The holiday season is upon us, and with it comes gift giving and the inevitable question, “What do you want?” I have struggled with that question ever since the things I really wanted did not fit in boxes anymore. Taken in its broadest meaning, the question of what you truly want in life is neither easy or comfortable to answer. It is vitally important, however, to understand the answer(s) to this question. You cannot prosper unless you understand what prosperity means to you.
This is the rough part for my many physical scientists. We are typically groomed to want publications, grants, tenure and the things that go along with a professorship. That would be fine, except for the fact only a tiny minority of us will ever get that professorship. What are the rest of us to do? Live dejected lives as a result of the failure to obtain what we wanted? You could take that path. I was on it for a while, until I started to examine my assumptions.
When I took a hard look at my desire for a professorship, I found that it was just a proxy for the things I really wanted. For example, did I specifically want tenure? No, of course not. What I wanted was the financial security and peace of mind that results from having tenure. It was the same story with other elements of a professorship. I did not really want dozens of first author Physical Review Letters. That would be nice I suppose, but it is just a proxy for my desire to do meaningful work on important problems and achieve a degree of recognition for it. Once I clarified in my own mind that what I was after are the results I perceived would come with a professorship, rather than the professorship itself, I was free to seek those results in other ways. Academia has no monopoly on interesting problems to work on, or the ability to recognize excellence. Likewise, you can build more financial security and general peace of mind for yourself than tenure could ever provide. Who is to say that the guarantees of tenure will even last given the enormous pressure to cut costs that universities are likely to come under in the near future.
In my own journey, I have sought out and found interesting, cutting edge problems to tackle by working at a private sector start-up company. That sort of employment is notoriously unstable, so I have systematically bolstered my financial security by building a war chest of savings to see me through any downturns in fortune. Simultaneously, I continuously work to build my skills and expand my network to enhance my marketability. I find that this set of strategies gives me a great deal of peace of mind because they are robust, flexible, and all within my control.
Once you start clearly understanding the things that you want and need (as opposed to what institutions, advisors, parents, friends, etc. lead you to think you should want) a huge world of possibilities opens up. As we welcome the new year, I encourage you to seriously consider what you want and if you are living the life you seek or are on the path to get there. If not, a new year is an excellent time to start charting a new direction.