Such an honest reflection, Alexander. You write beautifully. It can be so hard to separate our sense of worth from external validation, but I'm so glad you found your way to that distinction. What really struck me was how much you'd already achieved, yet still felt there was more to prove. That self-doubting voice can be so very cruel. I also found this line incredibly thought-provoking: ‘For all the great achievements in the world, all the innovation, how many souls are burned, fuel to the never-ending machine of constant progress, nothing ever enough?’. It made me think about how rarely we stop to ask what success has asked of the person who achieved it. Wishing you fair winds as you continue your journey. 💚
Thank you for your kind words! It's easy to lose perspective I think when you start comparing yourself and always trying to achieve more. I have seen it in interviews with people from all kinds of careers, weather it's earning money, musicians, actors etc. many fall into the pattern of proving your worth and nothing ever being enough. There is a healthy balance to be had I think but it's often a long way there.
Thank you for sharing this so honestly, Alexander. As someone who also completed a PhD and experienced burnout, I found so much to relate to here. The shift from seeking validation through achievement to discovering an inner sense of worth is such profound work, and it's becoming a central theme in my own writing too.
Thank you for putting words to a journey I know many of us share. Wishing you every encouragement as you continue finding your way. 💛✨
Thank you, Kim! I'm so glad this resonated and to hear that you have also been able to process and write about your experience with it. It's so deeply seated. I've noticed among many of my PhD friends, that they also struggled and burned out, but it wasn't something that was talked about. Sharing is so important!
Thank you so much, Alexander. I couldn't agree more. It seems far more common than many of us realize, yet for so long it felt like something we each carried quietly on our own. I'm grateful you've opened the conversation. I have a feeling your words will help many people feel a little less alone. 🙏 💛✨
Such kind words Kim, thank you. For this conversation and connection alone I'm glad I posted this. It's such a gift to be able to share these experiences, and if it helps anyone I'll be so grateful.
It really is a gift to share these experiences, isn't it? They remind us that we're not as alone as we sometimes feel.
It's been many years since I finished my Ph.D., but one thing I've come to recognize is that the pattern of burnout can quietly repeat itself in different forms later in life. I sometimes wonder whether years of jumping through hoops teach us a way of thinking and being that's much harder to unlearn than we realize. 💛✨
This is a beautiful and incredibly raw reflection, Alexander. Reading your words, it made me think that perhaps we shouldn’t look at the search for validation with such harsh eyes.
From the moment we are born, we seek it instinctively—the child constantly looking for approval and reassurance from their parents. It is inherent to who we are.
Exploration, curiosity, and the drive to be seen are what have brought humanity to this point. Striving is a form of growth, but perhaps the real turning point—the one you so beautifully describe looking at the mirror—is when that measurement of progress shifts from external applause to internal self-worth (autovaloración).
Thank you! This is such an interesting and important point. I also think it is inherent in us to seek community, acceptance and validation. Like you say, they are all part of who we are as a species, and I think judging ourselves too harshly for those human needs is also damaging.
It is complex being human sometimes, isn’t it? I don’t know how to balance it all sometimes, but the sense of internal self worth does a lot to complement the search for acceptance and connection/validation. Otherwise it becomes too hungry and overpowering perhaps!
So relatable, and so extremely refreshing! I can really relate to this- I dreamt of academia for a long time but eventually couldn’t disentangle my own genuine desires and passion for that career path from a need to prove my worth- so similar to what you wrote. It’s been a long internal struggle, I’m still working on figuring out what working toward other roads looks like now. Reading about someone with a similar experience who has taken the steps to pursue other things is so wonderful! Thanks for the candid writing!
Thank you for reading and sharing, it means a lot when writing connects! I'm glad this resonated. I still wonder exactly where the line is between my genuine interest in it and the desire to prove things. Despite having reflected deeply and written about it all, it's hard to know exactly. And I'm still figuring stuff out and learning, so very much relate to the path you're on, but where I am at now feels infinitely more honest and soulful so I think I'm doing something right!
I can definitely relate, the line is hard to find. But agreed being honest and vulnerable about it through writing is a major amount of progress. And helps others (me!!) in the same boat. So thank you!
