00:12
So you said you were bitter.
I haven't said that I'm bitter yet.
I said that please remind me if I am being bitter in a few years.
Ah, okay, right. Check in in a few years, right.
I could have completely turned sour, bitter, you know, whatever sort of negative place.
Maybe, maybe.
I actually do enjoy sour and bitter foods, so I don't necessarily think of them as particularly bad.
I think that's fair, yeah.
I like lemonade, I like coffee, you know, and I take my coffee almost always black.
No sugar, no milk.
So I think, yeah, I might have a pretty decent tolerance for those things.
But anyway, what I was saying about bitterness, and this happened in a conversation,
like a recent conversation with my friend who kind of complimented me saying that,
oh, it's so nice to see someone who is still very excited about your work,
or like what you want to do in your work.
I see, okay.
Most of my friends who didn't do PhD have been working for seven, eight years at this point after undergrad, right?
Of course, yeah.
They have way past this initial excitement phase.
They have maybe mentored a couple of people already.
Some of them are in directorial positions, right?
Or managerial positions.
And their relationship with work, their day job has also changed.
I feel like I'm still pretty like a naive little person who just finished her PhD,
freshly joining the workforce, everything is new, what have you.
And I do count my blessing that I've somehow found my niche and my training and my interests all lining up right now.
Not saying that it's going to be forever, but right now I'm pretty happy with all of those things lining up.
So when I was sharing my work problems or work science problems, they were like,
03:03
but you still sound really excited.
You sound like you haven't lost the joy in doing research.
And I'm super happy for you, was like the comment that my friend made.
I was like, wow, thanks, I guess, you know.
You seem confused by the...
I see their point of view immediately.
After working seven, eight years, maybe you've seen the less glamorous part of what you once thought was exciting,
interesting field or line of work, right?
And maybe you feel differently about it.
That's completely understandable.
And I think I am not free from that either.
Like, I think I'm not immune to that either.
I can experience that to any level in the next few years.
And I don't really know how my brain was working at the time, but my immediate reaction was like, thanks.
But it's also kind of your responsibility to keep that fire alive, like keep that joy alive.
I don't know why I blurted it out, right?
It was one of those typical Asami moment where what I thought has came first in the verbal form before I had a time to process.
And I was like, what did I just say?
I think I've heard you sort of express that same sentiment before.
So maybe it's always in my subconscious and like it just sometimes forms words.
And I don't think, I mean, you can have opinions about it.
I'm happy to take criticisms.
But I feel like I'm onto something with this.
Okay. All right.
For people listening, Len is taking notes and coming up with ways to rebuttal.
You told me to get prepared. I'm just getting prepared, you know.
And let me explain by your responsibility.
I'm not saying that like one person is wholly responsible for the enjoyment of your daily work.
There are many, many facets and aspects of working life that is hardly enjoyable.
And it's very easy to kind of lose the excitement or sort of be disillusioned.
06:04
And I think there are kind of two types of disillusionment.
And like one is like a good kind where you like see for what it is.
And you say, I want to do this more of it or I don't want to do more of this.
And like you have a better either vantage point or you have more knowledge to see for what it is,
which was previously maybe masked from you.
And then the other type of disillusionment is where you let your sort of daily grinds
and daily dealing with your stress and adulting and everything get in the way of what you once thought was exciting
and what used to get you like up in the morning.
And it's hard to judge which way, right?
And I'm talking and when I say you're responsible, I'm talking more of the latter.
I think many people who feel burnt out, part of it is just like them accidentally slipping into the lifestyle
where they don't protect that fire.
They just assume that that fire will forever never cease and that would keep happening.
But in fact, it's something that you need to nurture.
You need to proactively take care of that fire.
And you're now actually taking notes.
Oh, shit.
It felt like, continue.
I'm enjoying this.
I'm almost done.
I mean, I'm done.
Basically.
So I feel like there are things you can do if your intention is not want to lose the passion.
Right.
If your goal changes and if you no longer identify with that passion, that's fine.
Change it all you want.
Doesn't matter how long you've invested in this.
If you don't want to do it, don't do it.
Right.
But I feel like that should be treated separately from the kind of disillusionment that happens
because other things interfere with you.
That's all.
Okay.
Yeah.
I didn't want to interrupt you there.
End of TED Talk.
Oh, wait.
Hold on.
I'll send this recording off to TEDx right away.
I can get that out the door and be ready to go.
So, yeah, I was taking notes because I really appreciate the way that you were sort of describing
09:04
that.
I think there's a lot there.
And I think in particular, it shows me and probably listeners like a way of perceiving
a type of personal responsibility in that space.
Right.
The reason I took the notes is because I perhaps sit much more quickly on the side of people
will take responsibility or will take sort of the action.
They will choose to act and change things, but only if they're given the sort of tools
and the systems to hint back at systems talk a little while ago first.
Right.
If they see those, if they're given that essence, but then they recognize that something is
amiss.
Right.
They'll try to nurture or take care of that type of fire.
Right.
Like they know that they can.
I think it's when one becomes disillusioned without knowing that that exists.
You might not even notice that the fire is gone.
Right.
Like you're you're just like, but this is the way it is.
And now I'm stuck doing that.
And I don't know.
You might not even think that the other options are available.
You might.
Yeah.
You might be sort of trapped in this space.
