I had a pretty interesting evening yesterday. I me…
I had a pretty interesting evening yesterday. I met with my therapist late in the afternoon. I think I am going to call her the “White Rabbit.” She is leading me down to bizzaro land and for some reason I am letting her do it. Oh man, Alice in Wonderland has so many levels to it. Anyways… I basically went to see her to say tell her this isnt working for me, and that we probably should end this. Before I could do that, we started talking about random stuff and I was ranting about my cell phone. I am getting obsessed with it. Somehow the topic moved to my career, and how it was a train wreck waiting to happen. I was telling her about how I feel lost, and that I dont have a sense direction or purpose anymore. The more we talked the more the whole conversation was making sense to me. I was seeing patterns and correlations I hadnt noticed before. It was a really intense conversation, but tragically I remember nothing of it now. It wasnt until she pointed out that I had realized that most of my frustration and disappointment stem from the fact that I am trying to compete and compare myself with QoH and his advisor who has been in this game for over 30 years now. I am not totally buying that story, but she might have a point.
Right after talking to WR, I ran into QoH in the hall way. We went to his office and were basically chit chatting about random things. He brought up the issue of my future being this huge question mark. I could have sworn that WR had called him up and asked him to talk about this. It is really unsettling when such coincidences happen. Anyways, we talked about it for a while, and agreed that I need something to challenge me further. He has promised to look into getting me an invite to write a cutting edge article in the biggest and the badest journal of all. Its the same journal where he had published his big article. He was also talking about writing another book chapter or may be even a whole book. I was starting to feel a bit better about myself when he decided to whip out a resume of a grad student from MIT. This guy is a year younger than me. He has 16 patents. He is on leave from MIT, and is pursuing his MBA at Wharton. He is an associate at McKinsey. A member of the Microsoft’s advisory board, and personal advisor to the big Bill himself. He is on the board of a few venture capital firms too. He takes home a 7 digit pay check. All this and that bastard is a YEAR YOUNGER THAN ME and still a freakin grad student. How the fuck did he do this?
One look at his resume was enough to throw me down the pits of depression again. I was basically choking when QoH was rattling of this guy’s 8 page “condensed” CV. I think he noticed my face shrinking to the size of a raisin, and started making desperate attempts to cheer me up. He was like, oh but this guy doesnt have that many publications. He doesnt have a book chapter and you do. Random silly things like that. It was almost comical. But I really did appreciate his effort. There was no comparing me to this guy, and that is the fact. So much for WR’s theory of me setting my standards based on experienced professors.
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By RageyOne, June 10, 2005 @ 1:28 pm
It is hard not to compare yourself to others. However, you have to stay postive and continue pushing toward your goal.
By compassioNAT, June 10, 2005 @ 4:07 pm
i’m pretty competitive too..and ironically, it can be very self destructive. i just wanna say that the only person you ought to compare with is yourself. To push your own envelope.