After 18 years of climbing Mt. Academia, I have decided to take a side-quest. I am preparing to take leave of the comforts, stabilities, and reverence that university life offers to a tenured professor and have a ‘mad dash’ at the entrepreneurial life. And I probably have Covid to thank for it.
I reached the ‘mid-career’ stage a while ago, and largely stalled. The journey made me tired. In all the ways you can be tired. I lost loved ones along the way, as well as the stability and security that went along with those relationships. On the path to terminal rank, I had forgotten my ‘why’. I was no longer in flow. I was wrestling with Ego. I read too many self-help books that did not help my actual self. I kept getting sports injuries because I was too numbed out to notice pain. In short, I was a little bit miserable, and I was a whole lot stuck.
When career opportunities came along, I could not parse them. I didn’t know whether to lean in or lean out. It all started to swirl, and I developed ‘situational ADD’ (it’s really a thing).
Enter Covid. Suddenly everything changed overnight. Get classes online ASAP! Learn new software, new tools! Adapt, adapt, adapt! The old proverb says that ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ and brother, what a mother!
After my first full semester of teaching multiple sections, simultaneously, online, and in-person, these facts stood in stark contrast:
1. It was a disaster. On more than one occasion I would return home from my university teaching job and sob in my car at the ‘hot mess’ (I would use different words in person) that I just left behind. I was mortified by the insanely amateurish cobbling together of devices and software to deliver content in multiple formats to attempt to meet everyone’s needs.
2. It wasn’t a disaster. I received the best teaching reviews of any previous semester in my 18 years of teaching. Words like ‘’professionalism” and “high-quality” and “excellent” were thrown around.
My experience was my own, the students had a different one. Two truths. At the end of the day, we all learned new things, and that’s the heart of being happy as humans – learning, growing, and staying curious. I survived it, in retrospect, possibly thrived from it, and I’m ready to stretch some more. I’m hungry for new opportunities to struggle and grow.
Life in the time of Covid has taught me that being upended for a while is OK. The experience can reveal the extent of your grit and teach you how to work with your village. It will test you, your priorities, your values, and in doing so, show you YOUR way. And all of that will prepare you to live, work, and lead from a place of empathy, connectivity, and authenticity.
“Good timber does not grow with ease: The stronger wind, the stronger trees”
Douglas Malloch, Good Timber
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