Tag: Research

Doubt is good

mr doubt

I’ve got to complete a substantial piece of work for my thesis and submit it towards the end of the month to my supervisor. Criticizing and evaluating other people’s research is not the strongest of my skills. I often doubt my judgement and I must say I have been experiencing a strong writer’s block over the last few weeks. Yesterday, however, something shifted in me… I love going to our parish church on Sunday. There we are given a weekly newsletter not only with parish announcements but also with short articles dedicated to the theme of the Sunday. Well… you all probably know the story of a doubting Thomas and his need to scrutinize the Christ’s wounds before believing in Jesus’ resurrection. Yesterday, in our weekly newsletter, different writers were making commentaries regarding that theme and one of them, Christine Clark, wrote this:

”Doubt is good: it must always be better for something to be challenged. If it’s too fragile to stand up to scrutiny, it’s not worth much.”

I choose to write about this because I think yesterday I have turned a corner in my thinking. Dealing with doubt, criticism and disbelief is an important part of doing research work and I think that only yesterday I understood why having doubts often implies having the courage to think independently.

Doubt is lovely. Welcome doubt.

Wish

rysowanie

At the beginning of last year I had a number of ideas that I was wanting to explore in my research. I dismissed them, a whole bunch of them. Throughout the year they were reappearing, in my conversations,in my (sub-) consciousness, in my Fb feed. Some ideas just do not want to leave us, a bit like that jacket that you really liked and talked yourself out of buying but keep on visualizing wearing it. Certain visions just do sincerely like us and perhaps the fact that they haunt us really means that they are for us. That it’s time to answer them.

I am in the process of gathering all my crazy visions and ideas of the last year into a draft for my supervisor. Of course, I am afraid of being criticized and rejected but I think that I came to realise that at this stage I cannot offer anything else – as these are the ideas and the truths that I am in possession of right now and my consciousness cannot venture further without those truths being explained and captured.

If there is one thing that I would wish for myself for this year, it would be to become more courageous. To not wait for a year for my ideas to reappear to trust them to be good, to accept them quicker and to just work with them as they are. I think I was quite courageous in my early 20s, by coming to the UK on my own and creating my own life here, but somewhere during that journey I got a little disillusioned with things and courage ceased to be one of my top-cherished values. This I intend to change this year.

I often think how to encourage my son to be perseverant. What should I say? What should I do? It only occurred to me recently that it’s courage that I should be imparting on him. That I need to teach him that he should be courageous because perseverant people are courageous and they know that failure is just a call for redirection. To embrace courage, we must embrace failure for “The physics of courage is such that if you brave enough, often enough, you will fail.” ~ Brené Brown. Perhaps, that is why my mother was always so insistent on us being courageous. On being courageous all the time.

 

Why do we do what we do?

why do what we do what we do

I’ve been thinking many times this year about quitting blogging or quitting photography or quitting my research or one of the three languages that we speak at home – this one was initiated by someone’s suggestion rather than personal doubt – but anyhow…

This year has been a struggle – a continuous ping-pong of rejecting and accepting of who I am and what I do. When I tried to quit any of the things above, I felt terribly unsettled, I felt that I was betraying someone and this someone was me. Fortunately, what I was rejecting was coming back – so now I am wiser and I’ve accepted that if what we reject somehow comes back and it brings joy, it’s a signal that this is who we are and that perhaps – Could this be true? – that we have found ourselves. So this is who I am and this is what I do and there is no further story to it. Just acceptance of it all.

I think it’s the joy that makes it ours – it’s this quiet emotion that puts a spring in our steps, the emotion that should not go unnoticed.

If you feel joyful about something, it’s yours. If you feel joyful about returning to something, it’s yours. If you feel joyful about commencing something, it’s yours.

Never underestimate the power of joy for joy is what you are meant to be.

The hardest type of guidance

leading oneself

This PhD that I am doing right now is one of the most difficult things I’ve selected to do in my life. I keep on questioning myself over it all the time. I’ve never done work as big as this and have never had to manage as much on my own in my entire life. Being totally responsible for your own creativity and thinking and your subsequent steps can be quite scary. I have always had very strong teachers in my life – now I am the teacher and the leader and often I feel quite overwhelmed by this responsibility… just for myself and for the outcome of my work. Although the freedom to do what I love doing is wonderful, is tasty, delicious even, I think that self-guidance is the hardest type of guidance out there.

I am learning to trust myself. To trust my own judgment and my own ideas, but often I shake with self-doubt.

I know that when we do not have enough strength in our muscles, we tremble. I know that it is only with practice and regular exercise that the tremble subsides to the point that we even forget later that we had that shaky muscle. The longer I work on this muscle, the more I am convinced that tasks such as the one that I am facing are mainly about conquering myself. No one else. Nothing else. Just myself.

“Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work”

hope

Whenever I feel slightly vulnerable, I search for words that would give me strength. I look for speeches that inspire me and make me feel less fragile. People have a capacity to hurt us but also to plaster our wounds; they can let us down or surprise us with their generosity. I love being surprised and inspired with people’s good heart, with their ability to sacrifice a bit of self-comfort, a bit of self for greater values, for community, family or friendship. I am painfully conscious of the fact that only actions will make me a better person, only actions speak of me. There are moments however when I feel very tired, when I feel too disgruntled to continue doing things and it is then that I most need to be inspired, I need to be convinced again… in order not to give up. These are the speeches that inspired me lately.
1. Patch Adams (Movie, Parts 8/10 and 9/10 on You Tube)
2.The real Patch Adams.
I’ve come across these words by Ann Landers the other day: “Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them.” I hope I am not making a mistake by having another go at a project that will take a lot of effort to complete – in January I am resuming my doctoral studies. My research is not related to medicine, but I relate to the doctor in the videos when he says “Sir, I want to be a doctor with all my heart. I want to become a doctor so that I can serve others.” I am trying to fight a state of terrible insecurity right now. Last time I started my research I had to stop it as my body collapsed (pregnancy efforts and research was just too much for me to bear). In January I’ll be entering the research stronger in body but with trauma. I fear and I question but I want to do it…with all my heart.