If Only

Many of the conversations I have with people who’ve struggled with and/or left academia come around to this phrase: “if only.”

If only we’d really understood how disciplinarity worked in the academy. If only we’d written the dissertation a little differently. If only we hadn’t had that medical crisis that screwed up our nicely laid plans for tenure publication. If only that article had gotten accepted. If only that small college town had had any amenities at all for a young, single professional. If only we’d forced our advisor to get it together. If only we’d said no to more things. If only the tenure track didn’t coincide so closely with prime childbearing years. If only our spouses could have found work. If only if only if only.

We can say there are no do-overs. We KNOW there are no do-overs. And yet. And yet we live with If Only because, somewhere, probably buried deep, we believe that academia is the pinnacle, the lost Eden, the dream. Despite all evidence to the contrary, we believe that if something had just been different, we could have lived into the life we thought academia represented.

What we each thought it represented — well, that’s different for every person. Some of us thought it was prestige, some the ability to sit around and read interesting things and think all the time, some a kind of genteel European class position that pooh-poohed all this American capitalist scrambling. And what we’ve lost of ourselves in the process — that’s individual too.

But to the extent that we think “if only,” that unspoken belief, that quiet conviction, is in there. To the extent that we hear from our academic friends on Facebook and get a small pang of regret and longing, it’s in there. To the extent that we’ve lost our old comrades-in-arms, those people who got us through comps and seminar papers and learning academic triage, it’s in there.

And if we ever want to live without the “if onlys,” we need to pull those beliefs out into the light and really look at them. Whatever else academia is — and it’s many wonderful things — it’s not a lost intellectual Eden. It’s not the place where politics doesn’t matter, where everything goes right, and where merit always wins out in the end. Its hands are no cleaner or dirtier than those of the rest of the world, and we are no better or worse people for not being there.

But so long as we believe that we have fallen from a kind of grace, we live in a subtle but real kind of regret that prevents us from moving forward into lives that bring us alive, lives that engage our passion, lives that make us deeply, deeply content.

So take a look. Dig out your “if onlys” and see what it is you’re mourning. Then go ahead and mourn it. Grieve that dream, and grieve that self that you would have been in that dream. Notice what it is you’re holding on to, and think about whether that’s something you need to try to create in your life in another way — whether it’s flexible time, intellectual engagement, or working one-on-one with students. Notice what messages you’re sending yourself about your worth, your abilities, your place in the world.

And then, to the best of your ability, let it go. Letting go will take work, and mindfulness, and time, but it can be done. And the more you can appreciate not only where you are, but the journey it’s taken to get you there, the more you can turn your face to the sun of possibility, the more you can dream about the life you really want to have. And wouldn’t that be so much more fun?

So let’s start the conversation. What is it you regret about leaving the academy? What is it you think could have or would have made a difference? What are your “if onlys”?