This is such a difficult thing to notice (not find, but notice): recognising oneself as of value, inherently. Especially when, like you, one is swimming in seemingly obvious external yardsticks and potential markers of value--and utterly capable of doing so. It can be so seductive. And yet, when we do stand in the premise of being enough just because, just as we are, can't we then truly give what we are able to give? Maybe from there, the true gifts of who we are can arise. Seems like a paradox, and yet the world is full of 'seeming' paradoxes, so perhaps they are not. Thank you for sharing this part of the journey, Alex. 💫
Thank you for this deep and thoughtful comment Nadia! This is an incredible question to reflect on: "And yet, when we do stand in the premise of being enough just because, just as we are, can't we then truly give what we are able to give?"
For a long time after the above (which I hope to write about in the final instalment) I struggled with this, feeling like I wasn't allowed to be ambitious or care anymore, like I had to be a detached observer drifting through. But that also made me deeply discontent. But out of that something new has grown, curiosity and passion and this writing, so I think and hope that what you say is true, and that our true selves get space to come through once the dust settles.
You write so beautifully Alexander and reading these words, I can see how every part of who you thought you were was necessarily being stripped away for the 'true' you to be revealed. I've been in that place and it's terrifying, but as I emerge at the late(ish) age of 68, I can see why I needed to experience all that happened to me and I feel so different now. I'm enjoying reading your writing; have a great weekend.
Thank you so much for the wisdom and perspective. It is terrifying and dizzying, and by no means a linear path, but so necessary, and it helps knowing others have had similar journeys and experiences. Have a lovely weekend, thank you for reading!
I recognise a similar soul. It seems quite appropriate for you to take to life upon the sea in a sailboat - oh the complexities of Jonah! This land-lubber takes to walking on the beach. May all your days ahead have sunshine. ~A~
So many thoughts — most of all, I love your writing, Alex! Keep it up! :)
I had such a different experience going into science. It was much more of a random stumble…but the “validation” aspect was there as well. I hadn’t been looking for it before Cambridge. I just wanted to do something “cool”, interesting or different. Most of all, I wanted to go abroad. So when a professor said “Cambridge”, it just sounded like the obviously best choice, something unquestionable, and I guess that’s what I was looking for. A kind of certainty.
The thing for me was that once you’re at Cambridge, everywhere else looks like a step down. Even perfectly good, technically amazing institutes. And of course you feel like you’re always somewhat behind — yes, one paper came out after an endless intense slog, but there’ll always be all the prizes you didn’t win. And the people that did win them didn’t seem any happier either. I remember thinking in my PhD that I’d never seen a happy postdoc, and saying so, and nobody seemed to disagree.
I think as you say the system is exploitative of those that follow the most straightforward path, and it’s grown unbelievably to the point that the old “individual genius professor” system just can’t possibly lead anywhere good. It needs to be much more organised and built on teams and major projects and lifelong jobs, really. Instead, even “tenure” now means you’ll still get reviewed endlessly, and of course you won’t get it before you’re 50 and/or half-dead from overwork.
How what is essentially a creative profession ended up so ultra-competitive that it’s impossible to catch your breath and actually think about what you’re doing is kind of tragic. I guess we have management consultants to thank. The “comparison” aspect also means you’re comparing your own scientific “output” with people that can be one-dimensional and obsessive, and that might not take good care of themselves or their lives at all, and you’re measuring it in ways that don’t encourage unique or new ideas. That tension between the creativity and businesslike engineering and “output” really wasn’t for me.
A couple of weeks ago, I was travelling around Germany and saw that some 1800s professors like Röntgen and Bunsen actually lived in their “departments”. Röntgen’s was like a villa with lecture rooms and laboratories below and a fancy apartment on the upper floor, plus a full garden. He came from a rich and exploitative industrialist family and that might have been partly the source, but still — the idea was so vastly different. He spent five months of the year in the Alps and was still somehow some kind of superhero of science. Today, inconceivable — he’d have to be non-stop productive.
I hope some of these thoughts are interesting to somebody — I also ultimately got out and am so glad I did. I guess it’s clear I’m still grieving it to some extent. It feels like I can finally go at my own pace again, though, and set my own goals. Even if they’re only beautiful and meaningful to me, it seems like a much better starting point, even for something that might eventually matter to others.
All of what you say I agree with, some very apt observations about how toxic a lot of academia had become.
This is so true and such a telling indictment: "And the people that did win them didn’t seem any happier either. I remember thinking in my PhD that I’d never seen a happy postdoc, and saying so, and nobody seemed to disagree."
We all have an idea if what it means to be an academic based on stories throughout university of Röntgen and Darwin and others, but that just isn't an accurate idea, and those expectations also make the difference stand out.
