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Self-Help: How a Ph.D. and Three-Pin Juggling Can Save Your Life

Written by: Paul Kedrosky

Article Overview: For some non-apparent (at least to me) reason, I get a lot of emails of the what-should-I-do-with-my-life sort. People seemingly think that, given a few professional and personal facts from a stranger, I can tell them how to proceed in their careers. I usally beg off politely, pointing out the impossibility of answering the question, even when you know the person well.

Self-Help: How a Ph.D. and Three-Pin Juggling Can Save Your Life

For some non-apparent (at least to me) reason, I get a lot of emails of the what-should-I-do-with-my-life sort. People seemingly think that, given a few professional and personal facts from a stranger, I can tell them how to proceed in their careers. I usally beg off politely, pointing out the impossibility of answering the question, even when you know the person well.

This morning, however, I realized there is another answer. When I think back to the many things I enjoy doing, and the eclectic mix of things I do for what passes for a living, most of them can be be traced back to my long-ago Ph.D.

No, it's not that doing a Ph.D. was such a wonderful creativity-unleashing exercise, one that filled my mind with limitless possibilities and prospects. Far from it. I actually found it a fairly mundane and bureaucratic bit of business, more a question of cranking out a sufficiently lengthy document to the satisfaction of your thesis committee.

Instead, what I found out when doing my thesis -- and something I noticed in pretty much everyone I knew who at least started one -- was that you mostly discovered what else you were interested in. Why? Because pretty much anything else is more absorbing than writing a 400-page Ph.D. thesis.

In my case I discovered I was interested in quantitative finance, journalism and media, juggling (balls and especially pins), sky-diving, mountain-biking, hiking, Iran-Contra, marathon running, snow climbing, Franz Kafka, Rainer Marie Rilke, etc. All of those obsessions sprung unbidden onto my calendar when I should have been working on my Ph.D. thesis instead.

I saw something similar happen in other people I knew then (and know now), with people discovering pen collecting, acting, novel-writing, ultra-marathons, orienteering, and pretty much anything else you might imagine.

It turns out, it seems, that doing a Ph.D. (even if you drop out, which I generally recommend) is a great way to discover what you want in life, albeit it will likely have little to do with the Ph.D. itself.

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Article Tags: answering the question, eclectic mix, exercise one, franz kafka, impossibility, iran contra, juggling balls, lengthy document, life sort, limitless possibilities, many things, mountain biking, obsessions, personal facts, quantitative finance, rainer marie rilke, sky diving, thesis committee, ultra marathons, what should i do with my life



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