Love work, even if it doesn't love me back ...

"Work won't love you back"

As the end of 2024 loomed, inspiration for my last blog post of the year (now first blog post of the new year!) was hard to come by, and I asked some colleagues for ideas. One suggestion was: "Looking back 10 years, how does your current career align with your past vision and goals—have they changed?" As I reflected on this, I recollected one key goal from much earlier in my career - based on the much quoted aphorism that "If you do what you love, you won't work a day in your life". This is seen as an achievable goal in academia, where we have a lot of flexibility and agency to pursue our research interests and teach subjects related to these interests. However, over the years I have seen (and personally experienced) how this can be a double-edged sword - used wisely a useful tool to motivate us to overcome challenges, but if used unskilfully can be harmful to oneself and others. This latter aspect is the focus of one of the books I read last year - "Work won't love you back" by Sarah Jaffe. 

In the book, Jaffe explores how the idea of "loving work" can lead to inequitable results, for example in terms of gender stereotypes associated with some professions, the unaccounted costs of emotional labour, or with the exploitation of people's passions by organisations. The focus of much of the book is on how workers in different professions have organised to challenge these expectations of loving work and address the negative consequences of this idea. In addition to its core thesis, I found the book interesting because of how it summarised trade union history in different professional fields. In the conclusion, Jaffe acknowledges that her message is not that we should not gain enjoyment from our work, but that we should be aware of the ways in which organisations take advantage of this enjoyment - sometimes to our detriment. She also highlights that we can love the people we work with, even if the work doesn't love us back. 

Reflecting on this alongside my colleague's request, I noted how the formulation of my original goal has subtly changed over time - my goal now is to "love what I do", rather than "doing what I love". This subtle difference is significant because it places the focus of my efforts on how I work (something I have more agency over) rather than what I do (or am required to do due to external factors outside my control). So, while I acknowledge  that "work won't love me back", how I choose to love my work means this is less of an issue. 

Early in my career, my choice of how to love work was based on passion, dedication, trying to give as much time as possible to my work - often by neglecting myself. However, over the years I have realised that there is a wiser approach to loving work that can lead to a more positive relationship with it. This is based on the teachings of the Buddha, where love is based on the four qualities of loving kindness, sympathetic joy, compassion, and equanimity. Of course, these qualities can apply to life in general - but this includes how we engage with our work in academia:

Loving Kindness (Metta): is based on wanting the best for everyone - my students, colleagues, the subjects of my research, or others. This quality enables me to consider how my work affects the welfare of others and my own welfare. This leads to thinking proactively about ways of helping make my work beneficial, leading to better outcomes for everyone.

Sympathetic Joy (Mudita): is about being happy for others' success. Therefore, this quality aims to develop my ability to celebrate the achievements of others, whether I had a role in it or not. It also recognises that every success comes with significant effort and lessons learned from failures along the way, which is also something to note and acknowledge.

Compassion (Karuna): is about helping others when they are in need. For me, this might be to guide a student who is struggling with a topic or their research activities, or a colleague who has received a rejection of their paper/grant (a regular occurrence in academia!).  It is also relevant to how I critique the work of others, ensuring that my comments are constructive and help others improve. Self-compassion by setting boundaries on my time and effort is also an important aspect of this quality.

Equanimity (Upekkha): requires us to make the best effort to achieve our goals, but be willing to accept any outcome.  This involves letting go of projects when it is no longer practical to keep them running, and being willing to move on to new activities when circumstances require it. It also means acknowledging that I can't help everyone with everything - which relates to the points about self-compassion mentioned above.

These qualities guide my goal of loving what I do, whether this is in my role as a researcher, leading the Future of Responsible Technology workstream of the Centre for Protecting Women Online; as an Associate Lecturer supporting students studying Cyber Security (TM256) or Systems Security (M817) at The Open University; or as Associate Dean & Director of STEM Research to help realise our vision of delivering high-quality, innovative, open, and inclusive research.

The Buddha teaches that the qualities of metta, mudita, karuna and upekkha can be developed without limit and they are often referred to as the 'divine abodes'.  So, while work won't necessarily love me back, I look forward to continuing to love my work and (hopefully) help make it better for others!