A lot on my mind lately. Figuring out my career and life foremost among them.
I’ve been guest writing more. I had a post at the Research Whisperer a few weeks ago that seemed to do well about building a portfolio career and using that to try to transition into a new job. Partly gaining experience.
I did some guest science writing too, both for UK based websites/publications. One was a collaboration with my PI, and then other was for the UK Plant Sciences Federation on flowering time. I even emailed a flowering time scientist to get some quotes. That is pushing my comfort zone.
People have been passing job ads and opportunities along to as well, which is incredible and part of why I am so grateful to platforms like Twitter. Which brings me to the #seriousacademic hashtag after The Guardian posted a short piece from a grad student that could not see the value of social media and how it distracted from the real world in front of people as well as taking away focus from actual academic research.
As much as I love Twitter, I never tell anyone they have to be on it. I also legitimize most uses of the platform…I suggest people start out just by listening in/following things they are interested in and checking in once in awhile. Finding things serendipitously can be great sometimes. And if you feel like responding/joining a discussion, then great.
My community is almost entirely online…I would love to have a more consistent real world community of people I see regularly, but that is part of why I need a new job in a new place, something new. I tried being a serious academic. After years of trying, I’ve concluded I’d rather be a serious something else– ideally in the writing/editing world where I can draw on my scientific skills as well.
Twitter has been great for me to get my blog(s) out to the world…for those interested in plant science and my writing about mental health here. My goal has been to be a one person broader impact for the plant science community– Twitter is my way of giving back and it has fed back into my science in great ways too. I consider it education/outreach, though I also am writing about things I find interesting or am curious about. I’ve made genuine personal and professional connections because of Twitter. I hope I’ve contributed something and not just taken away.
I’d tell the “serious academic” grad student that building a network takes time, and if it’s all an in real life/email chain of networking and that works for them, then awesome. No social media needed. However, I think social media has made me a better scientist. It’s instilled a love of learning that I had lost. It’s opened my eyes to some things, like inclusion/diversity. I really want to learn new things and do better science, and live up to the amazing things I hear about people doing on Twitter every day.
Something that becomes more possible when you take your ideas seriously and have a community as a backdrop to accomplish your goal.
I try to be a supportive ear and celebrator of successes and pitch in when opportunities arise to do something specific that I can do (organizing a conference panel for instance). Or being a digital media coordinator for the conference I attend most years. Trying to stay on top of Twitter activity at a >1,000 person conference is hard, and I do think is valuable as a record of the conference. Twitter is a good way for me to take notes and to listen to a talk as well, but there is definitely a balance to be struck with attention and tweeting– however, Twitter really shines as a 6th sense at conferences and as a networking tool. More people visit posters that presenters tweet about.
That said, lately, I’ve felt really exhausted. Everything seems to take gargantuan effort and little feels light anymore. Some of that is taking on more ambitious projects, and trying to make things better than I’ve done before. Some, though, I fear is feeling burned out with all the extracurricular things I’ve been doing to try and figure out what’s next. Maybe I’m doing it all wrong? It’s hard for me to know.
Last, Serious academic reminded me of this essay by Sarah Cooper on Medium about why taking your ideas seriously is important. Like her, I didn’t take my ideas seriously for years. Starting my blogs, engaging on Twitter, discussing real things there, has gotten me to take my ideas seriously. However, I don’t take myself too seriously and do have fun on Twitter too. Twitter is great for having fun– that is part of how serious communities are built.
Twitter has gotten me connected to people and I’m not sure that would have happened in real life in the last few years. It has, in many ways, saved my life. Are there plenty of people that can live without it? I’m sure there are. Even I need breaks sometimes. And having built my community online that has translated into the real world in many ways and I feel a lot better taking those social media breaks.
A few weeks ago, i was talking with some tweeps about learning in the lab as a Ph.D. student, how to learn to use shared department resources like confocal microscopes and qRT-PCR machines, any commonly used equipment or how to learn a new technique period. The way this is done now often seems to have all sorts of problems and shortcomings. How do you design a training system for trainees that are all in different places in their level of knowledge?
Confocals are complex; and the software + hardware combination allows for all sorts of possibilities, and potential for things to go wrong, especially with the objectives on the microscope. While it’s unlikely anyone needs to know everything about every function possible, it’s hard to tailor education to each student. I’m sure there are all sorts of online resources now for learning a lot of these things, but it’s always hard to know where to go. do companies have ‘virtual confocals’ now where you can play around/simulate what would happen with various functions/what the output images look like. In our department, we have a fantastic resource in our research support specialist. She manages all the common equipment and knows a lot about all of it and everyone is required to sit down with her for an introductory session on anything we want to use regularly. This is good and useful as far as it goes, but isn’t quite sufficient in some ways. One session is often not quite enough (at least for me…it is enough to learn how not to break something, and maybe that’s the point…the rest is up to us to thinker on our own). And that’s sort of fine as an adult scientist; guide your own learning, etc. It’s what we’re supposed to do. Some departments don’t even have the basics of this training in place though (or it’s the non-active learning form of training with someone just talking in front of a room).
I’m trying to learn to code and learn my statistics better as well. I’m going to take a MOOC on it this term. And I dabble in learning to code as well. It’s up to me, and that’s fine. These things seem to get pushed to the edge, fit into spare time, taken away from life. it’s important to make time to learn new things, and yet the culture of academia seems to make it a fringe activity, not a core function. Asking people for help is tricky as we’re all busy. Or asking for feedback…it seems to be secondary to getting things done too much of the time. Some of this gets at what Lenny Teytlmann writes about; the need for improved training of PhDs and postdocs. For both research and non-research careers alike. It’s something that can easily go by the wayside. Even when we’re acting as our own mentors.
I know I’ve written in the past about how I still have a hard time asking for help or feedback, and it’s something I’ve worked a lot on. I am slowly getting better, but have noticed that the culture of academia and science almost runs counter to that.
The current postdoc situation.
The Future of Research Symposium report from a group of enterprising postdocs really does address some of these problems with training and the perverse incentives in the system right now. It really resonates with me.
And in Science Careers this week, Beryl Lief Benderly wrote about the recent National Academies Report on the Postdoc Experience in her Taken for Granted column. It’s not a sunny report. It ends with this:
I feel terrible for the cohort that’s been caught” in the current crunch. It may be too late to help them, but if the academic science community can reach the conclusions implicit in the report and make the appropriate changes, future generations of young scientists may have much smoother and less painful transitions to satisfying and productive careers.
