Saturday, May 07, 2022

You Only Live Once

On this period of my life, I don't like to work on weekends. I used to do it when I was an undergraduate student, when I was a postgraduate student and when I was a posdoc. Then, I enjoyed it and I felt productive and I was passionate about my work. As time passes by, as I am always on the tightrope, as I get older, working on weekends is a dead end. Passion sort of vanishes with uncertainty. 

Sometimes, like today, I find it annoying and unnecessary. As I was jogging earlier in the morning, sort of waking up to this Saturday, with my eyes sort of closed to the shining sun, with my ears listening to Mark Lanegan's voice, I tried to not think about working on weekend, but, as I ran and ran and got exhausted and my mouth went dry, all my thoughts focused on the things I have to do today. 

Perhaps, my reluctance to work today has to do with the fact that I am in a bad mood. I will have to work on a review paper. I started to writing it by myself about half a year ago. Then, in December, in holidays, I finished and I sent it to the Principal Investigators I work with. It was really a though time. My future was uncertain. My contract ended in January. I was not so enthusiastic, but I finished the review paper. I received no feedback from PI's in the last five months. Now, they want me to start all over again. I see their point, but I'm in a bad mood. 

As The Strokes say (and many many musicians before them): we only have one life. 

What do you do with your time?

On the last days I've been watching again some random episodes of Breaking Bad. It's one of my favorite TV Series of all time. The dialogues are awesome. I saw an episode in which Mr. White tells Pinkman how he discovered, at a very old age, his true passion. He says something like “You discovered it at a very early age, and I sort of envy you”. 

I wonder what do I do with my time? Am I doing it right? Am I wasting my time?

I love to write since I was a kid. I love to read since I was a kid. And I have a PhD in which some of my duties imply to write; not literature, but scientific papers. And it is fun. I also have to teach neuroscience to undergrad students. And it is fun, too. But, sometimes, students are so apathetic. And I have no brain to read and to write about myself.


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