The Obligation to Work-Life Balance

My reign of terror is over, and my era as ASCIT President has come to its end. Through this opportunity, Caltech and its community have taught me countless lessons that I wouldn’t be able to learn in any classroom, and I thank each and every one of you for the faith you’ve put in me as the ASCIT President and the ways you’ve helped me grow.

As some small return to the confidence you’ve put in me, I’d like to offer one final piece of unsolicited perspective I’ve gained over my past three and a half years at Caltech (for a little context, previous ASCIT Presidents have set the precedent of publishing “parting words” or “farewell addresses”, and this is my version of it).

Something we’ve all come to be very familiar with is the unparalleled work rate and dedication exhibited by Caltech community members. I doubt that there are many (if any) assemblages of people who work harder than the individuals at this institution. This culture of working hard defines us. The pride we take in our tireless dedication to our passions and responsibilities is an integral part of our identity and is likely a major contributor to why many of us chose to come here. Incredible inspiration comes from being immersed in this atmosphere of commitment; it fuels Nobel Prize-winning research, world-changing innovation, and unimaginable breakthroughs.

However, I also suspect that many of you will also relate when I say there is a caveat to this work-centric lifestyle. I know I’ve done it myself and watched as my peers have “flown too close to the sun.” For at least some period, many of us have likely been in a position where work on whatever project—or even projects—becomes all-consuming. Inevitably, we’ve all probably faced the same conclusion to this Caltech tale that is old as time: we find that this level of work isn’t sustainable, and we burn out. Many of us find that the passion that fueled our enthusiasm has been replaced with resentment. Luckily, this state of demotivation is relatively short-lived and often warded off thanks to the resilience and optimism of those surrounding us (which could be the topic of a whole other article).

But I want to take a moment to acknowledge the lead-up to this temporary burnout and its consequences. Even if we don’t reach complete burnout, there are many times when we toe the line for extended periods and push ourselves to extremes. So what does this look like? (Does “adrenal fatigue” ring a bell for anyone?) You probably don’t need me to tell you, and it probably looks different for each of us. But to make myself explicitly clear, I’m referring to the extreme sacrifices we expect ourselves—and maybe those around us, too—to make in the name of our work. Hours of sleep lost, number of weekends spent in the lab, opportunities foregone: these are what I mean.

On occasion, I see no issue with making these sacrifices. After all, a large part of what makes us “Techers” is our willingness—and sometimes even preference—to pass up a given alternative for the sake of our academic pursuits. This becomes problematic when this sacrifice is no longer a preference or choice, but an obligation forced upon us by both internal and external pressures. Maybe it’s going into the lab all weekend, because if you don’t work 7 days a week, you won’t meet the demands made of you. Or perhaps it’s working 12 hours each day because that’s just what everyone else does. Or maybe it’s not academic. Maybe it’s responding to emails at 2 a.m., or skipping lunch to go to a club meeting. I’m sure you get the picture. We go to extremes to meet the expectations we have of ourselves.

When verbalized, I think we can all appreciate how these expectations are quite intense, and many of us would never ask any of our peers to make these sacrifices. Yet, I also think many of us would not bat an eye at doing these things ourselves, even if we didn’t particularly want to. Once again, I want to emphasize that I am not saying that there is something wrong with not going to the beach every weekend because you have to work on a set or complete a task. But when we dedicate all of our bandwidth to our work and leave no room for work-life balance, there are negative consequences.

For anyone who’s had a general physician’s exam in the past year, I imagine you’re familiar with the regular questions of: “How much quality sleep do you get?” “Are you eating three meals a day?” and “What’s your daily stress level?” As a community, we recognize that simple habits for maintaining a human body are important for our health and well-being, and when we sell our souls to our work, some of the healthy habits may be neglected in the name of productivity. Maybe you’re agreeing with me now, thinking “Yeah, Sophie. I get it. Don’t stay up all night doing sets,” or “You’re right; I’ll try to do better.” But this is Caltech, and I see right through your pretty white lies! And personally, I don’t believe you—because I tell myself the same lies!

For many of us, it’s all too easy to make promises to treat ourselves better, and then remain stuck on the “work hamster wheel” (you can thank Evan for that analogy). So I want to offer a different incentive to make a case for work-life balance.

Please humor me as I start by asking us to reflect on 2020. During the pandemic, one of the things that stuck with me was the notion of compassion fatigue. Originally, this term was popularized in the context of essential workers under ceaseless demand to support the ill and ailing. But for me, its reach has much broader implications: this phrase reminds me of the similar concept that “you can’t fill someone else’s cup when your own is empty.” During the pandemic, I imagine many of us “maxed out” our bandwidth by trying to cope with the constant uncertainty and isolation. Although we are no longer amid the pandemic, I think this recognition of bandwidth remains extremely pertinent and, for this article, of what happens when we have none of it left.

As scientists and engineers, bandwidth as a descriptor for mental capacity may be quite intuitive: our emotional, physical, and intellectual resources are limited, and we can’t allocate what we don’t have. Put simply, although our mental faculties are intangible, they are still finite. So when we’re operating on near-burnout settings, I think many of us are damn near close to using all of our bandwidth for our work, leaving little, if any, for caring for ourselves and others.

