A lot of #academictwitter is spent in a fairly negative space (often rightfully so).

For a bit of perspective, I wanted to chat about how I absolutely love what I do, and I've never been in a more motivated and inspired place in my career.

I'm an assistant professor (all of 3 months) in an incredible department lead by one of the most supportive chairs in @ShawnArent I know. The dude is incredible and his willingness to push and support junior faculty is amazing.

I have the freedom and independence to pursue ideas that interest and excite me. I'm fortunate that I have a wide bandwidth of interests, so even if I have to pivot here and there, as long as I'm doing something in my field I'm genuinely happy.

I get to collaborate with whoever I want. No politics, I've been lucky to meet and learn from some amazing people over the years, and I'm in a position where I get to bring these experts onto projects with me and get their input. This is probably one of the most fun parts.

Some of the projects we have lined up in the coming years are only made possible by these collaborations. I feel genuinely lucky and honored to be able to chat to these folks, let alone have them work with me on projects.

Mentoring is everything to me. I love it, I love teaching and working with students. I get to chat to people who are genuinely excited about the field and what we do. Even better, a lot of them are teaching me stuff too.

Leadership/Culture. I've spent over a decade in other peoples labs. Some have been excellent, others not so much. I'm finally in a place where I can take what I've learned (good and bad) and finally start to develop my own lab culture and support the people in it.

I have so much to learn and it's hard/stressful/scary and there's high expectations and all the rest of it, but I wouldn't trade it.

I want to be in an environment with high standards that forces me to learn and grow as a scientist and as a person.

This position had brought back my passion, creativity and drive for research, teaching and mentorship.

I realize how exceptionally fortunate I am to even have this position in the current climate, which gives me even more gratitude.

There's a lot of doom & gloom on here about our jobs. I just thought this was worth sharing. Even in your dream job, 30% is gonna be a pain (admin, red tape etc.).

My dad's a taximan, that worked nights for ~20 years. I'll take IRB redtape and passive aggressive assholes

I've worked as a brickie, barman, airbnb cleaner and shelf stocker. For most of my life growing up, I just expected to be doing one of those for a living.

I get paid to sit on my arse and write, or hang out in gyms and watch people workout. There's a lot of times I find myself

having to catch myself and give the bigger picture. This is not to say that there isn't A LOT that could be improved about academia and research that could and needs to be improved. I do see more and more conversations about this happening though.

It won't happen overnight, but my optimistic side is willing to take small wins.

I say all this because it might mean something to someone. I've been on the other side, depression, suicidal thoughts etc. all tied to the environments I was in.

A lot of that time was spent in despair, not seeing a way out. Being in this environment has completely done a 180 for me. I literally love what I'm doing. I'm so inspired by the people I get to talk to and learn from.

I genuinely think our research is going in a direction that will have some meaningful impact and be respected by our peers.

I don't know what you're meant to take from that other than there are corners of this whole academia game, where its possible to feel supported,

have autonomy and flexibility and just have fun while doing all the hard science stuff.

I don't really have any profound conclusion to all of this, so I'll see myself out and leave you with a picture of our 5'3 president doing the Mexican wave