I started counting back in February or so. I needed to. I was so tired I could hardly find the motivation to keep working on this project.
I've continued counting, but unfortunately, I've started feeling good enough to attach goals to my counting. It goes like this, "Well, I've finished X in this amount of time, and Y, Z, and A are similar kinds of operations, so if Y, Z, and A take the same amount of time, and it takes this long to to B, C, and D, then I should be able to graduate in ___________."
I look at that mind game now and realize how laughable it is. And I realize that it led me to the despair I felt this weekend. I keep setting myself up to fail! Not only am I not going to graduate this May, it's looking like I won't even graduate December 2008 , my seven year deadline. And, honestly, I can't keep living like this.
I can't keep living like this is something to GET THROUGH. This is my LIFE folks. It may turn out to be 10 years of my life if you count from the time I started the master's degree in January of 2000. My life is not something to be gotten through. It's not something to buckle down on and finish. Maybe that attitude was okay in my teens, and my twenties, but it is not rocking my thirties. What? I'm going to live like life is something to get through until the day I die? What's the next thing to get through? Tenure? Creating a master's program? Creating a PhD program? Dying? I need a life. I need relationships. I need weekends, and I need rest.
I guess the point here is that I'm done counting, and I'm done being driven. From today until this paper is written up for review, I am officially a researcher. That is my job, and my job title. With that job, I get time off; I get things like weekends, and vacations. I am no longer a "starving graduate student who has to get the F out of school."
Please meet me, EA, researcher.
Sunday, September 09, 2007
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4 comments:
It's a profound realization and one I'm not sure I've completely had myself. The drive to do more, faster, better is something that I can't quite release, so I'm thrilled you're going to learn to do that - and to enjoy and demand time for yourself. Perhaps I'll learn something by reading about it.
Hm... maybe you shouldn't think of it as "counting" but rather as noting what you've accomplished. I've been amazed at the amount of work you've done, and your ability to stick to it in such a focused way this whole time. I just can't work that intensely, and yet you've been forging ahead and gaining so much along the way.
There's nothing wrong with setting goals, but I agree we also have to live life in the moment and enjoy what we have here and now. Are they mutually exclusive ways of living? I don't think so, but I'm not sure how to do that, either. Not much help, am I? :)
Can I just say that qualitative data analysis sucks? Seriously, I have only done a little so far and I'm tired of it. It's difficult. You should give yourself credit for doing something very tough.
Waow! You know, you're right. While finally having some vacation the last couple of weeks (and at least to some degree returned to being a sane human being again) I've been thinking something similar myself.
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