Last week I considered quitting graduate school.
I started working on a 96 credit masters degree in 2004, finished that up in 2007 and went straight into a doctoral program. In that same span of time, I got married, changed jobs, moved to another state, been ordained by two different denominations, and probably several other significant things that I have forgotten. Did I mention that I drive a few hundred miles a week to get from home to work to school to home to work to school, etc.?
People often ask me,
How do you do it?
My typical response,
I love my studies. They motivate me. They give me life. When nothing else in life is going right, my studies give me a sense of purpose.
What happened? Did I stop believing this? No way! I still believe it, but I'm tired. My body is tired. I'm not eating right. I can never get to the gym to shed this 10 pounds that I hate... and while I have been diligent in my studies, I have become slothful in some other areas.
My spiritual life is in a funk. I'm not remaining vigilant...
I got an email on Friday from someone who finds inspiration in me for some reason... a classmate from last semester. Someone who's life story is parallel to mine in many ways. He said,
I miss big bro you?
I told my wife that I had considered quitting grad school, and she laughed and said,
Right?!
I said,
No seriously, but my lil bro told me not to. He didn't know it, but he did.
LOVE!!!
1 comment:
hey! you are blogging again! hooray :-)
Thinking of quitting graduate school!!! There is NO WAY I would ever let you do that! I would rally all the professors at GSE around you to try to make sure of that somehow. You ARE doing a lot. I wanted to give up several times so I guess you probably shoudl expect a return of such feelings. Just ignore them though. Sounds like you have people who inspire you to keep going though. I would always think of my dear father and how proud he would have been of me to complete my PhD and that would keep me going every time.
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