Saturday, March 2, 2013

Week 24 Never Give Up, Never Surrender



This may be showing my geeky, silly side quite a bit, but I think this is one of the best life mottoes anyone could have. It is the best advice anyone could give. Whenever you think of your dreams, this is what should follow: "Never give up; never surrender." I know it is perhaps not the most original advice, and is perhaps one of the most obvious tidbits anyone can give, but it is simple and true.

This is the life motto I've been living by for a while now, and I can honestly say it has worked better for me than any more complicated religious faith or detailed life philosophy. It works because it is easy to remember and it is actually easy to do, once you get the hang of it. It reminds you to breathe and keep going. If your dreams are real and realistic, they can happen if you just keep trying (I'm saying "realistic" not to be negative or shatter someone's dreams but to remind you to keep your head in the game- if your dream is to be president well...think about that realistically...maybe your dream should be to get into politics and see where it goes from there. If your dream is to be the next Stephen King, maybe your dream should be to finally finish that novel you've been working on...see where I'm going with this? I'd love to be the next Margaret Mead or Nancy Scheper-Hughes, but I think I'm gonna focus on getting my PhD first). If you choose to believe in God, whichever one or multiple that you prefer, I am sure he/she/they will help you out, but you are still the one that has to do the work. Doing that work requires dealing with failures and setbacks and never giving up.

And then it is funny, when things finally start to fall into place. You maintain a sense of fear; you are waiting for that next setback. You know it will come, it is only a matter of time. But you can't let the potential for failure stifle you, and sometimes it is more successful than any failure itself in holding you back. You cannot surrender to that fear. You cannot let it keep you from taking the risks necessary in making your dreams come true. Never surrender.

In November of 2011 I was having my doubts regarding my own dreams. I was doubting what I was going to do next, where I was going with my life, if my hopes and dreams were worthwhile or if they were just childhood remnants of idealism. I honestly was not sure. The year before I had applied to five programs for graduate school and had failed to get into a single one. I wasn't surprised by this (I knew the competition was intense) and decided to try again, but by November I was extremely anxious about reengaging with the process. Extremely is a understatement. I remember one night talking to Dominic and trying to decide if this was what I really wanted to do.

I think I was so anxious because I knew, deep down, that anthropology was absolutely positively what I wanted to do with my life but I knew it was also a very challenging path. I was terrified of not getting into school again, and I knew that going for my PhD without funding would be more stress on my debt level than I would be able to handle. So there was the additional fear that I would get in but would not be able to go because I would not get funding.

And then what? Try again the next year? Keep waiting, indefinitely? When do you know you should give up and do something different with your life?

And was I ready to make the sacrifices I would need to make in order to continue towards my dream? There would be many. I would have to move. I was (am) so lucky to have Dominic, who said he would be willing to move anywhere with me. He is important enough to me that if he had said he was staying in Virginia, well, I probably would have too. But the move would mean being away from my family and friends. It would mean I would not be there for them when they needed me and vice versa. I would have to indefinitely postpone a nice wedding and having children so that I could live in relative poverty to get my education. This would further mean watching many people my age get on with their adult life- getting career jobs, saving money, going on fancy vacations, buying houses, getting married, spending on nice clothes, food, and weekends, etc. etc.

But what was my alternative? At the time I was working part time, just barely making $17,000 a year (before taxes) and just paying bills, not really saving for anything. Already I had friends far surpassing this measly income and I was feeling pretty worthless. I knew I could try for something more lucrative...I could get a 9-5. I could get my own little cubicle and come home every night to a glass of wine and a good meal. I could save up for a nice wedding and then start having kids. I could go for that American dream with the house and the white picket fence and instead of feeling lesser than many of my peers, I could live like them.

Cue the panic attack. Sure I could strive for all that- but that kind of 9-5 was extremely depressing to me. During the two years between undergraduate and graduate school I had one of the worst jobs I have ever had, and I was extremely depressed with it. I dreaded it. I had to leave work early one day because I was sobbing; someone there had told me they hated me- that everyone hated me- and I should not be there. Really, I agreed with him. I should not have been there. But at least that job taught me something. It taught me that having a 9-5 that I hated would genuinely ruin my life, and I knew that that lifestyle was not worth it to me. I'd rather live in relative poverty than live everyday with dread, anger and fear of a job that felt empty and pointless.

I moved on from that job to another that was absolutely heaven in comparison, but it was still a dead-end; I had no solid future there. I really enjoyed it and I loved the people I met there, but I knew it was not a long term arrangement. I kept wondering, how long was it okay to work part time? How long was it okay to not work towards anything at all? How long should I take to decide? I think the answers to these types of questions depend entirely on the individual and that each of us is different in our life course and our comfort level with our life course. I don't regret either one of those jobs because I learned something from them, and they were absolutely what I needed at the time. But I was getting restless. I need to be making some sort of tangible progress towards something or I feel wasteful, twitchy, uncomfortable...

