Puppet Strings
"All I would tell people is to hold onto what was individual about themselves, not to allow their ambition for success to cause them to try to imitate the success of others. You've got to find it on your own." -Harrison Ford
Sometimes I look back and wonder how I got to where I am with bewilderment. The veritable existential crisis is not for the faint of heart. Recovering from a Ph.D. program, is just what I state it as - recovery. The pragmatist in me realizes that even though dust settles, there remain decisions to be made and pathways to be chosen.
So, I come to puppet strings.
For a long time, especially while in the throes of graduate school, I often felt that maybe I had been a pawn. In a place where names matter as well as student placement, I wondered whether my best interests were accounted for. I remember talking with a mentor when I'd been asked to be involved in another student something or other and the advice issued was "sometimes you have to look out for what's in it for you." I've remembered that as I've swum along. I try to keep my character intact while remembering that sincerity is not easily uncovered and thinly veiled manipulations are frequent. I freely and gratefully admit to the existence of a heaping amount of recommendations, advice, and encouragement happily received in exchange for the actions of a steady pawn moving in the expected direction.
Memory is something we change and morph based on our perspective. I've been shuffling through some experiences and although maybe it sometimes seems I've been set up for something that others want me to do and that I thought I wanted also, however, at the end of the day, I do have a choice about what it is that will make me the most happy. Before graduate school, I had participated in a number of activities including students groups with too many acronyms in them to matter, leadership positions, teaching positions, and service in the community. I was a well-rounded involved and invested person. Before graduate school, I remember very clearly being asked if I had the ability to put all of that energy into just one task. This made graduate school simple and hard; simple in that, I had the ability for 60-70 hour weeks that were often needed since I'd already done that kind of time commitment; hard because, I didn't know what that kind of task-monopoly would do to my well-being as a person.
So finally it comes to this. At the end of the day, I do indeed love chemistry and however I got here, doesn't change the fact that I love it because it is a part of who I am. The expectations of me in this regard are only brushstrokes that I possibly add more dimension and value to than actually exist. Whatever my chosen profession, from a broader perspective, will be just fine. There will be those that will be excited for me and those who will be disappointed. But in sorting out the reactions, I can find those who had my interests at heart and those who maybe only had theirs. My requirements are and will always be, the most happiness and fulfillment that I can get out of my chosen pathway. For what is a career to someone like me, who only has to account for my own mouth to feed, other than something in which I can feel that I have done some "good," and genuinely contributed to a community that I care about. Puppet strings or no, how I got here is irrelevant. Pathways to get you to where you are can't be changed. Experiences are there to teach and shape and direct. What matters is whether I now have the strength to cut those strings, gather up all the attained knowledge, and stand on my own.
Sometimes I look back and wonder how I got to where I am with bewilderment. The veritable existential crisis is not for the faint of heart. Recovering from a Ph.D. program, is just what I state it as - recovery. The pragmatist in me realizes that even though dust settles, there remain decisions to be made and pathways to be chosen.
So, I come to puppet strings.
For a long time, especially while in the throes of graduate school, I often felt that maybe I had been a pawn. In a place where names matter as well as student placement, I wondered whether my best interests were accounted for. I remember talking with a mentor when I'd been asked to be involved in another student something or other and the advice issued was "sometimes you have to look out for what's in it for you." I've remembered that as I've swum along. I try to keep my character intact while remembering that sincerity is not easily uncovered and thinly veiled manipulations are frequent. I freely and gratefully admit to the existence of a heaping amount of recommendations, advice, and encouragement happily received in exchange for the actions of a steady pawn moving in the expected direction.
Memory is something we change and morph based on our perspective. I've been shuffling through some experiences and although maybe it sometimes seems I've been set up for something that others want me to do and that I thought I wanted also, however, at the end of the day, I do have a choice about what it is that will make me the most happy. Before graduate school, I had participated in a number of activities including students groups with too many acronyms in them to matter, leadership positions, teaching positions, and service in the community. I was a well-rounded involved and invested person. Before graduate school, I remember very clearly being asked if I had the ability to put all of that energy into just one task. This made graduate school simple and hard; simple in that, I had the ability for 60-70 hour weeks that were often needed since I'd already done that kind of time commitment; hard because, I didn't know what that kind of task-monopoly would do to my well-being as a person.
So finally it comes to this. At the end of the day, I do indeed love chemistry and however I got here, doesn't change the fact that I love it because it is a part of who I am. The expectations of me in this regard are only brushstrokes that I possibly add more dimension and value to than actually exist. Whatever my chosen profession, from a broader perspective, will be just fine. There will be those that will be excited for me and those who will be disappointed. But in sorting out the reactions, I can find those who had my interests at heart and those who maybe only had theirs. My requirements are and will always be, the most happiness and fulfillment that I can get out of my chosen pathway. For what is a career to someone like me, who only has to account for my own mouth to feed, other than something in which I can feel that I have done some "good," and genuinely contributed to a community that I care about. Puppet strings or no, how I got here is irrelevant. Pathways to get you to where you are can't be changed. Experiences are there to teach and shape and direct. What matters is whether I now have the strength to cut those strings, gather up all the attained knowledge, and stand on my own.
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