This is where I think the notion of work-life balance becomes relevant in an application beyond ourselves. If we are using all of our bandwidth for academic or productive purposes, are we saving any for interfacing with each other?

At Caltech, another massive part of our identity and culture lies in collaboration—in some sense, it’s what enables us to maintain such a prestigious work ethic—but collaboration isn’t always easy! Efficiently working with other humans requires empathy, patience, communication, and emotional intelligence, and I think we often underestimate how much bandwidth it takes to apply these skills effectively. So when we’re at an extreme level of “grind mode” or “lost in the sauce” for our academic pursuits, we severely limit our ability to cooperate with those around us. At the surface level, we can think of this as being slightly irritable when we haven’t eaten or slept (and I’m sure we all have experienced the unpleasantness of working with an irritable coworker). On a deeper level, thinking about compassion fatigue, this same level of irritability can arise in response to the chronic stress and fatigue that accompany the pressure we put ourselves under when we walk the line of burnout.

From a fly-over level, this issue is likely ubiquitous to workplaces beyond Caltech. But we’re not like other girls, and I suggest that the severity of these circumstances is largely amplified at Caltech to the point that it becomes unhealthy. In particular, while I love the “grind” culture at Caltech, it is glorified to a toxic extent. There is an implicit praise in getting less sleep, spending the night in the library, and pushing ourselves to extremes. Even if we don’t explicitly promote martyrdom for academic success, we enable it daily by normalizing these extreme behaviors in our day-to-day lives.

So what is the line between extremity and enthusiasm? And how do we balance a prestigious work ethic with a sustainable work-life balance? I don’t know. The answers to these questions vary for all of us, but I genuinely believe that answering them can help move our community culture in a direction where we can create bandwidth to be kinder, more patient, more understanding, and more effective collaborators.

I recognize that this article may just be covering old news. Maybe we’ve all always known that the price of prestige is extreme sacrifice. Yet I implore us not to be complacent and accept that a toxic overcommitment to one’s work is the only way to achieve high-level success. There are those on campus who have found the balance between investing in their passions and fostering their non-academic lives and we can look to as we seek to address the collective struggle to reconcile the demands of academia with the nuances of being human.

My hope is that, in writing this article, we can begin to normalize having these conversations and learn to acknowledge when we are enabling habits that undermine our mental well-being and collaborative capacity. However, cultures don’t shift simply because of conversations. While these are crucial starting points, institutional change comes from individuals taking action, which can cumulatively drive realignments. Yet as I am writing this, I realize how dramatic and intimidating phrases like institutional change and realignment may seem. Maybe these are too ambitious. Or, maybe, I don’t truly have the “Caltech Spirit” of commitment.

I reassure you, I would not be taking the time to write this if I did not believe it was important enough to justify such verbiage. The last line of thought I offer about this comes from the Caltech mission statement, which states: “The mission of the California Institute of Technology is to expand human knowledge and benefit society through research integrated with education. We investigate the most challenging, fundamental problems in science and technology in a singularly collegial, interdisciplinary atmosphere, while educating outstanding students to become creative members of society”.

This is what we stand for: the benefit of society. We are an institute of scientific philanthropy where we aren’t just committed to our work, we’re committed to work that serves the greater world. I argue that there is something inherently altruistic about this mission, and there is a humanitarian core to the impetus of all of our efforts. We have an obligation, then, not just to be great researchers, but to be great humans. These are two incredibly lofty demands, yet there is no better community to meet them than the Caltech community. Yet the fact of the matter is that we can’t conjure more bandwidth, so unless someone discovers a way to squeeze more hours into the day or reduce the amount of sleep a human needs to function, we are left with the need to reconcile the way we allocate our mental resources and the demands we make of ourselves. Again, I’m not asking us to switch to a four-day work week or abandon late nights in the lab. Instead, I’m asking us all to do an honest self-assessment of how much bandwidth we have and how it’s being used. This isn’t easy either. I think a lot of us will encounter uncomfortable truths, but by reflecting on these matters and analyzing how they impact our abilities to be engaging and collaborative humans sharing a community, we can enhance the overall productivity, happiness, and well-being of our campus.

By no means is this meant to be condemning or attacking in any way. In all honesty, I am constantly astounded by the kindness, graciousness, and humility of those I encounter at Caltech. I am amazed by the many balancing acts everyone is managing and recognize the immense energy and effort that everyone is expending to be remarkable researchers and stellar people. I know that, in reflecting on my own habits and in talking to countless others on campus, many of us feel that our ability to collaborate and support one another is hindered by our tendencies to spread our bandwidth so thinly. Thus, more than anything, this statement is a call to awareness of the campus climate surrounding work habits.

Because it can be difficult to see the value in doing something for yourself, I hope that by addressing how our intense work habits and normalization of extreme sacrifice impact the community beyond ourselves, I can compel us to begin considering some of the toxic nature behind the Caltech “hustle” culture. I truly believe we can retain this “grind” mentality and even enhance our productivity and achievement if we take a step back and assess what it means to have a healthy work-life balance.