As one of those ‘too late to help’, it really makes me feel like I sucker for taking a fools bet. I’ve written before about how if young scientists aren’t enthusiastic about their work, they really can’t recommend it and instill it in the next generation as easily. Science is amazing, but it does not come before having a life. Something too many Postdocs of my generation that fell squarely in an awareness gap of what academic training meant and ought to be. Of course, it’s hard to know how to pivot (especially when it all seems like it’s down to pure luck). I’ve also dealt with depression which really stopped me in my tracks for awhile. I am really just now getting going again.
I’ve started some new projects on my own. I am doing a tumblr blog inspired by plant science where plants give advice to people. I know it’s not what the ASPB quite had in mind when they set up the hashtag,but it sparked the idea. And I started a new blog, The Quiet Branches where I’m going to attempt to be like the great science communicators I see on Twitter through writing, a skill I’ve really tried to cultivate.
All of this is by way of saying I am growing, learning, trying to push out of the box I’ve been in with new thinking, trying new things, and basically doing at least some of those ‘take charge of your own career’ ideas people always say to do. I don’t know where I’ll end up. I don’t think I want to be an academic. Something in research communication might suit me well as teaching in any form is something I have a deep desire to do.
I hope future generations of scientists aren’t stuck like postdocs in my generation. My next post here will be on ‘the overtaxed expert’…we’re expected to know so much and yet now, with all the information out there, no one person can possibly process it all.
I’ve spent some time thinking about what I’ve built over the last few years as I have made my way out from someone that wanted to just leave the world to someone who wants to contribute in real ways, in positive ways (don’t we all?), and meaningful ways.
Coming out of the dark and into a world of wonder can be complicated. Being flat and feeling divorced from connecting to the world to being vital, more engaged, can be a scary process. I realize just how much I’ve missed out on, not going deep into any particular subject because I didn’t feel much in whatever I engaged in. I’ve written before about just what depression takes away from learning and it’s hard to describe since plenty of successful people have depression (perhaps they succeed despite it), and I can still read and write (perhaps not well, but it is something I work on) and do basic math. I feel I can learn things. But I have tended to lack an emotional connection to something that can boost learning. Depression feeds into the fixed mindset as well, rather than a growth mindset too— with constant rumination and the voice that says ‘who do you think you are? You’re nothing, no one, and don’t matter’.
Eiffel Tower under construction 1888-1889. Source: Yale Libraries.
This blog has really documented that process for me. I hope I’ve been building a platform on which to build even better and greater things. Beth Buelow an entrepreneur, coach, and introvert in her really good book talks about an image series she got of the Eiffel tower being constructed. They built the base quickly, and then progress appeared to stop for a long while before the tower was completed. During that apparently fallow time, the construction workers were doing a lot of reinforcement of the structure, adding rivets and doing the preparatory work to build the tower. Building a strong base to create what was one of the tallest structures in the world at that time that persists to this day.
I hope I’ve been building that kind of base. That I’ve gotten better in some key ways to start the next phase, to really get out into the world visibly for the world to come and see. I do need reminders of how habit change can be most effective like this from James Clear. And it helps to be reminded to surround yourself with people that help you be your best. Though I find myself overdosing on ‘Lifehacking’ lately (it can be great for ideas, but easy to overdo it or to be constantly trying new things). I’ve built up a system that kind of works, I think, that’s healthy for me. And now I need to mold it into output that helps me grow more and gets me out into the world, being mindfully productive.
And as James Clear points out, prioritizing matters, and taken further, and perhaps scarier/harder is the idea between finding the distinction between should/must and choosing the latter. And continuing to learn, grow, and retain new knowledge/experience through a system that works and is evolving. And that also means being able to make decisions more rapidly than I do now, and act on them and being guided by what is truly important to me.
What is essential?
I’m going to write an ambition of mine: I want to be a science writer in some way, shape or form. I love transmitting knowledge between minds. It seems to drive a lot of the decisions I make. It’s something that is more important to me than the research I do now. It’s an ambition that’s scary, but also seems deep-seated. I love science. I love writing, art, and popular culture. I love learning and teaching/communicating. Maybe it’s because I’ve listened to one to many podcasts and read one to many amazing writings about science that I’ve gone out of my mind, but why do I gravitate towards those things in the first place? And how to get from where I am now to a new place? That’s not easy to answer.
Being a scientist now means having to wear a lot of hats, being seen as competent and amazing at many things that Ben Lillie (partially) listed, including having a public face to engage with non-scientists. It seems like people are expected to do more and more every year, to sacrifice our lives for our work, to produce ever more value. And whatever we do has to be quantified and standardized, even if that’s not the best or is too narrow a measure.
With the digital tools most of us have access to, we are expected to do everything ourselves, to produce more, always learn things flawlessly, and basically be perfect. And yet, that is unrealistic for any individual human. Not all of us are skilled at everything, but the 21st century world seems to demand that in an era of impatient teaching and exclusion if you’re not in the ‘in’ crowd from early on. And there is infinitely more to learn. And of course, digital tools allow for tracking of productivity more than ever.
Many circumstances can keep us from trying things that we’re truly suited to do. There’s a story Mark Twain tells (attributed to him, anyhow. I can’t find a source) talking about a man seeking the world’s greatest general only to die and go to heaven to find that a cobbler would have been the greatest if given the opportunity. Did he just live at a time with no war or was it that there was a crucial moment where he didn’t take a leap into the military life? If it’s the latter, hopefully there’s still time for me to make a leap. Maybe by not having an alternative, it’s possible.
Coding is something I am just starting to dabble in…and we’re all told it is the essential skill of the 21st century. I don’t know if that’s the case, but it certainly seems handy to any citizen of the Internet where many of us spend out time. And if not having a full understanding, at least knowing some of the theory behind the gorgeous websites we see each day is important. And it’s important to know that the people who build them are not perfect either; and often have biases/problems. And I don’t think this idea applies to just coding. To be in demand seems to mean being good at all the things and not needing a learning curve. Of course, that might be my warped perfectionist perception speaking.
A lot of science news is dedicated to reporting how we might all live better, parent better, be healthier, do more for the environment, and basically be better people if only we’d all behave, spend money, or act differently. Only that is vastly unrealistic. And the recommendations often wrong because of flawed science. Science really is the last word on nothing.
What can we get wrong?
