By Kimine Mayuzumi
While the whole world has slowed down, the guilty feeling of many academics hasn’t – could be quite an opposite. It is partly because even the adjustment made for the evaluation system for tenure and promotion doesn’t seem to be promising at this point. The society is quite unsettling. The gap between who can produce and who can’t has been exacerbated. The latter group would feel agitated, anxious, and scarce within themselves worrying about the future outcome, which they are now even less in control of than before. Their professional identities and visions are threatened. As a result, shame gremlins trigger their impostor feelings too.
Underneath our website title, we have the tagline, “be mindful, trust the process and let go of outcomes” as the essence of Being Lazy and Slowing Down. But how on earth can we be mindful, trust the process and let go of outcomes? It is easy to say, but troublesome to do in our daily life especially in this unique situation with the neoliberal system in place and the pandemic (and the unsettling events) to be added to it.
Let’s see some contexts where we are in.
In this neoliberal culture of academia, ‘productivity’ is the top priority and efficiency is valued or even necessary. The measurement and commodification of time that comes along with such priority has bombarded us with increasing deadlines, fear of survival, and accountability measures. We are prone to the feelings of shame and guilt when we don’t meet the deadlines or expectations of outcomes reinforced by external sources as well as ourselves through our neoliberal subjectivity (Shahjahan, 2019). Our worthiness depends on our productivity. We focus more on the outcomes than the process as “we work in the present to acquire the way we want to be in the future” (Shahjahan, 2019, p.9).
During the pandemic crisis, when the whole world stopped and many have to take on more family responsibilities, the idea of productivity is at stake. In fact this self-quarantine situation has intensified the differences of privileges among academics in terms of who can produce more than others. Some might have benefitted by increasing their research time while working from home. Others including many women academics with small children are constantly juggling with the priorities for their families. Being furloughed and/or being off contract during the summer brings another layer of anxiety. On top of having attended the numerous meetings for restructuring the curriculum and/or the department, many faculty members may still feel pressured to take on more service work. Even in general, women perform more service work than male peers. For the ‘diversity’ rhetoric, faculty of color may become token representatives and get overloaded.
On top of the above, the recent unrest of social and criminal injustice has fueled the anger and frustration that had been embedded in the mind and soul of the oppressed. The emotional price the group is paying is extremely high. How can academics in the group concentrate on their research? This is not new but rather on-going. Dr. Kerry Ann Rockquemore suggests some strategies for writing while feeling the pain of recent events.
When uncertainty is becoming a norm, our belief in or myth of being in control is crumbling. The more we try to control what we can’t, the more miserable we feel about ourselves. The harder and longer we push through without a break by attempting to control the situation or our future, the more possible it would be that our bodies pay the price.
I am providing the social and systemic contexts in part so that those at stake could be more compassionate to themselves and redirect their mind to consider another spectrum of their own life within the larger context.
I suggest to increase the moments of the states: being mindful of what we are doing by trusting the process which we are immersing ourselves in, as we let go of future outcomes. Children generally have such wonderful traits. I actually feel content and joyful when I become child-like – being playful, not thinking about the future but engaging with what I am doing and whom I am with in the moment. At those moments, I would feel liberated from the constraints and angst that have been perpetuating my neoliberal subjectivity, which makes me live out of fear rather than joy. That is what we need now when we are surrounded by uncertainties and unsettling situations all around. Resiliency requires rest. Sustainability requires moments of tranquility.
Now that the academic year or the term has ended (or ending depending on where you are) and we are encouraged to stay home during the pandemic, it is a great idea to check in with ourselves, reflect on the term/year, and dig deep on our life visions. In that process, a salient question to ask ourselves is: how can I lead my life centering my way of being rather than seeking acceptance within the dominant frames of value? That is one way of disrupting the neoliberal subjectivity tied to our shame feelings and acknowledging our very existence (Shahjahan, 2019).
I came up with 5 reminders during your self-reflection so that you can increase the moments of being mindful, trusting the process and letting go of outcomes in your daily life. I discuss them in Part II.
Photo by Mike Hindle on Unsplash