Christmas joy has faded away just as quickly as it came. I started my new job at the beginning of last year and this Christmas was the first time in a year I’ve been back to Glasgow to visit my partner and my old friends. It was the first time in the year that I have taken some proper time off, a proper 2 weeks of absolutely no work, not even a thought about it. And yesterday, all ended and just like a hazy fever dream, things started to blur out as my eyes swell up getting on the train back to London. I cried all the way home thinking how things just went by so fast, how all those 2 weeks of seeing my partner and his family after a year just washed away so quickly, only to leave behind another trail of memories like a raindrop rolling down on the window as my train sailed back to London.
The stress of going back to work, of getting experiments done slowly creeps up in my mind. But why am I stressed? Shouldn’t I be excited to be back in the lab and get down to explore the new frontier of human knowledge? Shouldn’t I be eager to explore the ideas that I had brewed up since my PhD and now I can finally set them in motion? Isn’t this what I have tried so hard to achieve, and now that I got it, why am I stressed out? All of these thoughts have led me to wonder whether my attitude towards the science that I’ve been doing has been right or not.
They said if you love what you do, you never have to work a day in your life. I love science, I love what I get to do, and I love the opportunity I was given to do what I have chosen to do, then why don’t I feel that way? Hundreds of years ago, doing science was a privilege, something only the wealthy was able to do because it was just as much of a career as a hobby. Back then, people would do it because they were curious about how nature works, they would observe the night sky and document their findings and notices and then share it with others, they would self-fund their travelling around the world, from which ideas about how our natural world worked arose, and impacts were subsequently made.
Yes, there was money involved, and yes, there were people who funded these projects. But nowadays, the idea of doing science has shifted. A part of doing science is still because we are curious, but a larger part of what we do now is to find that impact that once simply was an organic consequence of discovery. Far were the days when discoveries gave birth to impact, now are the days when impact drives discoveries. If you don’t publish, if you don’t make an impact with your science, you just don’t have a place in this prestigious temple of academia. Your life and your blood and tears are now all depending on it. The pressure to make an experiment works, the pressure to constantly have to discover “exciting positive” data, and the pressure to publish in high-impact journals so you may have a chance of sailing your boat one day really just took away all the joy one could have in doing science. Maybe your experience is different to mine. Maybe to you, science is still the same. But to me, the innocence of science has long been lost. I constantly say not to pressure myself, that I would still one day become the captain of my own boat, but I still failed and became the victim of today’s academia, became the victim of the immense weight that completely sucks away the wittiness and the thrill of this act of breaking new grounds. And to me, that is sad.
"Far were the days when discoveries gave birth to impact, now are the days when impact drives discoveries."
I have sacrificed so much to be where I am today, not only from my own efforts but also from everyone who I love and who loves me. I have tried so hard every single day of my life from when I started this academic journey as a PhD student. I should not have to feel this way, but here I am contemplating whether following this path was the right choice. For now, I will not give up, not just yet, but that doesn’t mean I won’t change the way I view my journey. I need a reboot, I need a washdown, I need a fresh perspective so that going back to doing the one thing I have devoted most of my life to is no longer like going back to the prison of stress and despair. I want to bring back the joy and the innocence of doing science, I want to make my journey something I would look forwards to getting back on. I don’t know how it will turn out, but what I do know is that I can try, because sometimes, even the smallest shift in perspective could be enough for you to see a smile.
"...sometimes, even the smallest shift in perspective could be enough for you to see a smile."
Until next time :)