I can't do it all

No one ever told me that at age 40, I’d be trying to answer the same question that I got asked at age 4: what do I want to be when I grow up?

At an early age, I knew I wanted to be a scientist.  I went to college to get a degree in physics.  I went to grad school and got a PhD in Planetary Science.  I was a postdoctoral researcher at two different institutions, NASA and the Carnegie Institution, before being hired at the University of Chicago as a faculty member of the Department of the Geophysical Sciences.  By all accounts, I am a scientist.

But there are many different aspects of my job.  And I’m beginning to think about…wonder…question…is there more that I should/want to be doing?

For a long time, I was only focused on doing research.  That’s what I was told that a scientist does: carries out experiments or does calculations that advance our knowledge of the world and universe in which we live.  That is what I saw as my main role, and that was where I put most of my effort.  It’s been amazing—the feeling of discovering something new or being the first person to see how pieces of the universe fit together is an incredible rush.  Despite all the hard work and frustrating false starts that come with carrying out an experiment, writing a computer code, or waiting for the right moment to witness an event, that feeling of realization and awe when you see something no one else had witnessed before immediately gets you hooked and keeps you coming back for more.  It’s a drug.  It’s intoxicating.

But as a scientist, and more as a professor, my job description extends beyond doing research.  I’m an educator: I teach classes.  I’m an advisor: I train students and postdocs to be independent scientists of their own.  I’m a colleague: I’m part of a department and university whose goals are to create an academic community where the whole is greater than the sum of their parts.  I’m an ambassador: I publicize the discoveries and achievements that I and others make to the public.  I’m an advocate: I work to ensure that funding and opportunities are there for others to continue on our march for deeper insights and more knowledge.  These are important responsibilities that require significant time and effort.

Take teaching.  I teach two classes per year.  A lot of faculty that I am around look at it as a necessary burden; one they do because they have to, but it’s the research that really is what motivates them and excites them.  I must admit, while I have enjoyed teaching and take my responsibility seriously, it has been a lower priority than my research for a long time.  That’s due to many things: pressure from peers, advice from mentors, and self-imposed sense of what defined my career.  It’s never that I wasn’t trying; I just wasn’t trying as much as I could.

And this is the crux of the conflict that I’ve struggled with: I can’t put my full effort into everything.  I have limited time, energy, and brain power.  But as I look at the responsibilities that I have as a scientist, I wonder if I need to re-evaluate how I allocate those resources.

I want to be a better teacher and educate students so that they have the science literacy and knowledge needed to appreciate the world that they live in as well as to make informed decisions about the scientific issues they will face in the future.  I want to be a better advocate for science and my field, increasing diversity and ensuring equal opportunities for my colleagues, both in the present and the future.  I want to reach out more to the public, making what we learn and know from our research available to everyone, not just other scientists or those who have the money/opportunity to go to college.  I want to be leader, working to help identify what scientific goals we, as a community, set for ourselves in the near and distant future and working to ensure that our limited resources are allocated to meet those goals.  

On top of that, I am a person.  I have my own goals, and at times I feel selfish for thinking about them.  I am a father and a husband, and each of these require my full effort and energy (totally worth it, as they are both amazingly rewarding).  I want to experience more in life, too.  I want to travel.  I want to learn more outside of my field.  I want to cook and eat fine foods, and spend days reading by the lake.  I want to enjoy life, rather than jumping from one responsibility to the next.

I’m not giving up on any of it.  But it’s time for a change.  I need to reprioritize and accept that I can’t do it all.  I’m not changing careers or fields or anything.  But I am thinking about what to do differently and how.  How can I satisfy my ambitions and sense of obligation?  What will allow me to feel like I am contributing, while getting the most joy and satisfaction out of my efforts.  Perhaps I will do things differently than my colleagues would do or are doing right now.  Maybe they prioritize their responsibilities differently than I do.  That’s ok.  I support their decisions.  It doesn’t mean we’re fighting different wars; we’re just battling on different fronts.

OCD and Me

I have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.   

