Our audiences may be full of jerks and we may fail all the time – but we still love being academics. Why is that? We feel it is time to talk about some of the good things we associate with this role in our society and why being an academic and spending your life in this profession might just be a truly wonderful thing after all. As usual, the references to all readings we mention are listed on http://www.janrecker.com/this-is-research-podcast/.