A matter of fit: What does love have to do with it?

I love teaching.  Like everyone else I may have days of tiredness and frustration. Overall, however, I love what I do.  I love saying I’m a professor.  I love meeting with students and can typically do so even when extremely tired. In fact, more often than not, students energize me.

Why do I love teaching so much?  Here are some possible reasons:

• I am a huge extravert. I hate being on my own and can easily network in a crowd of strangers. Teaching gives me the social interaction I crave to be happy.  Under certain situations, however, I am quite happy to be on my own – and some comfort with solitude is important as I conduct research or write.
• I am supremely independent.  A very rigid hierarchy would just about kill me.  Professors have bosses, of course – but the typical academic boss is also worried about his or her own research and teaching, having no time for micro management.
• I can get quite anxious. As a sales person I would be miserable – always worrying about the big sale and easily taking rejections personally.  That same nervous edge, however, works quite well as I teach.  Nervousness adds just the right amount of empathy for my students’ problems. I can understand when they freak out – I’ve been there!
• I am hugely original and curious.  Curiosity is a gift for a professor.  After all, we constantly need to read, study, research, find stuff out.  My curiosity makes it easy for me to transmit passion for learning.

These are just a few areas of perfect “fit” between who I am and what I do. And that’s exactly what engagement means.  A perfect fit. A tight connection.  The conviction that I was born to do what I do. 

As I write this, I wonder if there is a downside to so much love. Of course. First, love makes it personal.  If you take away my classroom and my students you’re not only taking away my livelihood – you’re taking away my persona.  Second, love makes it vulnerable. People can hurt those who love. Third, love makes it intense.  Workaholism is a serious threat.  

Ask yourself: Are you deeply in love with what you do? If so - how can you protect yourself from the vulnerabilities of love? If you find out… please tell me. For now, I’m happy to take it all – love, fear and pain. My students make it worthwhile. Engagement makes it worthwhile.