Sertillanges on balancing work and the intellectual life

I speak for myself here, but I know that many of us in the academic world, whether faculty or students, share a feeling of not having enough time to devote to the study, research, and writing which is such an important part of our sense of vocation. The demands of our jobs and the responsibilities of family life can easily consume all of our time and energy. Having the discipline to carve out time for research, and then having sufficient mental energy to be able to use that time well, are things with which many of us struggle on a daily basis. Being on sabbatical right now has heightened my awareness of this ongoing struggle in my own professional life, and also allowed me to gain some perspective on how I have failed and succeeded in finding this balance in the past.

French Dominican A. G. Sertillanges offers encouragement to people like me, who are not geniuses by nature and who do not have unlimited time at our disposal with which to pursue our writing. In his 1920 book La Vie Intellectuelle (English translation: The Intellectual Life available here), he discusses a number of topics that are pertinent to this blog and to academic life in general, including intellectual virtues, the intellectual vocation, and other very practical matters pertaining to how to use one’s limited time most effectively.

I intend to post some of his quotes here from time to time. Today I cite a passage from Sertillanges that connects with an earlier post on rabbinic comments about study. Writing of the benefit that can be gained by having to work for a living Sertillanges explains:

The discipline of some occupation is an excellent school; it bears fruits in the hours of studious leisure. The very constraint will make you concentrate better, you will learn the value of time, you will take eager refuge in those rare hours during which, the claims of duty satisfied, you can turn to your ideal and enjoy the relaxation of some chosen activity after the labor imposed by the hard necessity of getting a livelihood. (9)

Sertillanges goes on to conclude that if one can find as little as two hours per day, and can guard these well, and can use them carefully, then over time one can reap the benefits of one’s labor. The key is not to be discouraged by the little that is accomplished in one day, but rather to remember the amount that can be done with a consistent effort applied over a long period of time. Sertillanges reminds us that studiousness, courage, constancy, patience and tenacity play a larger role in this vocation than natural genius or ideal circumstances.

Those of us with limited time and limited resources, but called to some kind of intellectual vocation—whether formally or informally—can still learn to make the best use of the limited time we do have. That choice, at least, is ours.