I decided, despite my almost crippling fear, that I would try again. I decided that if it didn't work out, then I would decide what to do next. Baby steps. But I learned from my initial attempt at getting into graduate school and the experience I had gained the first time around paid off. I had worked harder on my GREs, I had gained more experience, I had written better essays. I applied and I got in to 4 of the 5 places I applied to.

My work towards something better had paid off in spades. Not only did I get in, I was offered some form of funding from all four places. Two of them had a great deal- one was Kentucky, offering full funding for one year and then likely more after that, depending on my performance. The other was, of course, Missouri.

Another difficult decision to face. Kentucky was a lot closer to home, which was a huge plus. But Missouri offered guaranteed funding for five instead of one year. What if I went to Kentucky and then I had to pay for the next four years? This was a surprisingly difficult decision to make. I honestly didn't want to leave home- if I had been able to fulfill my dreams by staying in or close to Virginia I would have stayed. I love my home state and Kentucky was appealing to me because it was so much closer to home. Not to mention I had never once set foot in Missouri.

But I don't regret the choice I made for one second. Missouri ended up being the better choice not just because of the funding; I have a fantastic adviser here (not to say that at Kentucky I wouldn't have, but my research interest in Bangladesh is much better represented here), I absolutely love Columbia, and I am still making great friends here. Being relatively far away from home has been less challenging than I thought because Dominic and I have wonderful family and friends. We've already had tons of visitors, countless Skype dates, and hardly a week goes by where we don't get some form of good mail: a package, a letter, etc.

I'm going on and on about all this for two reasons. 1) The more I push past my fears and continue moving forward, the more I realize how fruitless fear is. Even if you fail, it is not the end of the world. This is an absolute truth. 2) I know some people who are struggling right now, like I was less than a year ago, and I want to show them, the best way I know how, that things can get better and sometimes the harder path really is the better one. You do have to make sacrifices- you absolutely positively do- but sometimes it is totally worth it.

So what inspired me to go on about this now? One of my biggest dreams is about to come true, and I so want other people to know this feeling. I want other people to work towards their dreams and then have that moment when suddenly that dream is a reality. It is such a wonderful feeling, and part of the reason it is so wonderful is because you worked so hard for it and you were so uncertain about it for all those years: people questioned you, people doubted you, you doubted yourself. And then suddenly there it is, right in front of you, and you can hardly believe it. I can hardly believe it. I literally woke up the other day and thought I had dreamed it. Sometimes I'm terrified that somehow it won't be true- that something will happen blah, blah, blah...but no. I shall not surrender to that fear.

Instead, I'm going to go to Bangladesh. There are not even words to explain how shocked and elated I was to find out that I got into the CLS program [I will go ahead and say this now, though I will probably say it later as well, but this blog is no way affiliated with, or representative of the CLS program- all opinions are mine and mine alone, etc. etc.]. I have actually applied to this program before and did not get in, and as a first year grad student I had expected that I would need to apply again next year or the next before actually being presented with the opportunity to go. I couldn't believe it when I opened that email. When I saw that "Congratulations"...Wow!

Going to Bangladesh is a dream come true for me. I have always wanted to see that part of the world. I can't believe that I am now presented with the opportunity to do so. Learning the language, experiencing the culture, living there for two months. I am so insanely excited!

In sum, this is what I want to say. I did work hard for this. I did experience failure and rejection to get where I am. And I am going to experience so much more. I am going to get turned down for grants and funding. I am going to get rejection letters on papers I write and proposals I submit. I absolutely am, just as I have before. There will be times where I struggle to find a job, where I can't quite get where I need to go, where I will need to make sacrifices. But I will keep moving forward, I will never give up, and I won't surrender to fear. And neither should you. We all have our down moments. We all have our moments of pessimism, of depression, of frustration. But don't let it cripple you. Accept that those moments are part of life and then get on with it. There are plenty of things standing in your way; don't let yourself be one of them. Plow through them. Be flexible. Bend as needed. Keep moving forward.

Okay well, enough of that I suppose. Let's do photos...

This is our new chair. Yes, we did find it on the side of the road. Still sits just as well ;)

Ripley enjoying a toy shipped all the way from Richmond!

Dominic started experimenting with the black and white option on my camera this week. He took a lot of really cool photos, I will ask if I can share them next time. This is just one of them.

Snow Round 2






Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone. And remember- never give up, never surrender!

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