As good as it gets?

Lately when my brain stops wallowing in the murky financial swamp long enough to take a frightened glance toward the future, I keep hearing the voice of Jack Nicholson, who, in the 1997 film As Good as it Gets, stuns a room full of psychiatric patients by confronting them with the question What if this is as good as it gets?

Well, what if it is?

Given the College's current budget crunch, the looming decline in high school graduates, and the few years I have remaining before I hang up my dry-erase markers for good, it's possible that I'll never get another pay raise, and if things get dire enough, I may eventually be looking at a pay cut. It's too late to go out on the job market (and there are no jobs anyway), so it looks like I'll be slogging away at a struggling institution until I run out of steam and grind to a halt.

Thanks to years of experience in making ends meet, I am confident that I will survive despite the dire forecast. I didn't become an English professor to get rich (because that would be stupid) and I have enough socked away to keep us from living in a cardboard box under a bridge. I'm more concerned about the emotional toll of finishing my career not with a bang but a whimper. I guess I thought I still had mountains to climb and rewards to seek, but it looks like I may have quietly passed the pinnacle of my career some time ago and I'm now looking at a slow downhill slide--which beats being pushed off a cliff, but it's kind of sad that those seem to be the only available options.

It's a mistake, of course, to equate income with success, and I've certainly earned enough accolades over the years to feel good about the work I do. I can point to the number of students I've helped to achieve their goals, including several who have gone on to grad school, found wonderful careers, and even earned tenure (although that makes me feel old).

What if this is as good as it gets? Well, it's pretty good. Good enough, anyway. But it's really hard to give up the hope that at some point in the future things could get a whole lot better.