Lonely Careers: Does Anyone Really Understand How Lonely Research Feels?

R3ciprocity.com - Prof David Maslach: Innovation; Research Life; Striving Towards Happiness · May 12, 2026 · 11m

I still do the R3ciprocity Project because being a research professor is, at its core, a deeply lonely career.

It’s not the work itself that makes it lonely—it’s the mental space you’re in all the time. You’re in your head, trying to create something new. You spend most of your day thinking alone, writing alone, editing alone. And if you care about your work, as most researchers do, the isolation gets sharper.

But research isn’t the only lonely profession.

There are lighthouse keepers on the Great Lakes—posted on islands for weeks, alone with wind and water. There are radiologists, buried in…