I am just sitting here wondering WHY try to compete ( in my case that is)--it just seems so futile a waste of energy--for what??! I am the classic over-achiever--give me some task to do that is too hard and too challenging, and I will succeed! which is a burden as much as it is a gift...because it is hard to unlearn a lifetime of responding to the challenge in front of me, in fact thinking I have no choice but to tackle it.

But I don't HAVE to. Its OK to not do it. It is hard to get away from a lifetime of thinking in a certain groove though. Being an over achiever is its own private hell, when "more is not enough".

I avoid the whole 'existential worrying' by never asking the question 'why?'. I know that my work is pretty pointless - but I find it interesting and challenging, that is all the justification that I need.
While we were on a year-long trip, my girlfriend got pretty homesick. We made arrangements for her to go home for a couple of weeks and then rejoin me. She didn't ever actually go home, but the fact that she knew she could at any point seemed to help quite a bit, as well as webcam chats to her family.

they are very good here about socialising, although I think they don't invite me sometimes as they assume because I am local that I have other things to do than hang around with my work colleagues (sadly, that's usually not true).
There are places that you can go if you want to socialise more, http://www.spicelondon.co.uk is one such option, there are probably many others - what about a local theatre group or sports club?

Those are some good perspectives...sometimes just knowing you are not really stuck, only as stuck as you let yourself be, is important in changing how you feel.

In the land of the big roads, Missouri, the winters are nearly as long as the roads are big, bringing on the inevitable cabin fever, and the need to play nothing but Jimmy Buffet songs on the juke box in local honky tonk bars ( another reason to do a PhD in Missouri as opposed to anywhere else!!!!!) while drinking a lot of Coors Light...I have just found my favourite surviving winter song--well second favourite, A Pirate Looks at Forty--the other one..I have to think a minute to get the name of it...BOAT DRINKS!!!! but a pirate looks at forty--well, he wonders if his "occupational hazard is his occupations just not around..."

BOAT Drinks...now I am smiling again and its a step towards a better mood than crying in your beer music of John Prine!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HREgMeDSqCc

The Weather is Here--Jimmy Buffet....now this is THE SONG!!!


"he worked hard all year just wanted a few weeks alone...the weather is here, I wish you were beautiful...my job is too dutiful..." about a businessman that runs off to the islands!

Olivia, well, u do sound...Why don’t u try to switch off for few days. At your stage, I reckon it’s not worth 2 quit now. Perhaps after few days off, u shd be able to rekindle back d flame in u to complete what u have started. Whenever the thought roams to ‘’quitting corner’’, try to switch immediately to some other sweet / memorable thoughts. It is possible even at whatever age u r. The only thing is, sometimes its hard when a person have to overcome the emotion of the thing he/she tries to avoid. Well, its easier to say than do it. I know but give a try. Take care, cheers.

olivia, i hear you. i was thinking as i read the posts - wasn't it you who once said in this forum, that doing a PhD successfully really means that you keep going even when you are not motivated, when the subject is boring you to death, when you see no point and no end, when the work is horrible and a drag and totally uninspiring? in other words: you can't rely on motivation and interest alone to get you through. every PhD will have a time when there is no motivation and no interest - when it is just "work". pointless, boring, work.
if you'd follow your dream and work in a bookshop, work your garden and walk your dogs - i'm sure a time would come when this, too, would seem pointless, boring, hard work.
sometimes i think that if i put all the time i put into worrying about if doing a PhD is the right thing for me into my PhD instead, i'd be just about finished by now...

Sorry to hear about the problems Olivia, feel similar myself a lot of the time- a great deal of academia appears to be about 'ticking boxes' (i.e. going to conferences where about five people come and listen to talks etc.). Incidentally, I know people who work in book shops and they absolutely hate it- very hard work, lots of lifting and no reading.. So hope things get better for you..

La dolce vita it ain't. Academia is just part of the economy :( I find it hard to take that too, keep imagining other lives where I would be doing something more meaningful in the world. I promise myself that growing organic vegetables and living an eco-life in the country will be my reward if I do my PhD and the academic thing for a few years. The question is really whether there is a clear, viable alternative that you can entertain, plan, imagine sustaining, imagine living.

Olivia I know how you feel - I ask myself those "why am I doing this" questions a lot of the time. My reasons for doing a PhD boil down to wanting to get a lecturing position - a job that is hard to come by nowadays and even if I could get a job, it doesn't seem to be all I thought it would be back when I started!!!

My only reason to continue is that I have started so I may as well finish! IF I ever finish (big IF) I think I want to go and do something completely different that has absolutely less than nothing to do with research.

Wow, I'm not much help am I??? Sorry... I do think, however, that you have come so far that you might regret throwing it all away... I think stick it out - for a while at least, and then see how you feel...

Good luck

I agree Big Mac - I chose this because it was interesting and challenging. My problem now is though, that I am wary of the high-pressure job that I would have to sustain to keep doing the interesting and challenging bit. I'd still like to do it - but not the long full-time hours that I see around me. Just hope I can find some compromise solution when the time comes - it's demoralising to think this might come to nothing.

Interestingly, I caught up with an old PhDer I studied with.

I mentioned her here before here, she dropped out got a job and is doing quite well in a scientific company that uses her skills. She said she does not regret dropping out, but still wonders sometimes "...what if I had finished?". However, she is in a position a to own a house and has gotten engaged which she felt she couldn't do with the temporary contracts and low wage of her former life and she recognises this.

I asked her what she missed the most (apart from me), and she said that she had held an image of having a professorship and the prestige that went with it. However, she realised that it was just that. An image.

She gave a great analogy that academic life was like one of those pyramid scams, that only make a few people at the top rich, but everyone below just loses money. The quick ones cut their losses, but the saps "hang in there". Some people make money, but most lose it. However, the pyramid still stands because there is always a fresh rung of optimistic players that come in from below that keep the whole game going.

I disagreed. I used to be negative but now I reckon you "make your own luck". I told her about my recent adventures and how I was now the PI's right hand man, and what I had been upto since then . Unlike people on here she took it quite sadly and said " I was turning into my old supervisor".

Never had thought of it like that....

Even at my ripeness of age and maturity there is something about putting 'owning a house' over doing a PhD that makes me want to snort. As for getting engaged - surely that doesn't require a permanent salaried job? Strikes me as a sadly suburban view of life for one so young.