What Do YOU Think?
The below email was originally sent to numerous friends and respectables on 7/28/2004 11:53 am. I have since decided to go to graduate school. I have been accepted and hope to start this fall. I had to rearrange my thoughts and realize that to think of this as an investment with a financial return, I would get nowhere (that is a partial truth - I will explain later). What I have come to terms with is that I keep asking this question because it is what I really want to do. In my gut. I can keep asking for it, but I am not going to find the sound proof that will tell me, yes, it is what you should do, for these specific reasons. You will be better off financially. That has never been the reason why I've wanted to go. I think that when you keep coming back to the same question in your life, it is because you have not yet answered it right (you can quote me on that...I think that's a good one to remember). So, now I am answering it right and going to school. I think this is what "following your gut" is all about.
7/28/2004 11:53 am
I happen to be, for the 100th time, considering graduate school, and very close to filling out an application for real this time...when I read this excellent article:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0411/fkoerner.php
And it returns me to the very reason why I keep hesitating to go to grad school...why this is the 100th time I have considered it, and also the 100th time, I've said, "to heck with that!". It's the money. The money it will take, and the money I will/won't make when I finish.
Before you decide I'm being shallow, keep reading.
Education should be about bettering myself, I know, and getting closer to the type of career I really want. I know. It should.
Except that too many people I know do not end up working in the careers they went to school for because those careers do not enable them to make ends meet. Not because those people lost interest in their goals or suddenly became shallow.
I continually try to remind myself of what the point of education is, before the money part of it got involved. (I hear in some countries, it's free to be educated!) I even pretend it is free, then ask myself to make a decision, if that were the case. But the reality is that the average salary with an M.A. in Psych Counseling is, unjustly, less than what I make now.
Should that matter if that is what I really want to do? So I try to look past that and remind myself that this is NOT a financial investment...if I look at it that way, of course, it will seem bleak. I must look at it as an investment in my goals, happiness, and satisfaction in my ability to help others.
But should I be working so hard to convince myself of this greater goal when it will turn out to be really hard to help others...if I am struggling to get by myself?
My gut and my heart tell me to go for it, because since I was quite young, I wanted to help people and do counseling. My head tells me to forget school, keep working, and do volunteer work IF i can find time to fill the void left by not doing what I wish I was doing.
Even if you skim through this article, do read the readers' responses at the end:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0411/fkoerner.php
If anyone can provide comment to me, one way or the other, I'd love to hear it before I fill out any applications -- for another job VERSUS graduate school.
"Self-preservation is a full-time occupation." ~ Ani Difranco
7/28/2004 11:53 am
I happen to be, for the 100th time, considering graduate school, and very close to filling out an application for real this time...when I read this excellent article:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0411/fkoerner.php
And it returns me to the very reason why I keep hesitating to go to grad school...why this is the 100th time I have considered it, and also the 100th time, I've said, "to heck with that!". It's the money. The money it will take, and the money I will/won't make when I finish.
Before you decide I'm being shallow, keep reading.
Education should be about bettering myself, I know, and getting closer to the type of career I really want. I know. It should.
Except that too many people I know do not end up working in the careers they went to school for because those careers do not enable them to make ends meet. Not because those people lost interest in their goals or suddenly became shallow.
I continually try to remind myself of what the point of education is, before the money part of it got involved. (I hear in some countries, it's free to be educated!) I even pretend it is free, then ask myself to make a decision, if that were the case. But the reality is that the average salary with an M.A. in Psych Counseling is, unjustly, less than what I make now.
Should that matter if that is what I really want to do? So I try to look past that and remind myself that this is NOT a financial investment...if I look at it that way, of course, it will seem bleak. I must look at it as an investment in my goals, happiness, and satisfaction in my ability to help others.
But should I be working so hard to convince myself of this greater goal when it will turn out to be really hard to help others...if I am struggling to get by myself?
My gut and my heart tell me to go for it, because since I was quite young, I wanted to help people and do counseling. My head tells me to forget school, keep working, and do volunteer work IF i can find time to fill the void left by not doing what I wish I was doing.
Even if you skim through this article, do read the readers' responses at the end:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0411/fkoerner.php
If anyone can provide comment to me, one way or the other, I'd love to hear it before I fill out any applications -- for another job VERSUS graduate school.
"Self-preservation is a full-time occupation." ~ Ani Difranco
posted by me. at 9:26 AM
2 Comments:
You know that "they've" recently discovered that the gut has neurons of its own. So does the heart. This means that your gut and your heart do independent "thinking" in their own neural network. In fact, "they've" found that the gut's reactions (a gut feeling) becomes active moments BEFORE an event actually takes place. Gut feelings have sort of a pre-ceptive quality about them.
hey! that is really cool. I've been interesting in reading Malcolm Gladwell's new book "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" for a couple months now. I keep picking it up and putting it down. But in a note I wrote to myself, reminding myself to read that book sometime and so I'd remember what the book was (probably) about, I wrote "Blink -- about following your gut"
So, I think it's fascinating to learn that studies are showing "thinking" taking place in your gut. And Gladwell's book is probably based on these new findings. Or these studies were perpetuated by the interest in his book.
In any case, I think it's great. The idea is that your gut gets a feeling, and knows the answer, before your mind does. When we say, follow your gut, it's because your gut feeling is always right and if you wait until your mind starts solving the problem or answering the question, you don't have as clean of an answer as what was provided by your gut.
Maybe when the question hits your gut, it's clean with no confusing factors. Your gut makes an instictive, correct response.
Maybe, by the time your question reaches your brain, other factors have had time to influence and muddle the question, and thus by then, the answer is not based on a good clean question, and the answer is not as correct and instictive as it would be in your gut.
I'm learning more and more to follow my gut, and it's a really freeing feeling to know that you don't have to do all this work to answer questions.
Just like we know, "down deep" right from wrong. We know the answers to the other questions in our lives, too. Deep down, we just do.
Thanks for your comment.
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