporate norms. They want to do things in a way that is good for them, and they have usually gone through some tough times to get to where they are, so what other people think of their choices doesn’t matter to them quite as much as it used to.

In research we differentiate between subjective and objective success. Objective success includes things like raises and promotions while subjective success is more about personal satisfaction. Many people who opt out give up prestige and high salaries to do things a bit differently, but even though that might not seem successful out of an objective perspective, they personally feel very successful and satisfied. For them, creating a life where they can thrive, where they can do meaningful work without feeling like they have to give up a part of themselves, and where they feel better physically and mentally, is a huge success.

After I opted out and in to work on a PhD I was doing pretty great. I was happy, I was satisfied, and I felt fulfilled. And then I was offered a job and I sort of freaked out. The reason I freaked out was that I had thought long and hard about what was important to me, and what it was in my previous lifestyle that hadn’t been working for me. I was worried that the second I started working in an organizational environment again, everything that I had worked so hard to achieve would be blown away in an instant as I once again got assimilated by what is acceptable working culture.

Well, I was at dinner with good friends of mine and I was discussing this with them when one of my friends said something really important. She said, “But Ingrid, you have your terms, just don’t forget what they are.” And she was right. I went into the working relationship remembering what my terms were, and some of them were worked into the deal. I took the job and I didn’t lose myself just because I was employed again. What I’m trying to say is that it may seem hard but there are different ways of working and pursuing a career, even in a corporate culture. And I’m convinced this is something we’re going to see more of in the future. We just need to be brave and remind ourselves what our terms are and what we are and aren’t willing to give up. At the same time, especially in times of economic insecurity, making demands may seem risky. But maybe you can start small; it might make all the difference!

I’m back!

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I’m back from my summer vacation and I have a confession to make. I worked during my time off. Why do I feel that this is something I have to confess to? I’m not exactly sure, but I have the feeling that this is generally frowned upon.

The thing is, and now I have another confession to make, I was feeling kind of stuck before I went on vacation. I didn’t get nearly as much writing done during the spring as I had planned, and I was feeling pretty lousy about that. It was a vicious circle; feeling bad about not getting writing done was making it even harder to write. And I have to admit (this is going to be my last confession, I promise), I was also feeling quite frustrated about many aspects of the academic world, so I spent a lot of time thinking about what I really wanted to do with my life. You may think this is ironic for someone who has recently opted out and in, but I beg to differ. Opting out and in is not forever. Nothing ever is.

Well, so I went on vacation feeling less than satisfied over what I had gotten done during the past couple of months, and I brought my laptop with me to the beautiful island where we spend our summers, hoping to maybe remedy that. I had mixed feelings about this but decided to set aside some time for work anyway in order to not feel completely stressed out over everything that hadn’t gotten done.

And boy, am I happy I did. I obviously didn’t do full days, but I did on occasion lock myself in a very peaceful room with a desk and a view to work on a paper that had lately become larger than life. And get this: it was great. It was relaxing. Yes, it was relaxing to work!

I decided to work no more than one hour or so at a time. This was, after all, my summer vacation, and to be honest I can’t really produce coherent academic text for more than that in one go. There were no distractions (i.e. no internet connection) and it was amazing how productive I was in that time slot. And not only that, writing felt fun again after having felt like a chore for the past couple of months. I had almost been worried that I was just going to be a one hit wonder; that I wasn’t ever going to be able to produce anything good anymore.

But now the vicious circle is broken, amazing what a change of scenery can do. After spending an hour or so writing, I felt happy and energized for the rest of the day. I was back and it felt great. So this got me thinking: this is actually exactly how I want to work. I don’t want to have to worry about sitting a full day at my desk in my office. If I’m stuck or if I need to focus my attention on something else, I want to be able to do that without feeling like I’m playing hooky. Instead I’ll happily work when I’m not expected to but when it suits me better. Having said that, I do realize that, being a researcher, I enjoy more flexibility than most. Still, I think I’m on to something. This should not be impossible or unheard of. After all, we have the technology; it’s just the mindset we’re still missing.

What I found personally was that the sense of accomplishment I got from working the way I did this summer really made me feel good about myself. And, interestingly, as I was going over the material for a course on organizational behavior that I’ll be teaching this coming semester, I stumbled across a study that shows that happiness does not lead to productivity, contrary to popular belief. Rather, productivity leads to happiness. Well, isn’t that great; this is what I’ve been saying all along! I’ve quoted her before (see A meaningful existence) and I’ll do it again: as Catherine Sanderson says, if you want to be happy, figure out what you’re good at and find more ways to do it.