On Doing Nothing

Sometimes we need to do nothing at all.

Sometimes we need to stop and think for a time.

Sometimes we need to reexamine our road.

And that’s okay.

Because sometimes, the only way to find yourself is to stop looking so hard.

It’s been a while since I my last post.  That’s largely because I’ve been driving myself to drink with job applications, master’s applications, doctoral applications, and wondering how I’ll buy Christmas gifts (or anything else) when I’m unemployed and broke.  It’s about as miserable as you’d expect…I loathe applications.

That said, I have had free time for the first time in a very long time.  For the first time in my memory, there’s no homework, there’s no social pull, there’s no responsibility after 21:00.  For the first time in my life, I can spend time researching and considering future options full-time, rather than feeling the push of the rat race again.  For the first time in memory, I can stop and think for a while.

As part of that research and reflection, I’ve reexamined my future path.  I assumed that I would hurtle down the doctoral path at full speed, looking for a neuroscience Ph.D with the shortest possible lag time, so that I could start my research career as soon as possible.  Since starting full-time graduate school research, however, I’ve been plagued by doubts.  Basically, it came to the following: how much do I love physics and engineering?  To what extent, if any, am I willing to leave physics behind?  Do I want to jump straight into neuroscience, or take a longer but more mathematical and physics-based route?

The answer, somewhat to my surprise, was that no, I am not willing to sacrifice physics as completely as I believed.  Strange and slightly masochistic though it may be, I liked physics.  I like the surety of it, the sense of accomplishment in solving problems, the mathematical certainty of equations and manipulations.  Yes, there was pain and struggle involved, and I certainly wasn’t the best in my class (on a related note, anyone who says girls are bad at math or physics is either living the 1950s or has their head inserted up a particularly unpleasant part of their anatomy).  But, despite all that and some spectacularly bad instructors, I liked my physics education, and I want to make use of it.

As a direct result of this conclusion, I’ve revamped my job hunt, reexamined my educational plans, and rebooted my plans for the next couple of years.  My initial assumption was a year or two of work, followed by neuroscience doctoral research.  Now, I may delay the doctoral work in favor of a M.Sc. in biophysics or biomedical engineering, to be followed by a Ph.D.  I’m still not sure where that Ph.D will go; although neuroscience remains the most likely suspect, I like the clarity of mathematics and physics much more than the wetwork of biological dissections and chemistry.

This seems like a minor change, and in the long term it is, but it’s one that I was certain would never happen a month ago.   A month ago, I had not questioned the swift, certain road to neuroscience, and I was ready to fly towards it.  I would not have questioned this approach, had I not had the time to think it through.

Here comes the point: I never thought about this before.  Or, more accurately, I never thought deeply about it.  I had assumed I would follow the neuroscience route directly, never considering what that might entail or whether it was the best fit for me.  I only considered the consequences and what best suited my needs and skills when I was forced to stop and think for a while.

You’ll notice that I used the word “forced.”  This is because, well, I was forced.  Given my druthers, I would have jumped straight into the work environment and never thought twice about my path ahead.  I hated, and still hate, having nothing to do.  Yet sometimes, that is what we need.

This is a largely anecdotal piece, obviously.  Yet I don’t think I’m the only one who feels that this time to decompress is not only valuable, but absolutely and vitally necessary.  In fact, The Economist ran this piece on this very subject; modern businesses encouraging their workers to stop and think for a while.

In today’s world, we feel a constant pressure to work longer, harder, and faster.  Increased competition means that, to land a job or a studentship, we must be far more qualified than our parents were.  The miracle of modern communication means we are connected to employers and friends 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with no respite.  This has its advantages, one of which is that you can read this, yet the pressure to be always on can make us forget how much it matters to unplug.

Deep insight, personal or otherwise, seldom comes in the midst of constant bombardment.  It requires time, and thought, and quiet.  I never fully appreciated how necessary that time is until I found it again.