Note: Below is a guest post from my Costa Rican friend, Christopher Solis Ocampo. Chris is a PhD student in Biochemistry at South Dakota State University.
Nowadays, I have been finding myself under so much struggle and hard work.
Here is the thing: I have been thinking myself as somebody who wants to be a leader. Not just a leader, but a good leader. This is the reason why I try to be very strict with myself by staying and working late in the laboratory as some sort of formation. However, I feel that I am not as productive as all these hours spent in the lab would represent. Instead, I waste my time on social media, like Facebook, looking at what people are doing with their lives. In the end, the time in the lab turns out in vain and my promise of hard work to become a good leader, fails.
I start to think whether being strict with myself is the right way of accomplishing my goals. At least that’s what I perceive as other leaders do such as the faculty in my Chemistry and Biochemistry Department. Some of them struggle writing papers and proposals to meet their deadlines and keep them busy all the time.
I also question myself if being a prisoner in the lab would make me be the somebody I hope to become. As much as I want to be a leader and inspire people, I also think I do not really want people to follow this way that I am teaching myself. So what will make me a good leader? What will make me an integrated person who can inspire others to give their best output without feeling oppressed?
The leader that I really want to be is the one who makes people love what they do — to do their duty not because they have to but because they love it. But I should start with myself by loving what I do.
When does my passion for science become a duty instead of an exciting exploration? Right now, it seems like tinkering on social media is more important than my job. This diversion is nothing but a sign of unhappiness with what I have done up to now. What I thought to be a path to leadership is something that I do not appreciate anymore.
Watching a TED video by Ken Robinson about schools killing creativity, he pointed out that the education system is made to replenish the workforce in industry and the ultimate goal is to make university professors, professors who think that their body is nothing but a transport system for their brains. Ken explained about a child whose mother brought her to the specialist because of her bad performance in school. The specialist took the child’s mother to the next room and left the girl in the room with a music playing. Afterwards, the child started to dance and the doctor said, “your child is a dancer, you should take her to a dance institute.” The little girl became a very famous and successful ballet dancer.
The most profound statement Ken said is that some people need to move to think. This is so meaningful to me because I faced the same situation in primary school. My teacher found me to be highly distracted in class, and she suggested that I have to be moved to “adecuacion curricular”. By definition, this is meant to be an “adaptation of the teaching content for the student due to his/her cognitive capacity”. So, I used to be incapable of following the system, therefore I am inferior to others. Nevertheless, look at me now. I am the only one from my school and even my high school pursuing a Ph.D. degree! This makes me think that all this time my true capabilities have been repressed and my academic difficulties are nothing but occlusion of my way to think, and adapting my brain to what is meant to be the right education method. I agree with Ken that the true human intelligence is been repressed in education.
Going back to my current situation, I find myself in struggle again, and the problem is that sitting at my desk for long periods is not working as I thought. I have to come up with a new strategy and lifestyle that will unlock my best abilities. This means, if I have to walk around while I read a paper or planning my experiments seat in the grass off the lab then I will. I want to make science because I love it and it is one part of my life, not my ultimate duty.
As I write this train of thoughts, I somehow feel a sigh of relief and my insecurity is going away. Yikes, this stuff is starting to work on me!
I am a PhD student in Chemistry at Boston University. I share your sentiments here.
By the way, good writing.
Christopher, the fact that you are trying to find answers of your struggles is a good step of truly loving what you love to do. Believe it or not, so many people out there won’t even try to find answers. They know they have problems but they never acknowledge them, much more, voice them out. You know exactly the root of your struggles and now you just need to open your eyes more to the solution, to the real direction you want to go. Once you find that direction, that struggle will be lifted off your shoulders.
I wish you good luck in what you do.