On seeing when it’s time to say goodbye to something you love, because there’s so much you hate about it. Very fine piece by @scicurious.
I could have kept at it. Many people told me to take another post-doc, take the ‘part time’ (though is a 3-3 with research and service really part time?), non-TT job I was offered. To adjunct, to keep trying.
And part of me really, really wanted to. I have always wanted to be a professor. I remember seeing my father in class once, when I was very young. He is a professor, and to me, he looked like the coolest guy in the world. So knowledgeable, so inspiring, so brilliant. And I wanted to be like that when I grew up. I wanted to teach, to think big thoughts, to present new things to the world, to have everyone think I was smart.
So I went to college. I went to grad school. I did a lot of science. I felt I was doing something that would change people’s lives for the better, that would help people who suffered. I wanted to save the world. In the end, I wasn’t good enough to save the world, not Tenure-Track good enough. But also, in the end, I realized that I did not want to BE good enough. I no longer wanted to be big wig science professor at a big wig university.
The ‘system’ failed me. It should have failed me sooner. | Neurotic Physiology.