Phil Plait, in a post on his Slate blog, wrote about response to a picture he tweeted about actresses that have a passion for science (great!). The problem comes with Mayim Bialik (w/ a Ph.D. in neuroscience) and her anti-vaccination views; which are scientifically indefensible as this NPR story on a documentary about the effects of not eradicating polio demonstrates. Keith Kloor addresses this with Dr. Oz and similar and perhaps not as dangerous are Bill Nye’s anti-GMO views; if only because Nye, an engineer, does not have as informed views about biology and doesn’t seem to be strongly anti-GMO as yet, just highly skeptical. He could change his mine yet. Bialik and Dr. Oz must know better/be more familiar with life sciences and medicine.
The process of robust science dictates that any ideas or technologies supported by science (e.g. climate science, gravity, evolution, smart phones, vaccines, current GMOS) are in fact safe, work, and that is the final word (of course, each product needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis). Selective application is not acceptable. There are areas of science that are still debated and the above ideas continue to be investigated and tested by science to test new methods of delivery, to explain parts of these ideas we don’t know the answers to yet, or to improve them in some way (or create vaccines to viruses we don’t have vaccines for as yet). And of course, scientists are never absolutely certain; we’re taught to critically examine our ideas and design experiments/seek data that challenge our ideas (that may happen less in an era of hyper-competition, tight funding).
In today’s world, it really appears unacceptable, especially as a public figure/celebrity to say ‘I don’t know’ when pressed about some question that’s out there in the world (uncertainty being a perceived sign of weakness?! I would argue that it’s the opposite). I am not a psychologist, social scientist, or neuroscientist, only a sufferer of depression and anxiety who has learned what I can about them and write about my own solutions (some scientifically grounded, others likely less so). I’ve tried to strike a voice of not barfing rainbows magical positivity, but of grounded optimism. I routinely say that I do not know, and feel uncertain about most things and this can be paralyzing. Who would do anything given the potential repercussions of getting something wrong? Phil Plait seems to have changed his mind after hearing from fellow bloggers about Bialik’s anti-vax views. I don’t even know where her anti-vax views stem from (is it a case like Dr. Oz where his spouse seems to have opened the door to pseudoscience views?).
Some of these views may be caused by hastiness and shorthand/lack of time to think. In an era where we’re awash in information, it is impossible to be informed about everything and yet we’re also too quick to be aghast when people don’t have views or don’t know something. At best, it comes off as enthusiasm you want to impart to someone about a topic. At worst, it’s used as an identity marker to exclude people, even if they’re new enthusiasts for something you’ve been into for years…and get turned out because of newness to something and simply don’t know as much. While I agree enthusiasm only takes you so far, it’s a spark that can carry you into new and unexpected places and shouldn’t be discouraged whoever has deemed themselves a gatekeeper of a community.
There is demand to specialize and yet be a generalist at the same time. And to instantly able to learn and absorb new things. I’m willing to work hard to figure things out, but if I’m given insufficient time to learn what I need to, I’m much more likely to make a mistake (and learning time seems shorter and shorter…and unexamined learning can lead to problems). We’re all encouraged to learn how to learn, and yet that seems hugely insufficient somehow. I am nearly paranoid of missing something critical or leaving some citation out. Of course, it’s not all about what we’re informed about. It’s also true that we develop identities around shared beliefs (‘people like me have this belief, I must think that too’) that can become quite entrenched in communities in which case information alone cannot change someone’s mind, as work by Brendan Nyhan and other’s has shown.
Hard at work reflecting.
It may be that I’m just worried about something I feel exists but isn’t actually as bad as it seems. However, everywhere I look, there are demands to be up on the latest everything and if not, you’re falling behind the times! Keep up or go away, you can’t compete and so shouldn’t even try. The world is complex and crazy and there is likely more awareness of that than ever. Being humble in the face of that is a virtue in my book. There is likely always more to a story. And just because we’re not always completely informed does not mean we can’t act or put our voices to an idea, but we need to listen to feedback and accept evidence contrary to what we think is going on. All of these mental gymnastics should underscore just how hard it is for scientists to come to strong theories about how the world works and when a scientific consensus is reached, it’s a big deal, and more credible than an individual report alone.
I’ve never had a good cup of instant coffee. I’m not sure that exists. Putting in the work to grind beans, put them through a quality filter, and taking the time to let it steep often makes for a better cup
Good coffee takes time.
I am an academic scientist right now, trying to contribute to my field in a meaningful way and not add to the noise of wrong/hasty information that’s out in the world. Patience isn’t a virtue we hear a lot about anymore. The world seems to be more about speed and getting to something first. Instant may be good for some things, but I like to think of it like sources of coffee. I’ve never had a good cup of instant coffee. I’m not sure that exists. Putting in the work to grind beans, put them through a quality filter, and taking the time to let it steep often makes for a better cup (not always). And perhaps due to my (highly) introverted side that likes reflection, writing, and learning before speaking up. And I hope any job I do hold will allow me to do just that, within reason, of course. I am determined to add value wherever I work, and I hope that the skills I gravitate towards/have developed are valued somewhere in the world.
This was my year to do things. And I kind of did. I’ll outline it below in roughly chronological order. And I’m grateful for all the people that helped get it all done.
Content Creation
I did some things/created online content for a startup called HappiLabs, go check them out; they offer a virtual lab manager and auditing of your lab supply costs. Both are good things for any lab. It was a good close look at the entrepreneurial spirit. I may not have it in me to do just yet, but then perhaps I just lack an idea I’m passionate enough about and a market where that idea would be valued.
Regardless, it’s a world I like being in/around and hopefully I can contribute in bigger ways going forward.
I took on an online course in content creation for thought leaders created by a great blogger & doer of things, Sarah K. Peck. I learned a lot about content creation and that lead to my guest post on the ASPB blog “Communicating Plant Science in The Digital Age” that I am pretty proud of even though I know it’s not perfect (trying to list twitter accounts by numbers of followers as a proxy for scope/influence is a bit futile; though my point was valid that I couldn’t find a single plant scientist/organization with over 50k followers compared to other fields).
That also lead to me doing some blog coverage and twitter coverage of the ASPB annual meeting and espousing the great uses of social media for scientists. While being far from an internet celebrity myself, I’d like to think I see it’s value, and I know I’m far from alone as it seemed everywhere I turned this year articles were being written about scientists doing online stuff and winning all the awards and things or something like that. Though that may be confirmation bias at work. Regardless, it’s a world I like being in/around and hopefully I can contribute in bigger ways going forward.
