>Academia is hard because it's extremely competitive,
The issue isn't the level of competitiveness but the cost of losing.
Now that I'm outside academia, there's plenty of competition. For example, getting a good job at Google is just as competitive as getting a tenure-track position. The difference is that I can easily get a respectable job that pays the bills if I don't make the cut for Google. A nice side effect of this is that it enables me to take a rational view of how attractive these prestige jobs really are. And there are limits on what Google can demand of its engineers because they all have other options.
Academia these days is competitive in about the same way as gladiatorial combat.
The issue isn't the level of competitiveness but the cost of losing.
Now that I'm outside academia, there's plenty of competition. For example, getting a good job at Google is just as competitive as getting a tenure-track position. The difference is that I can easily get a respectable job that pays the bills if I don't make the cut for Google. A nice side effect of this is that it enables me to take a rational view of how attractive these prestige jobs really are. And there are limits on what Google can demand of its engineers because they all have other options.
Academia these days is competitive in about the same way as gladiatorial combat.