Hello everyone! Happy Sunday to all of you!
I am at a cross-point of my life. I am finally finishing up my student life when I am done with my PhD this year and will hopefully find a job before I do that. This will be the first ever time in my life when I am not a student since age 7 (I also work as a teaching assistant in the PhD program, but I am still a student). It is exciting but also terrifying. One major question I have: How do I make decisions regarding my life decisions? Based on what criteria? This is not a question I thought much about before because I liked being a student and just went with it. But now I do, both because I cannot be a student anymore but also because I came to realize some important things.
One of those, which I will talk a bit here, is that it is important to make your well-being an important criterion when it comes to your choices. For example, say, you have two job offers: one with good money and status but potentially unhealthy-ish work environment and the other is with less good money and status but an attractive work atmosphere. Before, I could have chosen the first, because I thought I can handle the stress. Maybe I can. But now I ask myself: do I need to? Is this how I want to live my life? Constantly being exposed to situations that threatens my mind’s safety needs? Now, I started believing that personal well-being honestly overrides everything else. If it does not, there are often unpleasant consequences. I have suffered this multiple times in my life, and the latest was just some months ago (and the effect came a few months after; just recovering).
Overall, I think I am asking myself this question more and more explicitly each day: do I need to stress out? How can I make my life less burdensome? These questions are for now guiding my job search. I hope I can find a job that suits (and a job that also pays well would be awesomeJ).
Do you ask these questions to yourself? Let’s discuss.