Defense
I feel like I am about to break down and start crying in my lab right now. I know that this is an odd statement for me to make (especially coming from me) but it's better crying in here than in class this morning, which I was so close to doing. I think the truth of the matter is, I feel so utter overwhelmed by everything in my life. It's not just my Defense this Friday, though I admit that it is the major part of why I am feeling this way. I do think that the Defense has something to do with why I went to bed last night with a tightness in my chest and in which no calming mantras, candles or music or fix.
The reality is that the stress in my life is beginning to physically hurt me. And I am tired, more than just physically, mentally I feel broken inside, weakened somehow. I am exhausted with putting out the best of me and my efforts at all times and not seeing any return. I just got back from my conference and while I am glad for all my friends who did well this year and I know that I was only partially there I feel frustrated, I feel like for once I would like to see some recognition for all the hard work I have done. Maybe that comes when I receive my degree but somehow that seems like a meager pay off for the years of labor and hard work. And even more so for all the things given up. Because that is what grad school is, at least for me, it is a sacrifice of many things in life: friends, social events, money (all trivial things) but also of energy and ideas, sometimes I feel like I have been drained off that uplifting joyfulness of life that I once possessed and I wonder what it has been replaced with. A sense of doubt in the world or a need to be critical of everything I encounter. I know these good attributes of a scientist but I don't want to loose my wonder at the world and be a cold skeptical being.
I realize that as I type this, that isn't the truth, I still posses joy and wonder it just seems like it comes in very small doses these days. That the truly happy moments of my life are fewer and far between and that my satisfaction when it comes to work in my life has been diminished. That being said I thankfully have many good things in my life that keep me afloat and I find that I cling to them harder than ever before.
I just want to be over this hurtle (which feels more like trying to jump a 10 foot brick wall), and I am tired of finding myself in a place that I never know if all that I have done is good enough or not. And I think that is it at the core; that I feel that despite my best efforts that somehow I feel that 'they' (my adviser, committee, department, potential employers, etc.) will somehow find me lacking. That somehow I didn't try hard enough or do as much as the prior person. And I keep striving and striving to be better but I often feel lost and unsure. And in the end I just wonder if it is worth it. I guess this is what they call an existential crisis but I know where I want to be in my life, and when I really break it down it's very simple. I want to be happy, work a job that has value with a group of good people (I don't expect to enjoy everyone or every day but enough that I can say I am satisfied).
Part of me can't wait to be done with this Defense because somewhere inside it should signal the finishing of something important (and I do feel accomplished) but I know that's just business as usual and that the moment I am done I am starting the process all over again with my Ph.D.
Another three years of this, I should be happy but right now it's a little hard to think straight, let alone positively.
The reality is that the stress in my life is beginning to physically hurt me. And I am tired, more than just physically, mentally I feel broken inside, weakened somehow. I am exhausted with putting out the best of me and my efforts at all times and not seeing any return. I just got back from my conference and while I am glad for all my friends who did well this year and I know that I was only partially there I feel frustrated, I feel like for once I would like to see some recognition for all the hard work I have done. Maybe that comes when I receive my degree but somehow that seems like a meager pay off for the years of labor and hard work. And even more so for all the things given up. Because that is what grad school is, at least for me, it is a sacrifice of many things in life: friends, social events, money (all trivial things) but also of energy and ideas, sometimes I feel like I have been drained off that uplifting joyfulness of life that I once possessed and I wonder what it has been replaced with. A sense of doubt in the world or a need to be critical of everything I encounter. I know these good attributes of a scientist but I don't want to loose my wonder at the world and be a cold skeptical being.
I realize that as I type this, that isn't the truth, I still posses joy and wonder it just seems like it comes in very small doses these days. That the truly happy moments of my life are fewer and far between and that my satisfaction when it comes to work in my life has been diminished. That being said I thankfully have many good things in my life that keep me afloat and I find that I cling to them harder than ever before.
I just want to be over this hurtle (which feels more like trying to jump a 10 foot brick wall), and I am tired of finding myself in a place that I never know if all that I have done is good enough or not. And I think that is it at the core; that I feel that despite my best efforts that somehow I feel that 'they' (my adviser, committee, department, potential employers, etc.) will somehow find me lacking. That somehow I didn't try hard enough or do as much as the prior person. And I keep striving and striving to be better but I often feel lost and unsure. And in the end I just wonder if it is worth it. I guess this is what they call an existential crisis but I know where I want to be in my life, and when I really break it down it's very simple. I want to be happy, work a job that has value with a group of good people (I don't expect to enjoy everyone or every day but enough that I can say I am satisfied).
Part of me can't wait to be done with this Defense because somewhere inside it should signal the finishing of something important (and I do feel accomplished) but I know that's just business as usual and that the moment I am done I am starting the process all over again with my Ph.D.
Another three years of this, I should be happy but right now it's a little hard to think straight, let alone positively.