In many respects, my PhD experience was quite different to yours, but nevertheless, I see so much of myself in this. Thank you for sharing with such honesty 🙏🌿
I see Nature having the answer... being the very thing we seek......every bird, insect, amphibian, mammal, fish, flora, tree, fungi...the list goes on and on.... microbes, protazoa and every single cell in the body, regardless of organ or form. They all have a "knowing" of their individual purpose, and they embody that which they are, and thus fulfil their purpose. We..and yes, Science has all sorts of empty explanations of their reason for existence, some plausible, some mindless devoid of any true comprehension!..... Nature has no need to vie for attention, to seek superiority through accolades. The spider who spins the most intricate web does not look to his neighbour and say...."Yeah Dude....your sides are way off by that branch...need to check your Pythagoras Thereum...talk to me when you do better!...."
I'm going to shut up now...
But I will say this...I love that your sailboat is called "Kismit"......that is no mistake!
It's a freeing realisation, that we are beings of earth as well, like all the other creatures. And like you say, it's easy to see that their purpose is self explanatory: it's in their mere existence, same as for us.
The boat being called Kismet is one of those perfect alignments in life. She has been called that since before I got her, and then I was given her just when I needed it.
If in your soul you are a scientist, you will always be a scientist....Kismet is your floating laboratory! No requirement for white coat , petri dishes and goggles here!
There is something about this similar to mountain climbing. If one is focussed on "the summit" then the terrain to get there becomes an obstacle, and the process of traversing it arduous.
Not reaching the summit feels like failure - despite the gorgeous views all along the way, and the delicious texture of the rock beneath your hands. Then - if you do reach the summit - there is always another one to climb that looks higher, or harder, or more alluring ....
As you have discovered though - life is the voyage, and the patch of sea or the port that you happen to be in today.
Tomorrow?
We will find out, when the sun rises, if we are there to see it.
Such an honest reflection, Alexander. You write beautifully. It can be so hard to separate our sense of worth from external validation, but I'm so glad you found your way to that distinction. What really struck me was how much you'd already achieved, yet still felt there was more to prove. That self-doubting voice can be so very cruel. I also found this line incredibly thought-provoking: ‘For all the great achievements in the world, all the innovation, how many souls are burned, fuel to the never-ending machine of constant progress, nothing ever enough?’. It made me think about how rarely we stop to ask what success has asked of the person who achieved it. Wishing you fair winds as you continue your journey. 💚
Thank you for your kind words! It's easy to lose perspective I think when you start comparing yourself and always trying to achieve more. I have seen it in interviews with people from all kinds of careers, weather it's earning money, musicians, actors etc. many fall into the pattern of proving your worth and nothing ever being enough. There is a healthy balance to be had I think but it's often a long way there.
This is such a profound question to ask and say yes to, it's the path to the soul: "Can you have value in absence of achievement?"
It's so important, and yet it had never crossed my mind before I was asked. Sometimes reflecting on new questions can really change our lives!
Well said. We are socialized to achieve and yet looking around at our world in crisis, what has it wrought?
Thank you for sharing this so honestly, Alexander. As someone who also completed a PhD and experienced burnout, I found so much to relate to here. The shift from seeking validation through achievement to discovering an inner sense of worth is such profound work, and it's becoming a central theme in my own writing too.
Thank you for putting words to a journey I know many of us share. Wishing you every encouragement as you continue finding your way. 💛✨
Thank you, Kim! I'm so glad this resonated and to hear that you have also been able to process and write about your experience with it. It's so deeply seated. I've noticed among many of my PhD friends, that they also struggled and burned out, but it wasn't something that was talked about. Sharing is so important!
Thank you so much, Alexander. I couldn't agree more. It seems far more common than many of us realize, yet for so long it felt like something we each carried quietly on our own. I'm grateful you've opened the conversation. I have a feeling your words will help many people feel a little less alone. 🙏 💛✨
Such kind words Kim, thank you. For this conversation and connection alone I'm glad I posted this. It's such a gift to be able to share these experiences, and if it helps anyone I'll be so grateful.
It really is a gift to share these experiences, isn't it? They remind us that we're not as alone as we sometimes feel.
It's been many years since I finished my Ph.D., but one thing I've come to recognize is that the pattern of burnout can quietly repeat itself in different forms later in life. I sometimes wonder whether years of jumping through hoops teach us a way of thinking and being that's much harder to unlearn than we realize. 💛✨
This is a beautiful and incredibly raw reflection, Alexander. Reading your words, it made me think that perhaps we shouldn’t look at the search for validation with such harsh eyes.
From the moment we are born, we seek it instinctively—the child constantly looking for approval and reassurance from their parents. It is inherent to who we are.
