system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Life outside academia

I am a graduate student, and I always thought I would like to pursue an academic career. However, throughout college, I met many phd student, post-docs and professors; I have some real doubt that I want to have the life they have, in particular because it means dedicating -almost- your whole life to it. 

I would like to have some insight on how it is or not possible to conciliate an academic life with other activities, such a a family, political activity, sport activities, musical activities, etc.

Practically, I would like to know what is you position, how much time you dedicate to your academic career, and how much free time you can chose to allocate to whatever you want.

It would be really helpful to gain insight from here, cause I have the feeling people may tend to speak more freely here than the academic people I meet in real life.

Thanks!
gpt
Very field dependent and personality dependent too. Academics who gave their lives to the job are probably addicted to some aspects of it, either those zen 'flow' moments when doing research or getting their highs from the admiration of students. And there's never a ceiling for those since it's not a 9-5 job. You could always chase the next high and do more research, collect moar pubs. There's always some new pedagogy tricks that maybe, just maybe this time gets you a glimpse of that look in students' eyes and those small nods when they become enlightened by something you said on stage. Why would you *want* a life outside academia?