“There's a point, around age twenty,” Bedap said, “when you have to choose whether to live like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make virtue of your peculiarities.”
I just read this post, Ani thanks so much for it! This first year of my PhD has included lots of feelings of (1) fear that I won't make the progress my advisor wants me to, that I will crash and burn out and lose my focus, but also (2) a deep urge to do work that I really think is useful at such an important time in the world. It's terrifying to try and do that work though when it isn't my advisor's current focus, and when I don't know if anything would come of it.
Working towards long term goals is scary, but this is leaning me towards letting Fortune in a little more in my life.
FWIW I spent the first two years of my PhD flailing around but it did give me the flexibility to figure out what I needed / wanted.
Since writing this, I've felt fortune come into my life a lot more. This is due in part to honing in on what I want to do and also recent events. Will hopefully have the time to write more about this soon!
this post reminded me a lot about Wait But Why's yearning octopus https://waitbutwhy.com/2018/04/picking-career.html
I just read this post, Ani thanks so much for it! This first year of my PhD has included lots of feelings of (1) fear that I won't make the progress my advisor wants me to, that I will crash and burn out and lose my focus, but also (2) a deep urge to do work that I really think is useful at such an important time in the world. It's terrifying to try and do that work though when it isn't my advisor's current focus, and when I don't know if anything would come of it.
Working towards long term goals is scary, but this is leaning me towards letting Fortune in a little more in my life.
FWIW I spent the first two years of my PhD flailing around but it did give me the flexibility to figure out what I needed / wanted.
Since writing this, I've felt fortune come into my life a lot more. This is due in part to honing in on what I want to do and also recent events. Will hopefully have the time to write more about this soon!