OCD.  The demon that has haunted me since I was a little kid has a name.   I only learned this recently.  Before, I thought that in navigating the difficulties and frustrations off life, others had the mental toughness to cope with while I did not.  That I was just weak.  After years of stress, sadness, fright, anxiety, and self-loathing, I learned that it was a bit more complicated.

OCD is a mental disorder that manifests itself in many different ways.  I don’t need the books on my shelf to be arranged in a particular way.  I don’t need to wash my hands every five minutes.  I don’t need to turn the lights on and off exactly five times before walking down the hallway.  Those are compulsions that I haven’t really had to deal with.  Though I will admit, when I’m tired or particularly  stressed, I do find myself exhibiting signs of that kind of behavior.  And I am doing it more frequently these days.

For me, things are tilted more toward the obsessional end of things.  My brain locks onto an unpleasant, stressful thought or memory and runs it over and over again.  It's not productive in the least; no new insights are provided nor any do any solutions present themselves.  Instead it's all about getting caught up in the turmoil of why it happened (not that I can change it) or the emotional baggage it carries with it (which just leads to greater and greater despair).  No matter how much sense it makes to just “let it go,” I can’t.  

Imagine having a video library of all the painful memories you have: the mistakes you have made, times when you were embarrassed, or instances when you were hurt by someone else.  Then imagine being forced to watch one video from that library over and over again.  Most people may be annoyed or upset by it, but would get up and walk away, removing themselves from the source of distress.  But imagine that instead, you sit there, eyes glued to the screen, thinking that if you watch it enough times, the outcome will be different or you’ll find some detail that redeems the experience in some way.  You know it’s impossible, but you can’t help yourself.  So you stare, watching that painful moment repeatedly.  Even if you try to walk away, you find yourself running back to the chair to watch one more time.  And so you sit there, stuck, experiencing that regret, embarrassment, or hurt over and over again.

Sometimes it isn’t even something real; sometimes it’s something that didn’t actually happen, a hypothetical or imagined event that still manages to make me anxious.  At times it is totally far-fetched.  Yet, as I sit and think about it, I begin to convince myself that my memory is off.  Maybe it was a traumatic experience and I repressed the memory.  Maybe it really happened and I blocked it.  Eventually I become convinced that since I’m thinking about it, it must have been real.  So the stress levels build.  No amount of logic works to convince me differently.  So there I find myself feeling immense guilt, grief, or anxiety over something that I’ve completely made up.

Part of what makes it so frustrating is that the solution seems simple: stop thinking about whatever bothers you.  That’s what others would do; other people will have a bad thought or memory and might spin it in their minds for bit, then move on.  But I can’t.  And the harder I try, the more difficult it becomes.  Much like having the chicken pox and being tempted to scratch all over, I can’t help but give in. But instead of relief, I just keep making it worse and worse.

As a kid, I remember getting feelings of sadness.  These were caused by any number of things: tough times with friends, recognizing some mistake I made, or just general fear of growing up.  These issues weren’t unique to me; we’ve all faced them.  I remember having nights where I would get upset about any one of these things, and while I would start out being annoyed or having some regret, things would escalate to the point where I would be inconsolable.  I kept on searching for why these events were affecting me so much and so strongly.  I’d talk to my friends, my family, and everyone, and it was no help.  As I struggled, I just figured that everyone else could handle things where I could not.  That I was weak.

Most days, it's a non-issue.  Some days it's a nuisance.  And on a few days, it is completely crippling.  People sometimes find time to be “alone with their thoughts.”  I live in constant fear of those times; they are inevitable.  Given time, I know my brain will eventually work its way to one of these cycles, so I have to keep it occupied by thinking about something…anything.  It’s exhausting.

