Don't know where I'm headed
Nov. 14th, 2009 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kirby1024For the last decade at least, I have been moving towards one goal in life - to become an academic. It was something I decided on when I realised how much I loved university, and how much I loved studying and learning. Almost every action in my life has basically been about how this will help me get to this goal in my life. A lot of the frustration and unhappiness in my life has been when this goal has become unclear to me - when the obstacles have seemed too great, or when something has required me to change my plans.
But I've been wondering recently. The person who made that choice, the me that made that goal, that was a long time ago - almost 8 years ago, in fact. As one might expect, 8 years will do a lot to a person. Hell, just the past 4 years have changed me, to someone I'm not sure the me from 8 years ago would recognise. And I've been looking at that goal, wondering: Is that the goal that I really want now? I do want to learn, I do want to study. These are things that I still want to do, and still drive my passions. But am I cut out for academia? Academia is a lot more than studying and learning - it's an entire culture and way of life, and can be a very cut-throat world, full of competition for time and funding.
When I was in uni, as a student, it was all very simple - I loved uni, I loved the people there, and I had no real plans to leave and do anything else. I'd found my home, and it was a great home. Now that I've been gone a while though, I've been occasionally looking back, looking at that culture from where I am now, and I can't say that it inspires me terribly now. I'm just not sure that what I want to do is worth everything that I'm going to have to put up with to do it.
The question afterwards, of course, becomes what do I do now, and I'm not really sure on that one just yet. I've focused on the one goal for so long that I never even looked at everything else that I could be doing. I'm fairly certain I don't want to be a real perpetual uni student (I'm not even sure that's sustainable these days), and I know that I'm not terribly interested in being a Call Centre monkey forever either. Some things are pretty constant regardless of what I decide to aim for (for example, paying off debt is going to be prereq for most things that require a big change in income), so it doesn't change the current course of my life too much. But past the short term, I'm just not sure what's next for me, and I can't help but worry about that somewhat, even though worrying doesn't seem to be coming up with any answers. I'm not sure I want to drift from goal to goal, never having a real clue of where I'm going to end up.
It's just a big question mark in my life, and it's only confronting because I'd never realised how big that was, and how fragile what was covering it was, before I started questioning it. And to answer it, I have to do that thing that I'm not so great at doing, which is actually knowing myself enough to have a goal I want to work towards.
It's at times like these I really wish I had a better handle on myself. Then again, maybe I have a better handle on myself than I thought if I'm in this quandry...
But I've been wondering recently. The person who made that choice, the me that made that goal, that was a long time ago - almost 8 years ago, in fact. As one might expect, 8 years will do a lot to a person. Hell, just the past 4 years have changed me, to someone I'm not sure the me from 8 years ago would recognise. And I've been looking at that goal, wondering: Is that the goal that I really want now? I do want to learn, I do want to study. These are things that I still want to do, and still drive my passions. But am I cut out for academia? Academia is a lot more than studying and learning - it's an entire culture and way of life, and can be a very cut-throat world, full of competition for time and funding.
When I was in uni, as a student, it was all very simple - I loved uni, I loved the people there, and I had no real plans to leave and do anything else. I'd found my home, and it was a great home. Now that I've been gone a while though, I've been occasionally looking back, looking at that culture from where I am now, and I can't say that it inspires me terribly now. I'm just not sure that what I want to do is worth everything that I'm going to have to put up with to do it.
The question afterwards, of course, becomes what do I do now, and I'm not really sure on that one just yet. I've focused on the one goal for so long that I never even looked at everything else that I could be doing. I'm fairly certain I don't want to be a real perpetual uni student (I'm not even sure that's sustainable these days), and I know that I'm not terribly interested in being a Call Centre monkey forever either. Some things are pretty constant regardless of what I decide to aim for (for example, paying off debt is going to be prereq for most things that require a big change in income), so it doesn't change the current course of my life too much. But past the short term, I'm just not sure what's next for me, and I can't help but worry about that somewhat, even though worrying doesn't seem to be coming up with any answers. I'm not sure I want to drift from goal to goal, never having a real clue of where I'm going to end up.
It's just a big question mark in my life, and it's only confronting because I'd never realised how big that was, and how fragile what was covering it was, before I started questioning it. And to answer it, I have to do that thing that I'm not so great at doing, which is actually knowing myself enough to have a goal I want to work towards.
It's at times like these I really wish I had a better handle on myself. Then again, maybe I have a better handle on myself than I thought if I'm in this quandry...