Mental health & self-awareness
I got to talk about my struggles with depression to fantastic science writer Carrie Arnold and what some of my solutions were/are to dealing with it and I still would love to have a job where I got to help academics/scientists improve their mental health as well as improve the system that can impinge upon it. Because I can’t change the system (or at least don’t quite know how/not currently in a position to affect change), I focused on what I can do myself while recognizing it is not fully sufficient to address the systemic pressures that academic scientists face these days (Nature ran a series called ‘ending the doom and gloom’ that I thought was interesting, and tried to at least offer a different narrative even if it’s one I don’t fully agree with). I got to talk about it in a webinar for Bitesize Bio, which was a great experience, though I don’t know if I did the best job addressing what the audience wanted. And I think I may have ignored the webinar software chat box if anyone was trying to get a hold of me during it…oops. I am still quick to criticize myself and note things I need to work on, perhaps hypercritically.
Another thing I learned a lot about this year is privilege (I am still learning); I know I am fortunate in many, many ways and benefit from being white and male in ways I don’t see most of the time. Depression, however, is something that can fully stop anyone and is a factor in ending too many promising careers and lives– Stefan Grimm being a recent example in the STEM world (I wondered here if my experiences with depression informs reasins why I am a feminist). Even one is too many. So tragic and it always drives me to tears whenever I hear a story where a person takes their own life. And though it hasn’t happened so far as I know, I still worry that being open about depression will negatively affect my career.
Learning, trials, and errors
I worked on a sequel to my first ASPB essay (linked above) that I can’t seem to get down on paper well; it’s about how we need diverse voices and communicators in STEM fields (that is an obvious statement it seems to me). And somehow linking that to teaching, writing, and mentoring— the marginalized skills academics need to have but aren’t really counted need to be valued more. If not for the writers, teachers, communicators, we wouldn’t all have the knowledge we have today. It would remain locked up in the Ivory tower, and even worse within each sub-discipline in those towers (cross pollination of ideas is a good thing, in fact it’s often where innovation seems to come from: take an idea from one domain and apply it in another). It may not be as dire as that, certainly, but that’s the fear, that without a network of dedicated communicators that knowledge, science, and ideas, will just not get out into the world. Speaking as a scientist that is working on bettering my communication skills, it can’t be left up to pure researchers all the time. Different people have different skill sets and even interests that certainly can overlap (i.e. scientist and communicator of that science). Maybe I’ll keep working on it.
…somehow linking that to teaching, writing, and mentoring— the marginalized skills academics need to have but aren’t really counted need to be valued more. If not for the writers, teachers, communicators, we wouldn’t all have the knowledge we have today. It would remain locked up in the Ivory tower, and even worse within each sub-discipline in those towers.
In the domain of wanting to upgrade my skills, I attended WiNGS (Workshop in Next Generation Sequencing) at UNC-Charlotte which was good as far as it went, but too short to really get any mastery over the software and techniques involved in next-generation sequence analyses (but several fantastic talks). I also took a MOOC in social network analysis that was interesting, but still feels a bit beyond me at this point. I am still trying to ‘get’ software that is now standard use in academia.
All of this feels like movement though it feels uncertain that it really is. I am gradually learning new things, or at least exposing myself to some new horizons. I even bought into the Adobe Creative Cloud and been using that for various projects both work and non-work related. Mostly teaching myself how to use a few of the software packages; they’re probably do far more powerful things than I will likely ever use them for, but getting into some photoshop/graphic design is fun for me, even if I’m not great at it (yet). More learning.
I also participated in a lot of the Finch and Pea (specifically Josh Witten’s) twitter hash tag games putting science into popular culture. I mention this because it’s just one of the most fun things I have contributed to. And I suppose I can claim it was practice in honing my wit. Though other people are amazingly witty.
What’s next?
That brings me to where I am now. Working on my science in the lab still, though science is not something I see myself doing in the long term or even being a full time academic. However, the skills required of an academic are still the ones I naturally gravitate toward liking/using. I like to teach (though I haven’t had opportunity to do it lately), to communicate— via keyboard mostly, but have gotten a lot better in person. Hopefully my writing has improved and my point gets across better than in the past.
Just where do I go from here? I am still not sure. Am I even ‘enough’ to do anything in this world? And what projects will be both help me grow? These are still questions and I still need to explore.
My new mission is to start a blog to talk about the science more than the culture of science (who knows if that new project will go anywhere). I’ll likely never fully abandon speaking about the people that do science and how we can improve the enterprise of doing science.
And of course, I’ve maintained this blog throughout the year and that’s still a fun activity for me even though I worry about sharing my thoughts with the world sometimes. Two of my favorite posts this year are the tour of NEB I got to take (fantastic place and people there— seriously consider using their products) and reviewing a book on the academia-industry transition.
I know I get things wrong. I am not so sure that my voice is even needed in the world. Other people say similar things to bigger audiences than I do. And for all the connecting I’ve done this year, I still feel disconnected. Like I don’t know how the world works. I still feel like I’m on an island, not deeply connected. Just where do I go from here? I am still not sure. Am I even ‘enough’ to do anything in this world? And what projects will be both help me grow? These are still questions and I still need to explore.
Final Meditations
I had the pleasure of seeing John Hodgman perform live. The last few years, he’s had a theme of post apocalypse existence and meditating on just what existence means, why we’re here anyway and just who we are and what our value is as humans. First, he was very entertaining and fun. And it made me think about my value, just what’s important to me and how I can best do it as we all have limited time to do things and accomplish them. Other than what’s cited above, I’m not sure I have a good answer and still struggle to define what value I bring to the world. While I don’t feel embarrassed to exist anymore (as I really did when I was deeply depressed), I also haven’t gotten to a point where I can confidently say ‘I am a valuable person and here’s what I am about, here’s my contribution that I am making’. Ideally that contribution is some sort of work I can get paid to do (whether a passion of mine or not, but something that I am engaged with).
Getting moving again was important. Getting exploring was important. Starting to use the resources available to me was important— much more of the same needs to happen. Perhaps I’ve started a spark that can grow into a small fire.
The You are no so smart podcast (YANSS) reminded me about the Dunning Kruger effect that says the skills to evaluate how your doing at something are the same ones that make you an expert at something. So we’re not all that good at evaluating ourselves, basically. So that means seeking useful external feedback that I have tried to do more, but probably not enough. It’s part of networking; put ideas out there and see what comes back or better, ask specifically for what you’d like to get feedback on. Most often, if I ask for feedback, I get no response, which I still take to mean ‘nothing about what you wrote makes sense’.