These things come and go for me.  I can go long periods where I have no signs of getting caught up in my own mental web.  But there are times when I can do nothing to escape thoughts that made me anxious and depressed. It has happened throughout my life, and so I’ve developed ways to try and avoid letting the process begin, even if it was to my detriment.  In college, I began intentionally depriving myself of sleep, staying up to ridiculously late hours then waking very early because passing out from exhaustion was better than lying awake in bed and allowing my mind to spiral out of control.  Throughout my career, I’ve often tried to seek refuge in my work, bringing my thoughts back to my computer code or research anytime my mind began to drift off from where I knew it was safe.  Sometimes it would serve as a shield for me, but mostly it just delayed things or my work itself became the focus of my obsessions.  I still try these avoidance methods today, though they are proving less and less effective; I see myself experiencing more burnout and exhaustion, things that themselves are serving as triggers for my cycles.

A few years ago, I was having a particularly bad episode.  I’ve had them like that before, but this time I was really struggling to cope.  I was going in to the office, but was unable to focus or get anything done and wound up pacing around my office trying to break free of the negative images and memories that were holding me hostage.  Giving up on work, I began reading articles online of ways to deal with unwanted thoughts.  That’s when I read about “Pure O,” a branch of OCD where a person develops anxiety due to a recurring thought and the unending mental cycle that the person gets into when trying to solve, avoid, or forget it.  I read testimonials of other people’s experiences, the types of thoughts that spiraled out of control for them, and the lengths that they went to in order to avoid getting trapped.  All the stories that doctors and patients told were so familiar to me…they were the same experiences that I had.  This was a real thing.  It was a medically recognized disorder.  There were others out there like me.  I was not alone.

I’ve spoken with a doctor and have been formally diagnosed.  I am not cured; I never will be.  I will be battling this forever.  I am not on medication.  Maybe someday I will be.  For now, I have mental exercises that I do when I feel myself ruminating and heading down the path where my thoughts get away from me.   Sometimes they work.  Sometimes they don’t. But I’m dealing.  And I’m going to continue to deal.  

Why am I saying all this?  Many reasons.  I want to show others—I want to show my daughter—that we all have personal challenges and facing them makes us better people.  I want others to know that they should not be fearful of admitting to having their own demons or ashamed of a having any sort of disorder.  I have OCD.   I’m not defined by it, and it does not control me.  It may serve as an obstacle on occasion, but it will not be an obstacle to me living.   It is not going to stop me from being the scientist, father, husband, or person that I want to be.    

It is ok to seek help.  I did.  Even if it doesn’t “fix” everything, it’s good to know you are not alone.  And it’s good to know that you are not weak.

Hello

2017…and I’m starting a blog now?  Why?

Well, there’s a lot going on.  Personally.  Professionally.  In this country.  In the world.  I constantly feel like I’m reacting to situations, being bombarded with news and reactions on tv, over email, the web, Twitter, Facebook, etc. etc.  It’s hard to digest.  At times it’s overwhelming and I don’t know what to make of it.  I feel like I’m constantly reacting to things, never taking time to process it all.

So I’m starting this “blog” because I need to reach out. I need to spend some time on self-reflection. I need to vent.  Mostly, I need an outlet and a way to sort through my thoughts.  That is what I want to do here.

Don’t get me wrong…it’s not all bad.  On all levels, there are things that I’m grateful for, excited for, and outright giddy about.  But caught up in the rapid pace by which things are moving, I worry that I’m not fully able to sit and enjoy these things or to fully appreciate them.  That, too, is what I want to do here.

I used quotes around blog above, because I want to be upfront about what this is and to temper any expectations.  In fact, this is not my first attempt at starting a blog.  I’ve started many in the past, only to give up after a few entries.  While I might start these with the best of intentions, my ambition and effort would dwindle.  I found myself writing about things just to write, rather than because I had a reason to do so.  And it made for less exciting writing, and even less exciting reading.

So in a way, I am writing this all for me.  I know that sounds selfish; I don’t mean it to be.  But I’m going to write when I am so motivated, whether to work through a personal issue, share some excitement, or to try to make sense of what’s going on around me (or in my head).  I hope a side benefit is that one other person may find what I say interesting, informative, or helpful in some way.  

And if nothing else, I look forward to looking back on this all in 20 years or more with my family, using these ramblings as reminders of my attempt to make sense of the world of which I was a part.