In a charming piece written for the Chronicle of Higher Education, ex-academic Harrison S. Key explores one of academe's more closeted secrets--that all too many people are in it not because they truly love doing academic work, but because, having been in school all their lives, they fear moving beyond it. In a first-person account of his own attempt to confront his reasons for staying in a professional setting that made him miserable, Key delivers an impromptu consciousness-raising session:

Why did it take me so long to admit that academe was never going to make me happy? Because I had been institutionalized, like Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption. He spent a life in prison and knew its rules, and his release into the outside world was just too much. He hated it enough to hang himself in a boarding house. I bet he wasn't happy in prison, either, but at least it was home.

Was that my problem, too? I had spent a life in education. I was carried to term in the classroom, while mom taught English to seventh graders. At birth, I was deposited in the diapers-only section of a preschool. Thirty years later, I remain in school, sans the diaper.

The similarities between prison and academe are several. Both places have tiny rebellions and mutinies, mostly insignificant, sometimes violent. Most people are involved in sports. Everybody else reads. Lots of free concerts. There's also very bad pay. Squalid living conditions. Remedial classes. Drug use. Unusual carnal activity. Tattoos.

The most common parallel, though, is one's inability to leave either after years of regimen.

But you can leave. Here's how.

Write down all of the reasons you're in academe--all the reasons you chose this life, the things you like about it, what you can't live without, what makes you an awesome teacher, all those things that make you think you're happy.

Now write down all the reasons why you might be unhappy--the complaints about your students, the misgivings about your college, the grievances with your discipline, and job, and life. You have to have some or you wouldn't have read this far.

Then take both of those lists and mail them to your mom, because she's the only one who cares.

The thing is, if you get far enough to start writing things down like that, you aren't happy. Nobody can tell you why you're unhappy, most of all you, but that is the first step. Admit it.

Admit that you don't like your students sometimes. Admit that you get tired of teaching the F.O.I.L. method or Oedipus Rex to dopes on dope. Admit that you love summers off but get suicidal by August. Admit that you think some of your colleagues are really nuts but you smile and agree because, why not? Admit that political correctness makes you gassy. Admit that you're a little upset that your students will make twice your salary upon graduating, even if they can't read. Admit that your department looks less like Dead Poets Society and more like Lord of the Flies. Admit that you think leaving will mean selling out to The Man, or The Bourgeoisie, or Wal-Mart, or whatever demon you think you hate.

Admit that you're scared to death but ready for something new.

As the English historian Paul Johnson said of the Catholic Church, " Come on in! Its awful!"

Life 'on the outside' has much to recomend it, sans whats been messed up by academic theories.

And life in academe has much to recommend it. I certainly don't plan to leave, and I'm not even in a tenure-track job.

Reasons to stay:
-advising students
-love of teaching
-flexible scedule
-great colleagues
-love of my discipline
-dealing with very smart people every day

Reasons to leave:
-money
-?

I'm staying.

yes, what *is* it with these
missionary anti-academicians?
capitalism doesn't have
enough cheerleaders?
jeez, buddy . . . get a life.

And what does that say about the folks who flee the corporate world (as my brother did) for academe?

My main reason for staying: every day is different. I may spend one whole day "putting out fires" that are not of my own making, but then the next day I may have a wonderful, deep conversation with a student. Or get an exciting research result. For every bad day there are a few really good ones.

My brother's main complaint about his former place of work was that he had to cross days off on the calendar to convince himself that time really did pass.

I have other reasons, too:

the student who comes back a couple terms later and tells you how much they learned from your class.

being around people to whom intelligence matters more than how much money you make.

being able to spend an afternoon outdoors looking at bugs and still be able to consider it 'working'

students who come in for help, walk out of your office shaking their heads going "I'm going to fail this exam." Calling back at them as they walk down the hall "No, you won't!" and then being able to show them that I was right, that they understood it better than they thought they did.

Always having something to do...not having to sit at a desk and "look busy"

Minimal dealings with clueless higher-ups.

Telling a (subject-appropriate) joke in class and having them laugh.

Relatively few (at least at this point) stupid rules - there are no rules about how many family pictures I can have on my desk, or if my desk has to be cleaned off at the end of the day. No rules about lunch breaks - I can eat at my desk if I'm working, or I can go home if I have time, or go out to lunch with colleagues.

No stinkin' badges. (Although that may be coming - a former student teaches at a nearby community college and he has to carry his ID on a lanyard at all times)

I'm not in a cubicle. I have a real door and a real window and I am the one who says whether both are open or closed.

I get a couple weeks off at Christmas and can go see relatives I'd not get to see otherwise, because they live far far away.

I have a certain amount of say in my work-hours. I can request all morning classes if I want them. I can refuse evening classes. I can choose to teach summers if I want.

Reasons for me to leave:

occasionally I get a student who irritates me. (But then again, if I were working in any industry dealing with people, I'd have to put up with that)

money - but I'm doing pretty well where I am.