Exploration, curiosity, and the drive to be seen are what have brought humanity to this point. Striving is a form of growth, but perhaps the real turning point—the one you so beautifully describe looking at the mirror—is when that measurement of progress shifts from external applause to internal self-worth (autovaloración).
Thank you for laying your soul bare!
Thank you! This is such an interesting and important point. I also think it is inherent in us to seek community, acceptance and validation. Like you say, they are all part of who we are as a species, and I think judging ourselves too harshly for those human needs is also damaging.
It is complex being human sometimes, isn’t it? I don’t know how to balance it all sometimes, but the sense of internal self worth does a lot to complement the search for acceptance and connection/validation. Otherwise it becomes too hungry and overpowering perhaps!
So relatable, and so extremely refreshing! I can really relate to this- I dreamt of academia for a long time but eventually couldn’t disentangle my own genuine desires and passion for that career path from a need to prove my worth- so similar to what you wrote. It’s been a long internal struggle, I’m still working on figuring out what working toward other roads looks like now. Reading about someone with a similar experience who has taken the steps to pursue other things is so wonderful! Thanks for the candid writing!
Thank you for reading and sharing, it means a lot when writing connects! I'm glad this resonated. I still wonder exactly where the line is between my genuine interest in it and the desire to prove things. Despite having reflected deeply and written about it all, it's hard to know exactly. And I'm still figuring stuff out and learning, so very much relate to the path you're on, but where I am at now feels infinitely more honest and soulful so I think I'm doing something right!
I can definitely relate, the line is hard to find. But agreed being honest and vulnerable about it through writing is a major amount of progress. And helps others (me!!) in the same boat. So thank you!
This is such a difficult thing to notice (not find, but notice): recognising oneself as of value, inherently. Especially when, like you, one is swimming in seemingly obvious external yardsticks and potential markers of value--and utterly capable of doing so. It can be so seductive. And yet, when we do stand in the premise of being enough just because, just as we are, can't we then truly give what we are able to give? Maybe from there, the true gifts of who we are can arise. Seems like a paradox, and yet the world is full of 'seeming' paradoxes, so perhaps they are not. Thank you for sharing this part of the journey, Alex. 💫
Thank you for this deep and thoughtful comment Nadia! This is an incredible question to reflect on: "And yet, when we do stand in the premise of being enough just because, just as we are, can't we then truly give what we are able to give?"
For a long time after the above (which I hope to write about in the final instalment) I struggled with this, feeling like I wasn't allowed to be ambitious or care anymore, like I had to be a detached observer drifting through. But that also made me deeply discontent. But out of that something new has grown, curiosity and passion and this writing, so I think and hope that what you say is true, and that our true selves get space to come through once the dust settles.
You write so beautifully Alexander and reading these words, I can see how every part of who you thought you were was necessarily being stripped away for the 'true' you to be revealed. I've been in that place and it's terrifying, but as I emerge at the late(ish) age of 68, I can see why I needed to experience all that happened to me and I feel so different now. I'm enjoying reading your writing; have a great weekend.
Karen
Thank you so much for the wisdom and perspective. It is terrifying and dizzying, and by no means a linear path, but so necessary, and it helps knowing others have had similar journeys and experiences. Have a lovely weekend, thank you for reading!
I resonate with that moment you had of recognizing the amazing value of existence. And how miraculous it is to be composed of so many parts.
Thank you for the comment Erik, it was such an unexpected but important moment. Based in my experience as a scientist, but somehow beyond it also.
I recognise a similar soul. It seems quite appropriate for you to take to life upon the sea in a sailboat - oh the complexities of Jonah! This land-lubber takes to walking on the beach. May all your days ahead have sunshine. ~A~
Thank you 💙 there is something about the sea! In retrospect it seems almost inevitable it happened, but at the time it was anything but!
So many thoughts — most of all, I love your writing, Alex! Keep it up! :)
I had such a different experience going into science. It was much more of a random stumble…but the “validation” aspect was there as well. I hadn’t been looking for it before Cambridge. I just wanted to do something “cool”, interesting or different. Most of all, I wanted to go abroad. So when a professor said “Cambridge”, it just sounded like the obviously best choice, something unquestionable, and I guess that’s what I was looking for. A kind of certainty.
