Not sleeping, but thinking

I was getting a glass of water at a campus cafeteria when I overheard a customer say to an absent-looking friend of his working behind the counter: "Are you sleeping?"
The friend replied: "No, I'm thinking."

We live in busy times: if you don't look frenzied and stressed, then people think you're some kind of drop-out. All those dynamic students at the business school: they've already bought next-year's Travelcard, in anticipation of a bright future in the City.

As for my future: well I can't bear the thought of returning to the Buerkbeck lifestyle, of a mindless day's work followed by a nap in some lecture theatre or other (whilst a Grayling prattles on about epistemic castration), and I haven't much chance of securing funding for further study. I would like to say that this is because 'strictly academic' writing doesn't agree with me, or because I do not ingratiate myself with the faculty members; but this would give the impression that I am following Beckett's dictum, to "try again, fail again, fail better." On the contrary, mediocrity seems to cling to me - I can't convince myself to be any better than 'fairly good', to emerge from my torpor. Yes, I work fairly hard, I am fairly erudite. I have a moderate appetite for knowledge. But this isn't at all satisfactory.

Of course, I am not in a position to make the same sort of witty remarks as Spurious; and I wouldn't want to claim that the 'success stories' of academia are talentless automatons churning out paper after paper and book after endless book. But I do feel that philosophy has come to be viewed as a career choice like any other, to be pursued like a career in finance or law. Ruthlessness is required, along with a talent for 'ticking all the right boxes'
Is this thinking? Is this the only way to open up possibilities for thinking?
Perhaps a careers advisor can help me...