I have always been skeptical of the need for the intense career paths in management, law, medicine, finance, and academics. I totally understand the need to put

I have always been skeptical of the need for the intense career paths in management, law, medicine, finance, and academics. I totally understand the need to put in hours to become an expert, but a lot of it seems gratuitous. I wouldn't call it hazing. I think these careers are structured as championship systems, where the winner takes all, for the sake of the winner. Winner takes all is a very male attitude, and I think it gets back to men being more expendable because their sexual refractory period is orders of magnitude shorter than women's. But does it make sense? Does the 80th hour on the ward as a resident make you a better doctor? Does the fifth publication make you a better professor? Does another fifteen minutes of billable time make you a better lawyer? I don't think they do. I think these careers are needlessly intense and stupidly so. I contemplated going down a couple of those paths and recoiled because it seemed so unnecessary and gratuitous, and I didn't want to spin my wheels fitting into a nonsensical system.