Welcome back from the holidays, everyone. As you may have probably guessed, I took a few days off because of Thanksgiving and Black Friday. I've also been finding it harder to focus, partially because all of the work that continues to pile up on me, and partially because I am fatigued all the time. I feel like I've never been more tired in my life, and I'm not exactly sure why. Granted, I go to bed late, but I also get around the 8 recommended hours of sleep every evening, so either my medications are not working quite right, I'm fatigued, or I just don't want to be here at my job right now. It could be a combination of all of the above, however, it is nevertheless concerning. It seems like no matter what I do, no matter how much coffee I drink, no matter how many energy drinks I consume, and regardless of whether I take my Adderall, I feel like I'm just going to pass out.
I find this especially concerning, because despite the fact that I hate my job (you may have guessed by now from all the blog posts), I need money to live, and I would like to maintain at least some level of functionality without feeling like I'm going to pass out all of the time from sheer exhaustion. I also have to take the GRE later this evening, because I am trying to get into different graduate programs, which I hope may be at least a little better than the current one I am putting up with. Unfortunately, my previous GRE test scores have expired, so I need to retake the test, and hope for the best. I feel convinced that if I do not get a good score this time around, this may be a sign that I just don't have the energy to keep up with graduate school anymore.
It seems almost strange or ironic that I am still trying to maintain this website in spite of all the problems I have experienced in recent weeks. I think ultimately, however, I don't want anyone to ever have to go through what I did, which is why I am trying my utmost to pass all of my experiences onto anyone who will listen. At the end of the day, everything on this website is just advice --- you don't necessarily have to listen to all of it, or even any of it for that matter. I just want to do something, anything that might make this world slightly more tolerable, and for now, this is the best idea that I could come up with.
I think most of you that are here would agree that the reason why you want to get a PhD (or even a Master's Degree) is not because of the money. You want to serve a purpose greater than yourself. You want to make the world a better place, because let's face it. The cold, hard reality is that if you live in America, the odds are against you as an inventor, or a small, startup business. Everything is in favor of the established corporations, including money, employment law (which includes intellectual property), and time. However, there is some comfort in the idea that even if you don't become a billionaire for discovering/inventing things, you are at least helping making the world a better place for someone --- whether that's by making technology more accessible, curing a disease, or just improving quality of life. That's what I would like to think, anyway. We work hard and we study hard because at the end of the day, we care about people, and we want to improve things for the greater good of humanity.
It's definitely a struggle though; especially if you belong to one of the marginalized groups that we've discussed in previous posts, whether that's due to your race, sex, veteran status, gender, sexual preference, or disability. Someone always wants to get in the way and say that we're not good enough. We're not a "good fit". We're better off being subordinates and not leaders. The sad part is, it's hard to argue against this, especially if there is a power differential. The consequence of marginalizing diversity like this is that true innovation is smothered, which is part of the reason why I feel like we're struggling as a society to come up with new, useful ideas. Good ideas are either stolen from the poor, marginalized minorities, or are otherwise not given the resources the true innovators need to develop. If we don't have diversity, we don't have innovation. It's just that simple. As the saying goes, we create out of necessity, and in order to determine what is necessary, you need people that are struggling with the problem to work out a solution.
That, in a nutshell is why I write this blog. I want to level the playing field, and give people the help I think they need most. I also want to provide people with the solace that they're not alone in their struggles; there are many people right there with you going through the same thing, and the reason why they're not speaking up is because they likely don't have a solution either. As I continue to develop this website, one of my goals is to use this blog as an outlet to discuss some of my personal life experiences. I feel that the anonymity that the internet provides makes blogging a great outlet for sharing personal experiences, which I feel may be illuminating to people reading any of this right now.
And with that said, I'll go ahead and step off of my soapbox. I apologize again in advance for another long-winded rant, but with everything that has been going on in my life lately (which should hopefully end soon), it's hard to jump right back in with fresh, new material, even if there are many directions I can still take. Of course, if you have any recommendations, feel free to speak up. I'm all ears, and I would like to share anything that might help anyone else out. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving Break. If you can tough it out for just a few more weeks, we should hopefully have Christmas Break to look forward to as well. Enjoy the rest of your day!
Komentarze