Even when I do get feedback, I worry that people are just being friendly/nice…I want to get better, but do understand that feedback can be hard to give. It’s a part of the growth mindset I have been trying to adopt. It’s hard to put my work out into the world when I grew up (far into adulthood too) with a perfectionist/fixed mindset that stops you from doing anything until perfection happens. I am trying to say “Done is better than perfect” more now. From where I am, I feel like I have years of negative feedback ahead before someone might genuinely say ‘this is OK’. Partly, it’s being smart enough to know when to be confident and when being humble is appropriate– probably the latter occurs more often than the former (this according to Dr. Dunning on YANSS).
I did a lot this year (not all of it is in this post). I’m not sure how much was meaningful or productive (again, I fear confirmation bias, I should look into my blog analytics perhaps). Or how much of what I have done is genuinely moving me forward. Getting moving again was important. Getting exploring was important. Starting to use the resources available to me was important— much more of the same needs to happen. Perhaps I’ve started a spark that can grow into a small fire.
Cat yoga, Millenium Falcon pose.
I adopted a cat (see photo). He’s 10. And friendly. And has no front teeth. And he’s a cat. He serves no real function other than being a cat. He and I share that we are both, on the surface, probably not that useful (at least that’s my feeling about myself too often). But I have opened up more with people because of my cat, if only to find someone to take care of him when I travel and that has made me more willing to ask for things in other areas of my life too.
There are still things on my list that are really important to accomplish. Getting more on top of my organization schemes, getting rid of old things, deciding faster, finding a job, publishing my work some how, learning more and better data analysis techniques (writing scripts, using R to analyze data, making figures within R, maybe even getting to gene expression analyses from published data sets). And of course, measuring my goals better than I do currently and going in with an idea for what I might get out of an experience. At some point, though, the ‘always be improving’ mantra is exhausting and I need to feel like ‘enough’ where I am now.
And of course, I need to be wary about my depression and hope it truly is mostly in the past. I had a scary few days last month where I was back in a horribly depressive mood, but I have since come out of it and that’s a good sign that it was a temporary state. Before, it wasn’t or didn’t seem to be. Some of this is a feeling of burn out from pushing myself this year and still lacking enough restorative activities in life. Building resilience is really important too and some of that begins with what I’ve been doing the last few years— getting to know myself a lot better.
I am working on it, on my voice, actions, and making them good ones
Here’s to an even better 2015. Not just for me, but for all of you readers too (this blog may not be far reaching, but I am grateful for anyone that does read/stop by). I look around and see the many amazing things everyone else is engaged in doing (Some of that can be seen in the links above), and as much as I celebrate other’s accomplishments or even sometimes support them directly (e.g. investing via crowd funding of science like Paige Brown’s analysis of science bloggers or Jaquelyn Gill’s student’s project on The Falkland Islands), I still long to be that generator myself, making something someone else finds useful. Success tends to build on itself and I hope I am connected enough to keep building.
I am working on it, on my voice, actions, and making them good ones,
I turned 37 this week and I guess it’s time to think about my last year and just how I’m doing in life.
In a lot of ways, I’ve built momentum and life is getting a bit better.
I am getting myself out into the world more and slowly bringing projects to fruition even though it’s frustrating at times. I’m getting really impatient with having ideas, wanting to do them, but then thinking about them so much that they just never make it out of my own brain.
I have had my writing posted on blogs that are not my own. I have moved further into the digital realm of learning some of the graphic design tools like Adobe’s cloud software (very expensive, but fun). Speaking of, I’m investing in myself a lot more; I’m giving myself permission to access tools that I find useful.
I’ve been trying to learn statistics and R a lot better…with some small successes. I don’t have the chance to really do a lot with it, but I’ve discovered the Swirl package that teaches you how to use R within R. And there are lecture slides associated with it that explain the statistics models in detail even though I haven’t been able to follow them much…still learning.
I am taking steps to market myself more, getting the ideas I have out into the world. I have ideas. Things I want to help build. Like the best platforms for the scientific community to best get our ideas across to each other (across disciplines) as in mentoring, fostering collaborations, but also to educate people into the process of science. I’m OK with the fact that there are a lot of people who already do this and do it better than I do. It really does take a large village. Science succeeds over time as a collective…most of the individual contributions made are small pieces of a whole and often not fully correct.
There’s been a lot of trial and error, it hasn’t been easy, and I have a long ways to go still. And that’s scary since I am starting to feel old. However, My imperative is to do my best to do things now. Not delay and simply put myself out there in the world, not inside my own brain all of the time.
So there you go. I acknowledged my birthday. I have no idea what my next trip around the sun will mean for me (I’ll sit down and make some goals/plans for myself soon), but the fact that I feel ,my brain is operating without the oppressive cloud of depression really is something amazing. Something I probably couldn’t rightly say last year.
Note: Slight trigger warning here. I talk about depression and suicidal thoughts herein. For those who could care less about such things, read on!
This post was inspired after reading Adam Rubin’s latest ‘Experimental Error’ column in Science Careers. I think it’s one of the posts that makes me nervous to post. I worry that disclosing my (largely) past issues with depression hurts me (even while feeling that literally changing my brain required enormous fortitude and determination on my part). I worry how I probably come off as a whiny and overly sensitive human in a world that does not value sensitivity in any job; I hate feeling like I’m one of those so called ‘orchid’ people…needing fairly specific conditions to thrive (The dreaded response: empathy? compassion? People first? Listening? Learning/education? HAHAHAAHAHA! Most ridiculous things we’ve ever heard of. Get out of this office, we’re about the dollars! //Note: I too, am about dollars on some level, just not to the exclusion of other things; maybe where I differ is wanting to build for the long-term, not the next quarter…something else no longer really valued it seems to me). I realize that the world is full of decent people too. I hope you enjoy this rather experimental essay
Let it Go.
I want to let go. I want all of us to let it go.
The cold will never bother us if we do. I’m pretty convinced.
Read this and this from Sarah K. Peck and Andrew Rubin, respectively.
We exist in a state of terror as young scientists (or a lot of us do, perhaps some even unaware– the terror can be hard to distinguish from the air we breathe).
We’re frozen with fear.
With the pressure to be perfect.
With the fear of making mistakes.
With the fear that anything but the tenure-track is ‘failure’.
Fearing we’re not one of the super-humans that can ‘make it’ in science.
