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Tuesday 19 April 2011

Thoughts on my Career Choices

When someone you love dies your brain stops. The more you love them the harder it is to comprehend that they are gone. The human brain is an amazingly complicated organ but it is beyond its capabilities to suddenly assimilate and understand that a person who is so much a part of you is no more. I’ve been told it’s a protective measure, that the pain is too much and that you brain will feed you the information over time in fits and starts of various lengths until at last you understand that they are gone. You will never understand why or how such a thing can happen but you will eventually understand that it has, so I have been told. So it will come as no surprise to hear that despite my many years at university and various degrees my brain just ain’t what it used to be.

When I quit my job last year I was relieved to leave the world of optoelectronics behind. The work I was doing brought me little satisfaction yet I believed the more interesting work of research and development to be beyond my capabilities. It has been so long since I have done any real physics and my confidence in my abilities as a scientist has never been very strong. I believed that I was not giving up but rather acknowledging that I was no longer in the right place and wondering if I ever had been. It was therefore a surprise to me to find myself looking at the scientific and engineering job adverts on the Australian websites. I sent my CV to a consulting company on a whim and was very surprised when they contacted me with a request to go in and speak with them. It wasn’t an easy interview.  Though the gentleman in question was interested in my previous work and PhD he said the prospect in Australia were limited. I acknowledged that I had thought as much and said how surprised I had been to hear back from him. It turns out that though limited there might be one of his clients that would be interested. That wasn’t the hard part though that came when I said how unsure I was about returning to the industry and his opinion was that to take much more time out would be foolish. Whether or not he is correct it hit home for the first time that I might really be leaving my old career behind and for the first time I wondered if that was really what I wanted.

For eight years my life revolved around two things: my relationship with Josh and my career as a physics student.  On gaining my PhD I endeavoured to remain in my chosen field in a lesser capacity, a point we have already covered so I won’t linger over it. However having been denied the life I had chosen I now wonder should I give up my second love so easily? I didn’t even try and fight for it back in the UK. I didn’t look elsewhere in the UK for work out of fear I was not capable of the kind of work I used to do and was previously so passionate about. Now I am wondering is this really it? I am giving up all claims to the title physicist? I suspect not. After all why should I not be capable of returning to manufacturing and working my way up? Maybe I can complete another Masters on my return and re-enter the field that way.

The worry now is, am I aiming too low? I left my previous job on the basis that it did not challenge me, well I know for sure that housekeeping won’t challenge me in anyway. My months of idleness may have done more than recharge me physically, and emotionally they might have awakened my desire to push myself mentally. For the first time in two years I am thinking, maybe I am capable of more. Right now I’m not sure I am but I really do think that one day I will be. Until that day though I have decided to enjoy being a traveller and am sticking to my original plan of getting short term work in order to finance my attempt to see as much of Australia as possible in the next two years. Who knows, maybe I will find a new love in one of my temporary careers which will lead me in an unexpected and previously unconsidered direction after all.

2 comments:

  1. Reach for the stars Lynne, you can do anything you want to. I know the feeling of thinking you are not capable of doing a job that was once so easy. Meanwhile enjoy the view, while your on the trip of a lifetime that the rest of us only can dream about. Right now follow your dreams.
    {{{Hugs}}}

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