When I started thinking about the topic of this post the first thing that came to my mind was ‘I’m Back….. again!’, then I thought ‘AGAIN?!’ !!
My blog, and my life, like many of you I believe, is a series of running and halting, you run when you can but you can’t keep running because there is always something to stop you. This blog for me is a project, but unlike my other projects it runs with my freedom and doesn’t take it away from me, in other words, when you see it active then I’m free and when it stops it means I’m tied up. For this reason, every now and then you see a post talking about the subject of me being ‘Back’ which is a good reason to get me start feeling irritated :mad:.
But then, it’s natural, isn’t it? We all get so involved in life that we forget to really take care of ourselves and maybe have some fun. During the last two or three months I was up to my nose with my MA dissertation, by the dissertation itself not by writing it, and there is a big difference. Days, or even weeks, would pass without writing or reading a word related to the dissertation, but like a tooth pain I still feel it even if I’m trying to do the things I enjoy. There are many things in life which have the same effect, any project that we feel obliged to do within a deadline can suck the life out of us.
Most of the times you can’t run away from an obligation, because that would be wrong, an obligation after all is defined as ‘The act of binding oneself by a social, legal, or moral tie.’ I was choked by this moral tie (along with an unshakeable legal tie) and almost broke down because of that, but then I read a thing that really helped in lifting me up, it was one chapter of Dale Carnegie’s infamous How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, the one talking about getting rid of the boredom caused by worrying. Anyway, the most important thing is that I found out what was the problem and I got over it wal 7amdo lellah :).
Now that I did what I had to do and got myself -almost- free I’m back (Gurr!) to my blog again, and I’m going, like always, to enjoy my freedom while it lasts. You should do that too, enjoy you life while you can, you never know when you will get tied up again. Run… run while you can.
PS: I’m not posting my da Vinci counter because it hasn’t changed at all :).
Oh, I SOOOO understand what you’re talking about. When you’re working against an impending deadline – and on something as significant and important as your MA dissertation – your normal life changes. Even if and when you’re not working on it, it plays on your mind constantly, and you just can’t escape it. You might give yourself “time” to not work and just have fun, but you can never really have fun, can you? Because you are constantly thinking about it, and feeling guilty, like you should be using that time to work. And writing something like a dissertation is so different from your regular papers and essays, because this is YOUR work, your brainchild, your baby. This is something you are creating out of your own mind, so it is so much more mentally exhausting. I really think that only people who go through this first-hand can really understand and appreciate what you’re talking about here…the psychological aspect of the process. It’s not just the academic or “legal” obligation you have (although in many aspects it is that – especially if you have a scholarship requirement to fulfill!) – it’s your own moral obligation, like you said. It’s something you have committed to, and something you are doing first and foremost for yourself, for your own intellectual and personal fulfillment, and that is what plagues you with 24 hour angst and guilt, and just puts you in a perpetual state of fretting! But like you said, in a way I guess that’s normal, especially if you really feel passionate about what you’re doing. You immerse yourself in your objective and you lose sight of the “niceties” of life. Of taking care of yourself – mind, body, and soul. Of having fun and letting yourself go for even just one minute. But that’s what we do, isn’t it? That’s why we’re here..doing what we’re doing. Because we’re passionate about it – because in many ways, this is who we are and who we choose to be. And it is important. But you have to learn how to draw that line between your work and passion, and getting to the point where it “sucks the life out of you”. Because it can almost be self-destructive then. If you’re like me, then you become a superhuman perfectionist for whom even the tiniest little problem can become a catastrophe. But under that kind of pressure, you can almost forget that you’re doing this first and foremost because you love it…not because it is an obligation. If you keep reminding yourself that, you can learn to avoid that feeling where it just drains you, and mentally and emotionally exhausts you. But yeah, it is hard…but at the end of the day, if we didn’t love it, we wouldn’t be doing it, would we? 🙂
Congratulations on your dissertation…from someone who really knows what it feels like. Enjoy these next couple of weeks, as I will be. We deserve it, we’ve earned it, and believe me, we’re gonna need it to face while lies ahead!
Sometimes (I may even say most of the times) the moment a task becomes obligatory it becomes so boring and starts causing us pain and making us feel tired all the time. No mater how much we love the thing we are doing, if it’s something you have to do then it will become boring. The cure is to really try to make if fun again… and not to try and find fun elsewhere, it won’t work because your fun will be ruined by the guilt. A will planed break is wonderful thing, it helps a lot, but too many breaks will not make you work better.
The best solution is to make the job itself fun, to compete with yourself, to give yourself small rewards and think about the big final reward, to act, to sing, to imagine doing things with the work and to try and amaze yourself with what you are doing.
بكتب لك بالكويتي عشان اعرف اعبر على راحتي. ميخالف ؟ 🙂
مؤيد .. عسى الله يوفقك و يحقق لك كل اللي تتمناه و أحسن منه
و اللي تمر فيه كلنا معاك فيه
تأكد انك مو بروحك
والله معاك
و الوناسة او الفرحة الكبيرة بتكون بحصولك على شهادة الدكتوراة و بتفوق بعد بإذن الله
عمر الواحد يخلص
لكن التعب و الشغل مايخلص
وهذي سنة الحياة اللي ذكرها الله سبحانه و تعالى في كتابة
” خلقنا الإنسان في كبد ”
المهم احنا نعرف شلون نكيف نفسياتنا مع الظروف عشان ما نهتز
و نخلق الاستقرار بداخلنا و ما نعيش في حالة قلق و انتظار
وشفيه الكويتي.. ماكو أحلى من الكويتي
والله يا أم دانة طول عمرج وفيه.. عسى الله يثبتنا و يحمينا من كل سوء
إن شاء الله كلها أيام و بتعدي و العبره بالنهاية.. عسى الله يجعلها أحلى نهاية و يجعل عملنا باق من غير نهاية
هذي جنها صارت زهيرية 😛
صح لسانك
و في كل الأحوال نحن نركض
ساعات نركض من الوناسة و الطاقة المشحونة إللي فينا ، و ساعات نركض عشان نفر من إللي ورانا
ساعات نركض عشان نلحق على شي ليفوتنا
ساعات ما لنا خلق نركض ، بس غصبن عن عين أهلنا نركض
و ساعات نبي نركض ، بس الشارع واقف
فنركض في مكانا
المهم ، نكون في حركة دائمة ولا صابنا الصدا
عدل كلامك..
بس أهم شي إن ركضتنا تكون لي جدام مو إلى الخلف 😉
I know it’s a bit late for me to reply to your reply, but everything you said was so true! To keep it fun and interesting and to not let it feel like a “chore”…that is the key to success in everything, but I think particularly in academia.