Vulnerability isn’t allowed (The beginnings of change, innovation, learning, and purpose– not necessarily fabulous wealth/success, but deeper satisfaction in work, definitely).
I spend a lot of time thinking about what makes scientists able to produce high quality work.
The conclusion from my anecdotal experience is a combination of effort, space/time to think, permission to make mistakes, an iterating growth mindset, some autonomy, and an open environment where learning from one another is encouraged and people aren’t afraid to ask for things they need (no, that does not mean always getting them).
And my own watchword here: Don’t become clinically depressed. Learn the signs and if it seems like your emotions have been flattened for a few weeks straight, seek help, nip it in the bud quickly. Believe me you don’t want the feeling that you & the world would be better off if you were dead (in part because you functionally don’t fully see the difference between being alive and being dead), hoping a bus will run you over. That’s not a brain space for doing good science; you can do science, but you certainly won’t be firing on all cylinders. Even now that I’m a lot less depressed, my mind still has those thoughts sometimes. It’s a mental habit I’m trying to get out of still.
Chris Hadfield talks about fear and danger and how to take risks and be prepared.
15-20 years of training in every possible scenario and then you can launch yourself into space. Get started learning the whole system you’ll be working in and you’ll be ready to take chances and put yourself out of this world.
And yet, today’s academic system doesn’t instill that very well (or doesn’t allow the time for that to happen; the long learning phase seems to get clipped off even as experiments get bigger, more technical and more complex).
The work has to get done and yet there seems to be ‘no time’ for training people to do it even though we’re labeled grad students and postdocs; both considered ‘training phases’.
Fantastic mentorship exists and there are people that thrive, but I’m sure we can do better, do better work and improve the scientific enterprise without making a sizable population of participants within it mentally ill (again that does not mean it shouldn’t be hard; science will always be hard work and take effort).
Feedback is often judgmental and harsh, instilling a fixed mindset, believing learning isn’t possible, but that our talent/intelligence is a fixed trait.
Pressure and uncertainty can be paralyzing. One misstep and we’ll be unemployable forever. Nothing but academia is acceptable. Don’t tack against the wind. If you’re not in the lab, you must be wasting time.
And if you can’t do it on your own, don’t bother. Collaborate and be a good citizen, but stand out. Work alone, but as a team.
Being able to learn, problem solve, ask good questions, and perhaps be unleashed to do grow and do great things somewhere won’t happen because you’re convinced you’re an impostor.
Never enough. Ever.
There’s a fog that settles over your mind. You have dead eyes. Helplessness sets in.
I’ve felt all of these things and I’m starting to get to a place where the cold doesn’t bother me anymore.
There’s a space for me somewhere; either in science or not, I don’t know, but it exists and I can rule there, even if it is just me writing for a small audience on my blog.
Let it Go. We’re all human. Fallible and ridiculous creatures.
Take the work, but not yourself, too seriously. Try stuff. Figure out how to do it in small scale first if it’s something new to you that will be big later. And write. Write it all down– take notes. And don’t be afraid to get your work out there or toss out ideas (guess what, vast majority will be terrible and probably wrong, who cares?).
Always feeling like I did the rational thing hasn’t worked. So I’m trying irrational (to me; often that means leaping without 100% certainty of outcome…obviously I still try to be as informed as possible ).
I adopted a cat a month ago. That makes no logical sense for my life, but I think it was a good decision for the most part.
My joke about this blog has been that it’s about what not to do as a postdoc/academic. I hope it’s helped a few people, mainly me, of course, because I write for myself too (and it has helped me).
Success is not a straight road. It’s a maze with lots of blind turns and dead ends. We won’t all end up in academia, but I’m sure most of us will find satisfying work somewhere, some how.
Let it go. All of us. We’ll likely do better work, help each other more, give better feedback, and not always act so terrified of everything and everyone. Funding is tight, work/life balance doesn’t exist, we don’t know enough to advance to the next phase since you only get hired to do something someone needs done, who can demonstrate they’re awesome in a loud way (never mind if they’ve hastily published crap papers in high profile journals…it’s out there, so they must be good somehow).
I feel passionate enough about studying the ideal knowledge worker that I’d be willing to switch fields and make a study of just how to optimize humans to do science. It’s certainly not a one size fits all formula (e.g. it’ll likely be different for introverts and extroverts), but as with depression, there are likely hallmarks of it as well as individual level manifestations.
Keep going. Get out into the cold. It’s not as bad as you think/feel, we’re wired for survival (take that from a former near-suicidal person). Expose yourself to small ‘dangers’ at first and watch yourself grow. It won’t be pretty. Winter is always coming. Staying in a warm cocoon leads to mere survival whereas the science enterprise not only must survive, but thrive as well (advancement & knowledge is our business). I’m sick of mere survival for myself. Let it go.
I recently re-listened to the ‘On Being’ interview with Jennifer Michael Hecht author of the book ‘Stay’ that I read about on Brain Picker. It’s all about making a non-religious based argument against suicide. And there really are reasons to stay. Be assured, your absence will be noticed. I won’t go into all the arguments why here, but it’s true.
Watching the latest episode of ‘Cosmos:ASO’ last night, Neal Tyson walks through the fact that we’re the legacy of all those organisms that struggled for survival on Earth before us. That’s one reason to stay. There are many, many others.
Last week, I casually wrote a Gchat away message talking about an important experiment I had to set up the following day. And it led to this idea for a reason to stay:
It’s something I’ve told myself the last week or so and it’s good to remind myself that life, in part, is about keeping on trying. I am doing things now that I couldn’t have possibly done a few years ago and it’s because I stayed; there was a time I didn’t want to.
The future isn’t really written in stone, as much as scientists try to do predictive work; it only applies to rather narrowly defined experiments, nothing like life. So it’s not only saying ‘Stay’, but also to crib one idea from science: to try new things and find those that work; discard those that don’t, and to keep creating, tinkering, interacting, acting, thinking, insert favorite present participle here– we’re only here once.
There is problem within academia surrounding poor mental health of too many people in it– particularly amongst young Ph.D. career path people. The reasons vary, but the added pressures of the highest career uncertainty for Ph.D.s and postdocs now surely is a contributing factor.
Tomorrow is an important experiment to do, find something new that might work for you and even if things don’t work out, you’ve at least fought in the arena,
Jim Austin published this essay in Science Careers about the state of alternate careers for academics. Some of the ready alternatives that STEM Ph.D.’s would normally go for are also experiencing a decided downturn. Industry is hiring less, writing/journalism isn’t a great alternative, though it is a relatively intuitive one for many Ph.D.s….after all we research and write all the time.
