"What are you doing next?"
As I finish up grad school, I get this a lot. I find it a hard question to answer. It requires knowing myself and my own priorities, and knowing what the questioner actually wants to hear. As I don't have a good standard answer at this point, I must either find the courage to say that I don't know, or give a partial answer to avoid the underlying question.
Given how much anxiety this question has caused me, I decided to spend some serious time thinking about it more formally. This blog is part of my independent study (yes, I get credit for this) as my final units at Stanford GSB. Prof. Rod Kramer is my advisor, and is helping me shape my reading list and adding his vast academic experience in this field.
My emotional platform will be a collection of thoughts, experiences, readings, conversations, and journeys I piece together over (at least) the next 10 weeks. My goal isn't necessarily to answer the question of "What next?". Instead, I want to be able to put myself in an emotional state where I can deal with this question with less anxiety, and decide best how to answer it.
My guess is that some of you are struggling or have struggled with similar issues. My intention of sharing this experience with you is that I want to hear your thoughts and help others through this process too.
What should I be reading? What's been helpful for you during this type of transition? How should I be spending my time?
I'll be posting my thoughts, reading lists, and other adventures soon. Any and all (constructive) feedback is most welcome. This is also my first blog, so I'm playing around with the content and tech aspects too.
-Emma
ok, here's an edward abbey quote which I remember as a balm for the soul for those withering gusts of prelapsarian ennui.
ReplyDeleteahem
"One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am – a reluctant enthusiast... a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to your body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards. "
(Citation:
ReplyDeleteGil has a copy of it on the wall of his office. )
I have a copy of this poem hanging on the wall in my room!! My dad sent it to me in an envelope full of dried leaves from the east coast at the peak of autumn... another story for another time.
ReplyDelete- sara