I mean, a lot of people, including myself, to hint at things.
Right.
There was a trapping of things that built up over time and sometimes might have even
placed.
This is getting a little too outside of this, I think might have even placed a fire there
for you to nurture.
But it wasn't the fire that you wanted to nurture in the first place.
Oh, yeah.
Very, very, very possible.
Especially.
Yeah.
Especially if you're like the bright kid type.
Right.
Like a lot of other people saw so much potential in you and they wanted to project their dreams
and their hopes without really understanding that might actually be yours or not.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that that doesn't help.
Right.
Then it's you might even be able to see that.
Yeah.
You might be like, yes, this environment is awful.
Right.
As you're saying that it's just suddenly disillusioned.
All the stuff that I was here for is not what I want to be here for.
Right.
But if that's the only thing they've ever had, then that's kind of what I think locks
them in.
Right.
It locks in people, locks in us, because we're like, well, this is the thing I have.
And change can be scary and hard and scary.
And so.
Hard and scary and hard.
Hard and scary and hard.
Hard and scary and scary.
You said scary twice.
I think I said scary twice.
I'm fine with saying hard twice.
I feel like it doesn't matter.
Scary, hard, scary, hard, scary, hard, scary, hard.
12:01
You can make a hard and scary sandwich.
It doesn't matter.
The point is that like these these do have that.
Right.
So that's that's why I like when you described it, because, yes, when you turn around and
say, well, it's just a person's responsibility to make sure that you keep caring about it.
The implied tone from that does come across as like like, well, you should be taking responsibility
for this.
Right.
Right.
Right.
That sounds a bit more like a kind of toxic positivity type.
It's placing a lot of weight on that person, like coming at you to be like, wow, it's so
wonderful that you have this thing.
Right.
Like.
Hmm.
OK.
But it makes sense.
As you said, your inner brain was sort of, you know, working through these and some of
it came out.
It came out with the short form.
Right.
Of.
Yeah.
A person.
It skipped a lot of steps.
Yeah.
It skipped steps.
A person has a say in how they perceive and act like towards things.
That's a better way.
That's a better way to describe what I was trying to get at, I think.
It takes more time, though, to get at it like that.
Right.
So sometimes it just goes to the point.
I think what I should say from now on is that you have more control than you think there
is in keeping your fire alive.
Like.
Yeah, you're sort of like promoting their agency in some way.
Yeah.
Like you're like.
Because when you are stuck, when you are in a rut, you don't feel like you have that option
with you.
You don't feel like you can indeed protect that excitement from the outside world.
But you can.
And it's just like a reminder that that's possible.
Yeah.
This is this is Asami coming in to remind you that you have it inside of you all along.
I mean, at the end of the day, I have lived.
Yeah.
I mean, at the end of the day, I have lived so far in my 30 years of life being in Asami.
Privileged enough.
Right.
And protected enough in my environment that I can exercise my own agency for the most
part.
Yeah.
Yeah.
In fact, I was very much encouraged to do so from a young age thanks to my parents.
So I had a lot of practice of that and I continue to exercise that.
So it's not it's not a new skill that I needed to learn as an adult.
But I do realize that this is a skill and it can be practiced and it's not inherent
15:08
to me as a human being.
It's just that I was in a lucky situation where I got to practice that a lot.
And I was encouraged to do that.
And actually, up until very, very recently, like up until basically the end of PhD, I
think other people had more faith in me than I did to myself.
Sure.
I was always surprised to see and hear how much faith other people have in me.
Like, you know, everyone from my parents to my advisor to my lab mates, I was just
like floored sometimes.
I'm like, how?
How do you have any faith in me doing any of this?
But having done what I thought was one of the hardest things I've ever tried in my
life, which was to get through grad school, I have a little bit more faith in myself.
And therefore, I was like mildly frustrated hearing what my friends were saying, because
I see like I can see I have faith in him and his ability to do whatever the fuck he wants
to do.
But he felt like this is the only thing he was good at.
And therefore, he must stick with it.
And.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
I, I now now I do see, I think that frustration.
I'm glad that you mentioned that.
That's you're sitting there.
You're like, I know, because I see what other people saw in me that I could do this
thing.
And I see in you that you can do this thing.
Why are you not doing it right?
If it would, if it would.
And I think this is still from the outsider's perspective, right?
Like if it would make you feel, quote unquote, better.
I think there's another layer there when it comes to like people and the individual
perspective.
Sometimes it would.
Sometimes that push would or even could make that change.
Then there's also some level of acceptance people come to.
And the fact that like, well, I'm good at this thing and like maybe nothing else.
I mean, it's hard to drop that, right?
You, you do get a much higher skill and comfort level.
If you make that change that yes, you might be able to do.
The question becomes, do you really want to go through those steps to do it?
Because there lies uncertainty and discomfort and maybe more than what you're
experiencing.
Some sense of safety.
And, you know, that's going to be threatened by trying anything new.
Yep.
So, yeah.
18:03
That was an interesting sort of deep dive.
Thanks for letting me blur it out because I realized that I was like thinking
out loud a lot this episode.
And I think I've arrived to the conclusion that I didn't think I was going to
land.
That's it for the show today.
Thanks for listening and find us on X at Eigo de Science.
That is E-I-G-O-D-E-S-C-I-E-N-C.
See you next time.
