Need for a change

I was lucky to be raised by parents having down-to-earth values. As kids, me and my sister would have a freedom to explore our imagination. We would play in the woods learning to respect every tree branch and rock on your yard. We would create stories which we would act out as plays to our friends on birthday parties that my mum organized. We took violin and piano lessons and riding lessons from very early age. Our parents did everything to allow us to learn whatever we would want to, and it felt like a dream environment to grow up. If I ever have children, I would like to recreate all that freedom of feeling and exploring anything imaginable.

Growing up in a relaxed and stimulating environment also made me aware of how privileged we were early on. As a pre-teen, I was well aware of the famine in Africa so I would want to help those kids, I acknowledged the impact of good behavior on creating a good environment to my class mates in primary school, and helping those in need became an essential part of me since those times. I remember also my mother inviting anyone in need to our home, and we would keep them company and offer food if somebody experienced a difficult time at home. These ideologies are still a part of me, and I believe I should take responsibility of what is going on around me.

I picked a profession in which I would have the opportunity to do good things even in the larger context. After graduating high school with excellent grades I moved to Canada (I wanted to become international already in my teens, as I thought that the language of science should guide me throughout my career), where I completed a Specialization in Biology degree. I worked super hard, and managed to get my first publication from my Bachelor thesis, around the age of 20. When moving back to Finland, to apply my new skills, I first worked as a research assistant. Soon after I started a new type of Biology degree, in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. With granted funding I did my Masters’ early on, and published another article. Soon after graduation I got my first job as a researcher, which was in marine protection. I loved it – and I could finally make a difference for real. I worked super hard and hopefully through some of my projects the Baltic Sea is a little bit cleaner today.

Slowly, while I was busy working, I started to realize the actual dimensions of challenges in the working life and research. It started to strike me slowly, first just some people saying sometimes they'd have trouble sleeping at night or they had to go to doctor due to extremely high stress levels. Poor people, I thought. Luckily I would not have to go through this. The more time passed, the more aware I started becoming of the troubles faced by the good hearted and hard-working people with extremely high skill level. Why this is, is not a simple issue. However, I am pretty sure competition is a large factor.

What happens in nature when a species is competing for a tiny amount of resources? They get excluded (a lesson from an elementary Ecology book). In working life, of course, it is more subtle. But what it comes down to is that the competition for the very limited funding is huge – you need to spend your evenings and weekends after super intense working days to apply for grants to be able to continue working, and if you are lucky and are admitted the grant, you will need to spend your evenings and weekends to report every detail of your projects to the funding institute. In a dream world, one would need to eat and sleep at some point, but if you want to build a good career, you start to save time from every bit you can. The first to go is hobbies and dreams of what you may have, for example; having a family must wait. Giving such a huge thing up hurts, but it is worth it – eventually the world is becoming a bit better, and there will be time for these dreams later on, right? And who would want to be left without a job. That is only for losers, right, so better keep applying.

The truth I was facing already that ten years ago, when this happened, is finally today hitting me hard. I recently realized that having set aside my dreams all the way long, has caused me to end up in a state of a panic. What did I end up with? None of those things I dreamt of, and yep, I am soon turning 40. About a half of my life has passed just trying to make it somehow, I have not lived it at its fullest. For example, I have not fought for the things I essentially find important – love, relationships and family. In fact, I have given it all up. Realizing this makes me feel angry, helpless and lost. I suppose this is something termed as “burn out” in common terms. 

If it was only me, it would not be that bad. I just go to the doctor, get some pills, and would be alright in a bit. But what strikes me is that it is not only me.

I wanted to share the fears and thoughts in relation to my career in a couple of Facebook groups for academics and well-educated people. The number of responses from people going through the exact same thoughts or feelings was unimaginable. In less than 20 minutes, my wall was filled with comments from like-minded people. There were so many stories that they would not fit on the page in that time. A single parent shared a heart-breaking story of just barely making it from day to day with the low pay of her job and moving between countries regularly. Women in their 40s told how they gave up their dream of trying to rehearse their dream profession, and were left without a job eventually anyway (the feeling of their frustration was loud and clear). A mother of a young baby explained she had somehow managed to complete her studies but in the end was so out of energy that she could not go on working anymore and has given hope of returning to university. On my facebook wall, there were innumerable messages, some directly to me in person, reinforcing that a countless number of people are in a situation where there seems to be no way out. Trying to fulfill the impossible challenges of the surrounding society.

It took me a while to realize how badly we have gone wrong here. First, let's blame the society: The cuts to the research funding are painfully showing, not only in the reduction of the babies born today, but as mental health issues that are more wide-spread than ever before. People are forced to make rushed choices to just get food to table – and yes, these are the same people who were raised the same way I was. They (and I) were raised to build a better planet, better future and fulfill own dreams while doing this. But the end result is the opposite of this: we are all out of energy, in despair and in a state of hopelessness.

Evidently, this has to stop. It is now time that we can no longer let this happen to us. We need to build ourselves lives; wee need jobs we know will be there still tomorrow (if we do not finish our extra work at midnight); we need to feel that social structures will sustain even if we are sometimes tired; and the system needs to change.At least I refuse to live in a country in which I would not even want to raise a child.

Before I lose every bit of my creativity, energy and knowledge, let this blog writing be the first step in change towards better.