The thing for me was that once you’re at Cambridge, everywhere else looks like a step down. Even perfectly good, technically amazing institutes. And of course you feel like you’re always somewhat behind — yes, one paper came out after an endless intense slog, but there’ll always be all the prizes you didn’t win. And the people that did win them didn’t seem any happier either. I remember thinking in my PhD that I’d never seen a happy postdoc, and saying so, and nobody seemed to disagree.
I think as you say the system is exploitative of those that follow the most straightforward path, and it’s grown unbelievably to the point that the old “individual genius professor” system just can’t possibly lead anywhere good. It needs to be much more organised and built on teams and major projects and lifelong jobs, really. Instead, even “tenure” now means you’ll still get reviewed endlessly, and of course you won’t get it before you’re 50 and/or half-dead from overwork.
How what is essentially a creative profession ended up so ultra-competitive that it’s impossible to catch your breath and actually think about what you’re doing is kind of tragic. I guess we have management consultants to thank. The “comparison” aspect also means you’re comparing your own scientific “output” with people that can be one-dimensional and obsessive, and that might not take good care of themselves or their lives at all, and you’re measuring it in ways that don’t encourage unique or new ideas. That tension between the creativity and businesslike engineering and “output” really wasn’t for me.
A couple of weeks ago, I was travelling around Germany and saw that some 1800s professors like Röntgen and Bunsen actually lived in their “departments”. Röntgen’s was like a villa with lecture rooms and laboratories below and a fancy apartment on the upper floor, plus a full garden. He came from a rich and exploitative industrialist family and that might have been partly the source, but still — the idea was so vastly different. He spent five months of the year in the Alps and was still somehow some kind of superhero of science. Today, inconceivable — he’d have to be non-stop productive.
I hope some of these thoughts are interesting to somebody — I also ultimately got out and am so glad I did. I guess it’s clear I’m still grieving it to some extent. It feels like I can finally go at my own pace again, though, and set my own goals. Even if they’re only beautiful and meaningful to me, it seems like a much better starting point, even for something that might eventually matter to others.
Thank you so much Ben! :)
All of what you say I agree with, some very apt observations about how toxic a lot of academia had become.
This is so true and such a telling indictment: "And the people that did win them didn’t seem any happier either. I remember thinking in my PhD that I’d never seen a happy postdoc, and saying so, and nobody seemed to disagree."
We all have an idea if what it means to be an academic based on stories throughout university of Röntgen and Darwin and others, but that just isn't an accurate idea, and those expectations also make the difference stand out.
In many respects, my PhD experience was quite different to yours, but nevertheless, I see so much of myself in this. Thank you for sharing with such honesty 🙏🌿
Thank you! What was your PhD in if you don’t mind sharing?
I looked at autonomy and control in private instrumental teaching - so quite different to yours 😂
Brilliant! I love how different we all are. That's part of the beauty of it all :)
Would that everyone were so honest!
I see Nature having the answer... being the very thing we seek......every bird, insect, amphibian, mammal, fish, flora, tree, fungi...the list goes on and on.... microbes, protazoa and every single cell in the body, regardless of organ or form. They all have a "knowing" of their individual purpose, and they embody that which they are, and thus fulfil their purpose. We..and yes, Science has all sorts of empty explanations of their reason for existence, some plausible, some mindless devoid of any true comprehension!..... Nature has no need to vie for attention, to seek superiority through accolades. The spider who spins the most intricate web does not look to his neighbour and say...."Yeah Dude....your sides are way off by that branch...need to check your Pythagoras Thereum...talk to me when you do better!...."
I'm going to shut up now...
But I will say this...I love that your sailboat is called "Kismit"......that is no mistake!
It's a freeing realisation, that we are beings of earth as well, like all the other creatures. And like you say, it's easy to see that their purpose is self explanatory: it's in their mere existence, same as for us.
The boat being called Kismet is one of those perfect alignments in life. She has been called that since before I got her, and then I was given her just when I needed it.
But of course she did !!
If in your soul you are a scientist, you will always be a scientist....Kismet is your floating laboratory! No requirement for white coat , petri dishes and goggles here!
Hi Alexander
The achievement is in the living...
There is something about this similar to mountain climbing. If one is focussed on "the summit" then the terrain to get there becomes an obstacle, and the process of traversing it arduous.
Not reaching the summit feels like failure - despite the gorgeous views all along the way, and the delicious texture of the rock beneath your hands. Then - if you do reach the summit - there is always another one to climb that looks higher, or harder, or more alluring ....
As you have discovered though - life is the voyage, and the patch of sea or the port that you happen to be in today.
Tomorrow?
We will find out, when the sun rises, if we are there to see it.
Best Wishes - Dave :)