The supposed silver lining is that a STEM Ph.D. is still a good credential to have with low unemployment.
It’s still hard to escape the idea that a strict STEM career, academia generally and any intellectual pursuit is simply not a viable career for most Ph.D.s and yet we’re not trained to think we can do anything else; somewhat ironically, we have a failure of imagination. In his column, Dr. Austin talks about the NIH’s slight nod to wanting to train scientists for non-academic track careers– that still doesn’t seem to be enough (My visceral, no data-to-support-it-reaction is “isn’t this where NIH needed to be in 2004?”).
There could be other intuitive alternatives, like teaching, but that is a profession under constant fire too. It’s not insurmountable, but to go from one poorly paying thankless job (Ph.D./postdoc) to another (public/private school teaching) doesn’t strike me as appealing…and I like teaching! Commenting about this story on Facebook, I said it was an example of expecting perfection and being perfectionist in our expectations in education when in very few other fields do we expect people to be immediately expert at it. School and experience add up to success…sustained effort over time and a willingness to experiment.
It made me think of the iconic line from “Apollo 13” where Ed Harris’ character says “Failure is not an Option!”. In the Apollo 13 sitiuation, NASA had to save the lives of 3 astronauts who’s spacecraft had had an onboard explosion. The people on the ground had to come up with makeshift CO2 scrubbers, come up with a re-entry protocol and many other things. Do you think those engineers just instantly came up with a workable solution? No, they didn’t. They tried and failed several times before coming up with something that could work to present to the flight director. So yes, failure was not an option, but to do that, they had to fuck everything up on the ground first before implementing it on the actual Apollo 13.
It’s almost as if scientists and other Ph.D.s really do just have to aspire to survival of some kind.
I am grateful that I get to do research. I love science. It just happens to be a truly abysmal time to be a scientist (especially a young unestablished one). With the limited funding and prospects, it also would appear to hamper increasing diversity in STEM fields (unquestionably a good thing to have happen)– I don’t feel good about recommending a STEM career path to anyone right now, even if they are the most amazing scientists ever. I find it very tragic that young scientists can’t recommend the career path to those bright and intelligent people coming after us.
One thing that does seem to be a silver lining is that there are companies like Google that have intelligent hiring practices and seem to seek out skills many Ph.D.s possess. Not that I feel I could land a job there (if they want to talk to me, wonderful! I’d be open to it), but their culture of embracing trying and failing, being passionate about an idea and yet willing to let it go, being eager to learn…all ideally hallmarks of a Ph.D. Google has a lot of Ph.D. level people working for them. My sense is they give their workers room to breathe, where presently, academia is feeling a lot more like a straight jacket.
All that said, for us Ph.D.’s and postdocs who are swirling in chaos and trying to find our way, failure is ultimately not an option, but it is hard to find room to experiment with career alternatives when the >50 hour workweek is standard and the academy wants to keep us in place for many reasons and in many ways.
Taking risks in life and science is usually seen as a good thing. In practice though, it seems like postdocs and Ph.D.s have been trained to be very risk averse (at least that’s been my experience and observation). And almost trained to not fully be ourselves, even though that is often exactly what we’re selling to employers. Not the easiest platform to experiment from; scientifically or with a career/life. A lot of us think that only academia can make us happy. The thing I keep trying to tell myself is that humans are terrible at predicting what will make us happy (there are some universals: human connection, for instance).
We are intelligent and self-motivated though. And collectively, I think we’ll be able to figure out how to land on our feet as a community. Twitter has been a great place to talk to fellow academics (and former-academics! Bravo for them!) and work out just what we can do with ourselves.
I was having a conversation with @Doctor_PMS (Great twitter handle, great tweets and a great profile picture— and that’s pretty much all I know about her) on twitter last night about a tweet I put out saying that I choose life over a tenure track position. While I was partly joking, I really am leaning against going down the tenure track— playing the Tenure Track Games or Tenure Track Wars, insert other movie parody title here.
She was saying how she felt like giving up on going for a tenure track job would basically be giving up on her dream. Of course, everyone has their own path. And I’ve made peace with the fact that I don’t think I want that tenure track job any more (am I open to it if I think I have a shot at one— yes, I think so). She asked if this was just a temporary feeling that could go away, which is a good question and one reason I’ve kept going and not jumped off sooner, but the feeling hasn’t gone away. But where do I go from here? What’s next? I still don’t have a good answer. One of my favorite bloggers @sarahkpeck has this picture on her blog, itstartswith.com :
That tenure track job was the obvious ship to swim out to. Or it’s one that’s moored to the pier and is right there to jump on if it weren’t for the captain of the ship denying me permission to board (probably with good reason). It’s what I have been working towards for a long time and letting that go is hard. Very hard. Like I’m a complete failure. I’ve been listening back to the Brenè Brown’s interview on On Being that was re-run this weekend. One idea she brings up is the idea of shame vs. guilt. It’s the difference between ‘I am bad’ and ‘I did something bad’. I know I’ve written a lot about her work before, but I find it really hits me in my core; to the point where I tear up about something nearly every time I go back to it. So I’m trying to strongly distinguish between wrapping my complete self-worth up in my work (what I’ve basically done my whole scientific career) to just feeling like I have value no matter what I do. And jumping from the tenure track path would certainly help me prove that.
@Doctor_PMS also asked me if I was scared of the tenure track. And yes, but nervous in the sense that it would be new and different and an adjustment; all things I think I could get past. But my number one fear is that if I were to keep pursuing the tenure track job— or get one— that I wouldn’t be able to have a life outside of work. I know that there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary; PIs have lives. Many have kids, hobbies, spend time on Twitter, etc. But I need time to date someone, spend time getting to know my significant other, stuff like that. If I’m putting in 80 hours/week (more?) as a pre-tenured professor, I just don’t see that happening. And that really does scare me to the bone about a tenure-track position.
So if I’m not going to board the tenure track ship, where’s my ship that I do want to swim out to? I don’t have a good idea. @eperlste is taking the start-up path which I admire a lot but don’t think I’m in the position to do that. He’s the guy who crowd sourced a meth-lab for science! Wow. And small scale plant science…I’m not sure how that would work. I am trying some new things though, which I’m not sure where they’ll go. I do need to engage more and not stay in my own little brain bubble that I occupy a lot of the time (hazards of introversion?).
