Someone asked me if I have a new year's resolution the other day. I could probably think of a couple, but the first thing that popped into my head was basically "Feel good about the decisions I make and don't continue to obsess over them after I've made them." It will take some work, haha.
I keep coming back to the same existential questions . . . what should I be living for? What should I accomplish in life? What does it mean to me to be successful? Is it wrong for me to prefer to stay in California, near friends and family, at least for the time being? Is it a weakness? Is it overly selfish? Is it holding me back from my true potential? Certainly if I had a family of my own, a partner and/or kids, it would make more sense. But it's just me. The only attachments I have to this location are psychological. I don't even really see family and friends THAT often, at least not lately. I have a relatively small family, so with my parents across the country it's just my two sisters and their families. I expect two of my cousins (who are my best friends in the world) to be moving to So Cal in the near future though.
I guess a lot of it is because I'm still in the awkward place between the path that I was on and the new one. Two weeks ago I emailed the graduate program and basically told them thanks but no thanks. I'm still (still!) struggling over whether that was the right thing to do. I just hope that once I'm solidly on a different path such feelings will fade.
Another reason might be the people I'm surrounded by at work. When everyone around you is on the research track, it's kind of hard to be the one who ultimately decided against it. I keep reminding myself that it wasn't just the moving around thing that turned me off, but that's definitely the most emotionally prominent reason.
Of course, practically my whole life thus far has been about academics = success. Maybe it's time I changed my definition. How do you define success?
3 comments:
Happy New Year!!!
Happy New Year!! :-D
Existential questions are interesting precisely because I think they're so individual to each person. What's success? What's accomplishment? What's strength? What's weakness? Those are questions that you have to answer for yourself, I'm afraid.
But I can say that you shouldn't let yourself be tied to academics if that's not where you see yourself. There are tons of ways to be successful.
For the record, I define success and accomplishment as completing something (competently) that I set out to do. So don't dwell on what's already happened, find a goal and strive to meet it! :-)
Happy New Year!
Generally in life I like to define success as making progress towards things I want. Some day it will be nice to look back on my life and think about a husband, a family, and a career, but those things are all a long ways off. Right now I feel successful if the work I do is good, if I help people at work solve problems, if I'm spending time with friends, helping them in different ways, and expanding my social circle. Oh and dating is nice too, although how "successful" that makes me feel is certainly questionable ;)
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