Comments on: five crises, part 2

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:38:39 +0000

@deepali – you don't seem to be hitting my spam filter (which is not really mine, it's disqus's). Strange. I'll look into it. Sorry!

By: Steve @ bripblap

Steve @ bripblap — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:38:39 +0000

@deepali – you don't seem to be hitting my spam filter (which is not really mine, it's disqus's). Strange. I'll look into it. Sorry!

By: plonkee

plonkee — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 06:36:37 +0000

I made a similar choice to you, although I realised prior to starting a PhD (but after getting a masters) that pure maths research was not for me. One of the reasons that I feel like I failed is that I know that I am clever enough to get a PhD, just not good enough / interested enough in maths.

I went on to pick a career that I enjoy, which I have been contemplating giving up to be a full-time writer (employed). We'll see.

By: deepali

deepali — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:32:07 +0000

I just noticed my comments are not posting – am I hitting your spam filter? Anyway, I had a nice long comment earlier, and no time to recreate, just enough to say that this is a great series, and I don't see this one as a failure at all.

By: Shadox

Shadox — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:08:34 +0000

I am intrigued that you consider this a failure. By your description it sounds to me like a major success: figuring our early that the career you had chosen was not right for you.

Imagine if that had happened 4 years later. Imagine if it happened 12 years later…

Congrats on a major success.

By: Steve @ bripblap

Steve @ bripblap — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:55:31 +0000

Argh, Curmudgeon, you broke the cryptograph embedded in my posts – I guess someone was bound to do it eventually. Heh. You're right, I probably do, and it's something (to be covered soon in my writing) that I'm getting much closer to doing in the near future.

By: Curmudgeon

Curmudgeon — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:24:22 +0000

Steve, I've been reading you fairly regularly for over a year now, and it just struck me – you want to be a teacher.

By: deepali

deepali — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 07:48:37 +0000

so, i know you said that each person's crisis is their own, but i don't think of these as crises. i don't even think they are failures! each one turned out (it seems to me) to contribute not just to your growth but also to your success.

maybe my outside perspective gives me a different view on this - to me, to have continued with the phd program would have been somewhat of a failure - failure to listen to your conscience.

you have also gotten me to think about some crises/failures of my own, and how i might see them from a different perspective too.

By: Steve @ bripblap

Steve @ bripblap — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 23:29:29 +0000

Curmudgeon, you're completely right – I consider myself lucky to have failed and recovered, which gave me confidence that future failures were surmountable. If my first failure had come when I was 10 years out of school it might have been much, much harder to recover.

And I never said I enjoyed accounting Accounting was chosen simply because I saw an opening there for international travel and a widely-sought after skill that would make me uber-employable. The mistake I made (and I'm sure I'll come back to it in the future) was in thinking that I could choose a profession for what it would GET me (travel, money, etc.) rather than for a profession I loved just for the sake of the work. The travel and money seemed awfully important at the time. Enjoying the work seemed less so…

By: Steve @ bripblap

Steve @ bripblap — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 23:25:40 +0000

It's interesting that you ask if I still consider it a failure – I do, actually, although it's a failure that worked out in my favor. Too often we think that only success leads us forward, when actually we very often learn more from failures.

I guess I feel that what happened made my life better, simply because I was happier with the direction it went than the direction I think it might have gone, but it's hard to say – I don't know how it would have turned out had I not dropped out…

By: Curmudgeon

Curmudgeon — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 18:59:43 +0000

Two things. First, while I would be considered a professional success in most respects, I have failed many, many times in the course of my education and career. To achieve your first failure in grad school may have been too late to teach you that failure is an essential part of life. I'm not sure; you tell me.

Second, I'm not at all sure how a theoretical math person, even a failed one, could take accounting courses and enjoy it. Perhaps you can explain how you made that mental transition in a future post, Steve.

By: Su Prieta

Su Prieta — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:33:39 +0000

I wonder if on this day, you still consider this a failure. In hindsight. I think its brilliant that you listened to your instinct, which told you that you were going down the wrong path. You made a path correction, went a different way and here you are.

I've had a few bumps like that in my life, and although there is always an adjustment period where you are hard and down yourself, I didn't consider it failure. My attention span was and is very short, so I make frequent path corrections. But, I think the test is where you are today and where you feel you are heading. I like my life and I like where I am in my life. How do you feel?

I'm glad you made that path correction. It is because of it that I am able to read your work today.

By: TStrump

TStrump — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:02:43 +0000

My philosophy is, everything happens for a reason.
Perhaps, it just wasn't meant to me.
I had a friend who also dropped out of a PhD program and he never regretted it.