I am rooting for @Doctor_PMS to get herself a tenure track job. I will celebrate if I hear she gets one. My heart, may brain want something different for me though. I’m not very satisified with the bench work that I do; despite trying to spice it up and make it exciting with the things I’ve been working on and learning to do. I like to write (why I started a blog). I like education still even though there doesn’t seem to be money in it. I like technology/computers even though I don’t know how to code really— but am trying to learn some of it. I want to help improve the mental health of people in the world— especially scientists. We don’t do our best work in a cloud of perfectionism, despression and anxiety. Is there a career in those series of interests? Those things that seem to drive me? I don’t know. I hope so. I have to make it so.
Going back to Brene Brown, in the ‘On Being’ interview she says that hope comes out of adversity. I don’t know if I’ve faced real adversity in my life yet or not (certainly not in a lot of ways— always had shelter, food, water). It’s one reason I think I’ve become a Whovian— The Doctor faces adversity all the time and never gives up hope even when it seems like there’s no way out (it helps that he’s the smartest being in the universe I suppose— and yes, I also know it’s a TV show and writers can hand wave and get The Doctor and friends out of anything— but I still get engaged and emotional about a lot of the episodes). Or to use another movie analogy I think I’ve used before. Academia is somewhat like Shawshank prison and the Andy Dufresne character represents hope to those who want to get out but some are held back with reason— like Red being afraid of being ‘institutionalized’ and not able to function on the outside. Where’s my Zihuatanejo?
For any of us postdocs who have been seeking the tenure track and don’t see a way that it could possibly work I have some hopeful words to part with. I told @Doctor_PMS about Conan O’Brien’s 2011 Dartmouth commencement address (that I’m sure I’ve talked about before in this space too) where he talks about going for his dream job of hosting ‘The Tonight Show’— which he did—until NBC basically took it away from him. He’s landed on his feet though and has had what I think is a good career over on TBS doing some very funny things in his format. He talks about how it’s OK to adjust your dreams when life happens to you. Because it will— and for many postdocs I think it’s coming up on the now (I hope) widely known fact that 80% of us will not end up in tenure track jobs. And I have no interest in becoming a permanent adjunct faculty person. Try something new. Tenure or bust is fine if that’s really what you want, but I’ve come to think that that singular focus did more harm than good for me personally.
2013 has been a year of me trying a lot of new things. To most, I think most of what I’ve done will seem tame and my comfort zone exceedingly small. I hope I’ve laid some decent groundwork to leap into 2014 and try even more new things. And my hope for every postdoc is that you try something different and new in the next year if only to glimpse what else might be possible.
I was talking on the phone with a friend of mine and we were talking about the fact that she’d started her residency and how she’s really feeling like she matters to patients and just as a part of a working hospital trying to help people day in and day out (at least I sincerely hope that that’s the mission of hospitals- if ever there was an industry where people should come before profit…).
Since I compare things, I was thinking about my own career and I don’t really matter in that immediate way. And of course it brought up a lot of old thoughts from years of my life when I truly didn’t think I mattered much to anyone or myself (no that’s not an exaggeration). Now, I had more of a sense that I at least serve a function for other people (and it is important to me to feel useful). I try to help whenever I can. I suggest things to read, I supply facts, I help them find what they’re looking for. I’ll drop just about anything to give someone a hand if I can.
The problem is that it neglects someone who should also be important in my life: me. And I won’t rehash everything I’ve read about taking care of yourself, doing things for yourself, having adventures yourself that are the keys to engaging with other people and having a great life- becoming your own person, I guess is how it’s framed. I’ve intellectually internalized that message and can’t really see much wrong (I worry about being narcissistic and completely selfish, but that does seem unlikely). Getting a pet is the instant solution, I suppose.
I’ve never felt like I have a strong identity or attachment to things I like. There are things I enjoy and identify with, books I like, food preferences, coffee! None of which rise to the level of passion or love, however. I haven’t done enough to really gain those things. I’m pretty passive, not actively making decisions. I think about things before doing them, too much and then the opportunity is gone.
Science is as close as I’ve come I think; but even there, I’ve numbed myself to it (as Brene Brown would put it). I’ve conditioned the expression of joy out of my life- in that sense I’m very Spock-like. I’m not sure exactly how to re-light a fire I’m not sure was ever there, but that’s what I feel it’s going to take to actually go after things that I want (whatever those are; it’s still unclear to me much of the time).
So when my friend said that I matter to myself, I unconvincingly agreed and she instantly told me that I didn’t sound like I believe that. And I don’t. I’ve been doing new things the last few years, things that feel more aligned with what my desires are without going overboard- but maybe going overboard is exactly what I need to do, though I have no idea exactly what that would look like either. Acting on my gut instincts more often? Saying yes to everything? Saying no to more things (boundaries are important)? Jumping into something huge that I have no idea how to go about doing, but having to move forward somehow anyway (yes, this is what life is, but I’d be talking about some project of slightly smaller scope than that)?
Bringing back passion/joy/love for things is really important I think (for work, life, everything); and it has to start with me- being passionate about being me. Enjoying being me. Loving myself. As I’m sure I’ve written in the past, part of my hang up here is that as a scientist, I’m big on having evidence for things; and too often I feel like I’ve come up short in that regard- hypothesis that I matter is rejected, p < 0.05. So as I’ve done with a few other ideas I like to remind myself of, I’m posting this note to myself where I can see it every day:
Feeling that you matter is a message that I feel like many people don’t need to hit themselves over the head with like I do (yes, I’m sure it fluctuates and reminders now and again are important, but it’s not even a question most of the time). Being enough is one that I think a lot of people do struggle with. However, despite what my scientific brain might say, these are facts. Our senses deceive us all the time. What is closer to us than our senses? Our brains. Don’t trust it, either. I’m actually not even sure what the experiment is to show that you matter, or that you’re enough. It’s not a DNA test. It is for things like this that I really like Adam Savage’s line ‘I reject your reality and substitute my own!’. I want to reject my present reality and substitute it with a better one.
I just finished reading Charles Duhigg’s book ‘The Power of Habit’ that I will write more about in this space, I’m sure. Maybe I can make a habit of believing that I matter and that I’m enough as is, though I will never stop learning. I think it will make a huge difference- and not being convinced of the ‘scientific’ fact that I am not enough and don’t matter, because that’s not in all likelihood real science. Anyone want to help me conduct an actual experiment?
Postdoc Street 