Fears to Confront and Overcome in the New Year: Part 2

What fears have been holding me back, and how can I get past them? There are a few on the list, largely holdovers from graduate school and the oppression of academia. It’s not that academia just crushes everybody. For some people, it’s an incredible environment. But for many, a PhD is a psychologically tough time, especially if they don’t have a supportive supervisor. The combination of law pay, long work hours, stress, chronic substance use, pressure to succeed, and the expectations of family can feel crushing. For me, this was coupled with difficulties in the lab, and problems with friends and partners, as I outlined in the last post. So what hangups did this leave me with?

1. Fear: I can’t make technical accomplishments — Seeing projects fail and going without support for years left me with this nagging thought. I also struggled during my postdoc, which is normal. Yet ultimately, I did publish papers, finish my thesis, and contribute to big projects, including our neutrino detector at Fermilab. I wrote code, made plots of data, and physically maintained or built up hardware. New thought: I can and do accomplish hard things.
2. Fear: My books aren’t worth publishing, OR I don’t know how to publish them. This comes from my disappointment in my first book. But ultimately, I did succeed in putting it out there, which is a big deal, and it’s very creative. I shared it with friends and family. I also published stories in several publications, and even got paid for writing again, which feels good. New thought: I’m a creative person who imagines incredible stories, and I should share them with people. I know how publishing works and have succeeded in the past.
3. Fear: I won’t accomplish things at my new job. This ties back to Fear #1. Ultimately, though I have written a winning proposal yet or had a huge accomplishment, I did write code for several analyses that worked out, and wrote some great documents for work that are still good to reference back to or reuse today. Plus, I made it a year in a harsh startup environment where the work is not easy. That’s an accomplishment alone. New thought: I already accomplished things, and I can accomplish more. I can make plots, write code, and write good proposals.
   

How will 2025 go? I’m not sure. I have a lot of stuff I’m working on. But I know I can achieve some great things and have fun while doing it. I love my wife, like my coworkers, and have great ideas to work on. To help me out, I’m going to cut back further on drinking — it’s already really low, but I’m thinking of quitting entirely — and try to take even better care of my health. I’m going to try to spend less time on reddit and video games, and more on projects I’m passionate about. And I’m going to journal to give me perspective on all of it.