Losing the joy – the love/hate nature of doing a PhD

I am currently in the final stages of doing my PhD; collecting final data and attempting to write up my monster baby of a thesis, and on an almost daily basis now I am facing the reality  of completing this project. It is a well known fact that a PhD is a marathon and not a sprint – and that you have to choose your subject really carefully because it will be, in essence, the ONLY thing that you think about for between 3 and 4 years.

Now I consider myself really lucky in the way that I came to do my PhD. I’m older, have worked in ‘the real world’ and had to leave a paying job (with an independent life) to come and do this, so it was not a spur of the moment decision. I had to think long and hard about whether it was right for me – could I really be happy turning 30, when back as a student at University again? I decided, yes, I could be happy – and what’s more not only did I want this challenge, but that it was the right challenge for me. And my subject was PERFECT.

I love my subject!

I love my subject. Like, really REALLY love it – I could spend all day talking about geology, and how people understand geology and how they talk to other people about geology. It’s inspiring and fascinating at the same time. It is the only subject that I could successfully do a PhD in, because to me it is (to paraphrase the Lego Movie):

‘The greatest, most interesting, most important subject of all times.’

From entertaintheidea.com

 But today, as with many days over the last year – I also hate it.

This is a difficult thing to admit to anyone other than another PhD student, because you are not supposed to hate your subject – not least because you have given up 3 years of your life to dedicate to it, but yes hatred is definitely the right word. I hate that I constantly feel that I haven’t done enough for my data, that they are sitting there judging me, saying ‘what have you been doing with your time?! You could have completed two independent analyses of these data in the time it’s taken you to do one!’. I hate the fear that I have gotten it wrong; not my interpretation of the data (which as a scientist I accept as part and parcel of doing research), but the analysis again – did some stupid mistake skew everything I have been doing?! I hate that I have so much time and so little. I hate that the subject is not cut and dried, there are no easy numerical answers with cognition.

The tricky thing is that a lot of the things I hate, are also some of the reasons why I keep coming back to loving this. I love that my data is constantly provoking new questions or I would be bored. I love the qualitative nature of the work and, although I don’t love it, I value that my work keeps me second guessing myself so that I don’t become complacent.

I guess what it boils down to is that on a good day, my love for my topic makes it really easy to throw everything that I have at this. I’m optimistic, driven and focused. But on a bad day I hate my PhD so much that I am barely able to look at my computer and writing anything becomes like pulling my nails out. I struggle with this dichotomy. Each day I’m pushing myself more and more to finish, to make it make sense, and remember why I started this. Some days, however, are better than others.

Thesis love/hate from PhDComics.com

What do you think? Has anyone else struggled with the PhD love/hate relationship, and how do you deal?

In a previous post I have spoken about the value of ‘leaning in’ to my work when I am frustrated, and I still stand by this, but now also I will add that when my hatred gets too burning, a chance of scenery helps. Not digital scenery, but actually getting up and out of the house.

So if you feel the hatred taking over, try a walk? And remember – there is life outside your PhD.