I feel dirty about my state in life.

[Manomanman]

It's Sunday afternoon, 5:25pm, and I'm working...for the 8th or 9th week in row on Sunday. I live in Southern California, about 50 miles from a dozen pristine beaches, and it's been one of the hottest summers in years. I made it to the ocean exactly 0 times this summer. The last time I went to the beach by myself, I was harassed by a lifeguard for not wearing flippers.

I'm working on one of those menial tasks that get handed to graduate students because a graduate students' time is worthless. I'm re-running a data analysis that has been done 2 times already, because my advisor wants to "see everything in a different way." In exchange for being an unpaid lab slave, I eventually get a Ph.D. that I will use for exactly nothing. I will not use my Ph.D. because nobody outside of the academic world gives a **** that I have it.

Every time I look in the mirror, I wonder just how the hell I got into this position? Why am I starting my 6th year in graduate school, slaving away 7 days a week, rather than banging a hot 18 year old model on a private beach somewhere? Why am I not enjoying the afternoon with my non-existent girlfriend or children?

Where I am makes perfect sense - I was brainwashed into the "get a job mindset" until February, when I stumbled upon StevePavlina.com. My entire world was turned upside-down. "FINALLY! SOMEBODY ELSE WHO GETS IT!!!!" I had always wanted to start my own business, but I thought it was too complicated for somebody who didn't go to school for business (doh, another one of those fallacies!)

When I look at myself in the mirror, I see a person who is about to break. A person who probably won't finish his Ph.D. when a true profit opportunity presents itself. Until then, I must bide my time and continue to educate myself.

I have devoted every last waking moment in the past week to either: 1) Doing what I have to do to not drop out of school, 2) Begin an entrepreneurial venture that will allow me to support myself. If these moments collectively count as work, then I have worked 90 hours in the past week. What else is there to do? There is nothing of greater value than the knowledge that I will soon be free of my slavery, and can ascend to the throne that I will have created for myself. I am energized rather than drained by my work toward a business, because it's the only meaningful thing in my life right now. I am teetering on the bring of destruction, though, because every time I trade my time to move toward getting my Ph.D., I feel like a little bit of my life is being drained away from me.

The one thing I desire is a life I can call my own. A life of freedom, exploration, and growth - a far cry from the pencil-pushing, idea-destroying bureaucracy of the academic machine.

I needed to get that off my chest - I feel like I'm trying to take everything on by myself, but I know lots of people can relate to what I'm feeling. Everybody who goes off of their own knows what it's like.

P.S. If you're going to Steve's conference this weekend, be sure to say "Hi" to the Jesus-looking guy.

[technologyslice]

In the end you do need to take everything on by yourself. The changes you want to see in yourself can only be effected by you. Don't forget, not matter how hopeless things seem, a change for the better is simply a change in your mindset.

[brendannz]

Would you be able to fit the work you get done within 7 days, in a 6 day period, so you can spend 1 day at the beach?

[lifetimelearner]

wow ! I really feel your pain

so what kind of business do you want to start ?

[Sam988]

How long does it take to finish your PhD? Do you enjoy what you're studying?


A PhD is hardly not considered, even outside academia. Apart from the deep level of knowledge that it shows you have, it also shows that you have many other qualities like intelligence and determination.


Of course, it depends on the situation, but i advise you, in all areas of life, to finish what you start, even if it doesn't make much sense at some moment. More often than not, we don't know what we truly want; what we want changes frequently, and if we wander around life constantly changing/cancelling our projects and never finishing anything, well, one day we'll wake up and wonder why our life didn't go anywhere, what happened to all our big plans since none materialized.

[Andrew Gubb]

Good luck dude. It's inspiring to see someone like Steve can make such a difference. He did for me, too. I hope I can follow in his footsteps.

