Confidence

I was telling my friend that after I started freediving, I became a more confident graduate student/scholar. It almost doesn't make any sense, what has freediving got to do with academia?

But... Somehow, having something else to rely on, something else I enjoyed, and am good at... relieved the pressure of needing to be good at the other, and suddenly, I felt free to be as good or as bad as I am in academia as I wanted to.

My friend told me I found another nest. Yes, I have now more baskets in my life where I put eggs in, and it's alright if the academia basket breaks.

This has given me a lot more freedom and space to be myself, to put myself out there in academia, because I fear failure a lot less now. I fear embarrassing myself a lot less now. Because so what if I did embarrass myself?

Again, I am fine not succeeding in academia, I have other things to succeed in in life. I no longer feel that slavish pressure to compete to write papers or anything like that.

I will write when I have something to say.

I will give a workshop when I think it is important for others to learn what I am teaching.

I will do all these because I want to, not to keep up my reputation or to be marketable, all these other side reasons.

This has given me a freedom I never had before in my scholarly career.

Let's try to capitalize on it more, okay, Shuyi? Time to be a PhD student again. Get that research proposal moving! :D