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“What do you do?” is a common conversation starter; it’s how we get a sense of who we’re talking to. When we ask it though, we usually mean “...for work.” 

, at least, we focus on our employment to define who we are. But what we do outside of our day jobs makes us more complex humans and enriches our few years here on this planet. It can also make us better at our jobs by keeping us fresh, , and giving us new ideas and perspectives.

This week I talked to four people who work in science about what they do outside of work that brings them meaning, community and joy.

Live through every day

“The things I love in life are learning and creating,” Rachel Brown, a high school science teacher said. “We can do that in science, and we can also do that in other areas of our life.” 

Rachel Brown

Brown has been doing art projects for years. For a while, she had an Etsy shop, but she realized that took the joy out of it for her and closed the shop. She’s more passionate about the process of exploring than the end product.

“Learning a new art form that I am not trying to monetize is a stress-free pressure-free way to learn something new and to create,” she said

She recently decided she wanted to start painting in watercolors and thought about how she teaches her students to set “SMART” (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timebound) goals. She set herself a goal to paint one watercolor every day for a month.

“I painted every day in January,” Brown said, “Turns out if you do something, you get better!”

Courtesy of Rachel Brown

Rachel Brown recently started painting in watercolors.

She set more goals and ended up winning a watercolor competition at the county fair.

Although she shares photos of her work online, her painting is a rebellion against modern social media and the comparisons it triggers. Before this technology, Brown said, “people were out there painting and singing songs at whatever skill level they were, for millennia. They didn’t say ‘oh, there’s someone so much better than me’ they just sung the song because they liked it.” 

Brown uses her painting to stay mentally healthy. She applied the scientific method to her life, tracking what variables correlated with better or worse mental health, and found that four categories improve her well-being: movement, art, community and household maintenance. She keeps track of each category on paper.

“If there is a big blank, I have to go do that,” she said.

Painting is something she does to keep the art category full.

“You have to live through every day, and you have to find the small joys,” she said. “Even if a painting is really bad, you can still watch beautiful colors diffuse on the paper.”

If you can help, you should

James Poland, a postdoc at Vanderbilt University, spends much of his time outside the lab volunteering.

James Poland

“Mentally, I am a scientist,” Poland said. “That is a part of my identity. I think and dream about science. But I still think it’s important to give back to my community in whatever way I can.”

Poland volunteers for a number of causes; community ties them all together. Community, to him, is almost a calling.

“I grew up in a culture where community is supposed to be important: We are as strong as the weakest among us,” he said.

Poland volunteers with a program that houses homeless men in churches around Nashville. He stays overnight with the guests and cooks and serves meals. He also volunteers for a group that to LGBT youth, and he serves on the board of his rugby team as well as mentoring children in his church. All this is aimed at creating a more inclusive and just community. 

He started volunteering through his church.

“It was an older congregation, so they had the money but not the energy,” he said, “and I had energy and no money.”

It was a good fit, and he hopes that when he gets older and can no longer stay up all night with the homeless or clear debris after a tornado, new strong young people will be ready to go because he’s worked to keep his community going.

Not everything has to be a competition

When Ryo Higuchi-Sanabria was a newly hired Professor at the University of Southern California, he’d work 14-hour days. He’d always done things 100%, and he worked for years to get this position. He was determined to make the most of it. 

Ryo Higuchi-Sanabria

Unsurprisingly, that schedule was unsustainable physically or emotionally, and his husband suggested he do something to spend fewer hours at work, so he turned some of his intensity to training for a marathon. 

It was actually his 12th marathon though he hadn’t run in a while. He started running as a masters’ student. Back then, he ran with the all-in attitude he tackles every task with, aiming to win races and beat personal records. That kind of super-competitive running stopped working for him though, and he walked away from the sport when he was no longer setting new personal records.

His family though, saw his situation differently “They’d tell me, ‘I don’t know why you feel like if it isn’t competitive, it isn’t worthwhile.’” he said.

That helped him reconsider his view, and he now loves slow running.

“It’s a joy” he said.

He runs because he wants to, (and to prevent staying too long at work) not to beat records. The sight of a finish line in a marathon is still magical, but he puts less pressure on himself about time.

Higuchi-Sanabria also teaches yoga, Pilates, and barre. During COVID, he and some other instructors set up a free Zoom class to teach yoga.

“We were hoping for maybe five people to attend,” he said, “But the first class more than 170 people signed in.”

He kept it up through the pandemic, and he continues teaching now – in person, and for pay. 

With his physical pursuits, Higuchi -Sanabria can apply himself to intensely difficult tasks while still not letting one goal take over his life.

“I need to remember I am a human being and I need to take time,” he said.

Creativity and freedom

When Brianna Costabile moved to San Diego for her dream job as a senior scientist at Pfizer, she joined a community band.

Brianna Costabile

“I’ve always loved arts,” she said. “In the band you forget about all the stress of work, and you go there and focus on the music. And you talk about things other than science.”

The band also connects her to her childhood, when she studied the trombone, and to other people — musicians with a range of ages, experiences, and day jobs. It’s great for an extrovert like Costabile.

During her Ph.D., Costabile performed in theater productions with fellow students and found she loved the emotional depth the other actors and singers brought to the shows and to their social events.

“My best memories of grad school are from that group,” she said.

Costabile is not acting now, but she’s still around the theater: She became a member of the San Diego Opera. She never listened to opera growing up, but when she heard it as an adult, she was entranced. “It’s become part of my personality,” she said. “I’m an opera lover!” 

She sees opera as a way to sort through emotions and really feel them.

“Opera is huge emotions,” she said. “I want to be hit over the head with the emotions. I come out of the opera and I’m sobbing or I’m so happy, and think, ‘this I what I wanted!’ but I also know it’s a safe place: I didn’t really just die of tuberculosis.”  

When she was younger, Costabile considered going to college for music, but decided to keep the arts purely as her hobby. She sees a parallel between science and the arts, in the way they both provide opportunities for creativity and freedom. 

But with her decision to not let music become work, “the difference for me is that the arts are stress free.”