[aggie]

now that you feel you have your head on straight, i think you need to take stock of the POSITIVE aspects of what up to now you have considered a hellish existence.

you must be fairly young, you are intelligent, you are working for something, you can create and grow and live as you wish, you abide in a lovely part of the country, a phd is hardly anything to sneeze at, as much as you dislike it, you are doing something very useful.

some day you can look back and say, it was a little rough, but i kept my integrity, i kept my focus on my goals and real needs, i didn't sell my soul and now i have all this time to bop the 18 yo hotties. could be worse

[Manomanman]

I guess a Ph.D. is useless from my perspective because I see how completely worthless it is in terms of being able to deliver value. In other words, it's a 5-year degree that contains about 1.5 years of knowledge, knowledge that came from a laboratory rather than the real world. I suppose it's better to have one than to not have one, but Ph.D.'s are negatively correlated with wealth. The wealthiest people in America got B-C average in school, decided to try out the millionaire mindset, and proceeded to hire rather than become the Ph.D. student. They now have the Ph.D.'s slaving away for them while they sit on the beach laughing all the way to the bank.

A lot of people don't see how academia really functions in all of its grave ineptitude.

For those of you who asked, I recently had a "revelation" about the reasons why Microsoft because such a large company. I always had the "Bill Gates was an *******" excuse. Once I realized just how systematic and universal Gates' approach was to business, something snapped in me.

I went from barely working 35 hours a week to suddenly reading and working every waking hour. I've never experienced such a spike in my productivity. It was always, "I don't know what I want to do with my life." It's turned into, "I don't know what I'm going to do with my life, but whatever I do, I'm going to market it really well and improve peoples' lives when they buy it."

Translation: I'm going to start using blogs as a marketing tool to enhance the services I sell that I learned from grad school in psychology.

[Manomanman]

P.S. Thanks for the feedback on what you guys think about Ph.D.'s. It's hard for me to want to keep going after 5 years realizing how much of my time it sucks away with nothing in return. I had no idea people actually thought they were worth something!

The reason I wrote this post was because I get this "sick" feeling every time I start working on academic work. It's like the feeling a prisoner gets every morning when he wakes up and realizes where he is. A lingering, sick feeling.

This feeling comes from the realization that I'm meant for greater things (and I mean truly great things that will do a lot of GOOD for the world). I suppose my subconscious realizes that there are people out there who need my assistance, but every moment I bang away at some pointless data analysis those people are losing out, suffering like I suffered for a long time without direction in my life.

[ar81]

I used to have a very miserable life, before I discovered that if I follow my mission in life, not only I feel better, but also I shall not fear a bad outcome. Obstacles? Yes, but not failure.

You will have your job as long as you need to learn something from it. You will get your dream job when you need it to accomplish your mission in life, not before.

Misery is a time of learning that living with no purpose, no mission makes you miserable.

My mission, is to change the world. I can't avoid that fate. Wherever I go, I change something, with or without intention. And nobody can stop my changes. It is not something I asked, it just happens. And the lessons learned are about human nature, about my own nature, my own humanity.

Discover what your mission is. Once you do, misery and fear of failure will end. You will do things with a higher purpose.

[Manomanman]

Looking back on my life, I've made a lot of long-term mistakes that have given me valuable insights.

I can see how people like me and Steve, who have both lived a life of courage, have acquired the type of knowledge that you cannot get from sitting in one spot, reading books, and blogging about them.

For people like Steve and me, reality just screams at us while it flings mud in our faces, and until we can get the mud out of our eyes, we're unable to see where to go. But once we do, our purpose in life is very clear to us.

I have a purpose in life - my purpose is to stand strong in life, and to support human life while I am alive. I'm aligned with Pavlina on a lot of core values, but I'm more inclined to eat animals and use the services of wage slaves. I'm MUCH more "elitist" than Steve is. Glory is my core value - his is truth/love/courage or whatever. I'm more like a Prince without a Kingdom. Steve is more like a guru.

[Manomanman]

Originally Posted by brendannz

Would you be able to fit the work you get done within 7 days, in a 6 day period, so you can spend 1 day at the beach?

Every time I feel drawn to go to the beach, I realize I'd be going there alone. I've had to completely sacrifice all of my friendships and social life just to stay in grad school and hope to have a career. That's the most devastating thing about being in grad school. Grad students have the lowest consciousness of any jobbers in the world - they are mindless, emotion-sucking "friends". Take "10 Reasons to Never Get a Job" and smear a big helping of raw sewage and vomit on top, and you've got grad school.

I'm really focused on what I DO want socially - lots of 18 year old girlfriends with little emotional baggage and an attraction to good looking older men with money.

I'll settle down when I'm 30ish.