When working non-stop in the lab, colleagues like to chat about what’s happening in the lab and share their frustrations with each other. However, some people are proud of their lack of sleep, staying up late in the office, and stress levels. They always advertise that they come to the lab every day until they can’t tell the difference between weekdays and weekends. When we share our hobbies or travel experiences in the tea room, he will reply, “Wow, you are so free? Unlike me, I stayed in the lab until midnight this weekend before going back.”
Scientifically speaking, this state of being proud of pain is essentially the result of the special pressure and group psychology in the academic environment, and there are complex causes behind it:
On the one hand, there has long been an implicit rule of "output first" in the academic community, and hard indicators such as paper publication and project progress are often roughly linked to "investment time". When "working around the clock" and "sacrificing life" become the default "badge of dedication" in the industry. In particular, doctoral students in schools/institutions are prone to "pain competition" - as if the longer they stay up late and the more hobbies they sacrifice, the more they can prove the value of their efforts, and even use this to resist the anxiety of "not being good enough".When researchers always publicize their "ascetic" status everywhere to compare the content of other people's lives, in fact, they subconsciously use this comparison to rationalize their high-pressure state: "I am suffering because I am doing more important things."
On the other hand, group identity is also fueling the flames. When people around you are using "staying up late" and "no rest" as social currency, this state will gradually change from "forced to endure" to "actively flaunting". Just like you use academic jokes to relieve stress, taking pride in pain is also a distorted way of empathy - by emphasizing each other's sacrifices, you gain a sense of belonging that "we are all in the same boat", as if putting the pain on the table can make it less heavy.
In my opinion, this state is not very healthy:
it blurs the boundaries between "effort" and "overdraft", and replaces thinking about efficiency and balance with self-touching consumption. The academic path requires persistence, but true resilience is never proven by exhausting yourself - just like the state of keeping your hobbies, perhaps it hides a more sustainable rhythm. It's just that when you are in it, many people are easily swept away by the environment and regard "survival mode" as "success mode".
The answer to this question comes from MedChemExpress (MCE) Technical Support.
You do the right thing.
We might have become too obsessed with social approval: scientists rely on citations, inflencers on likes and comments, and keep going.
The pain is part of a larger purpose: the pursuit of truth, the hope of discovery, and the drive to improve lives
In my case, I never suffered frustrations, a negative result is also a learning experience, I have always investigated without distinction of times or dates, science for me is a way of life, it is my essence, my objective, never a frustration or stress. Among my colleagues we like to chat about what is happening and share our results, our positive or negative achievements, we never see them as frustrations. We are well-trained scientists, not the results of an academy financed by transnational corporations. Best regards HFA
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