Living Alongside Failure

As far as jobs go I think doing laboratory-based science is probably up near the top when ranked by difficulty. I'm not even talking about: 1) the working in the dark, 2) the infinitesimal probability of your hypothesis being correct, 3) the dangerous radiation and chemical exposures, 4) the unrealistic workload (teaching, supervising, grant writing, administrative obligations, managing all aspects of a lab, publishing papers, chasing after money ect), and 5) the constant hoops of that-was-great-but-what-have-you-done-lately? that you have to jump through constantly.

I'm actually talking about the difficulty associated with having to keep going when things don't work day after day. The uncertainty of not knowing where your research is going to lead or whether you are on the right track or not. I think it takes a lot of courage (or outright insanity) for a person to get back up off the floor over and over again. When the ego is involved it can be a crazy roller coaster ride: my experiment work/my data makes sense=I'm smart/worthy/great/tapped into the underlying workings of reality or, my experiment failed utterly/nothing make sense/I can't repeat anything=I suck/I'm stupid/I should just go work at Starbucks it would be easier. The science egoic roller coaster is exhausting and non-sustainable. Ask for your money back.

It is hard not to take it personally and not to feel like a failure. It's just as hard not to believe that you know everything, that you actually "understand what's going on". There is a high probability that you have no clue what's going on even when you think you do. You were just touching the tail and calling out "Tail!" when it was really an elephant. The super ego is just the other side of the I'm a failure coin.

Our society's ideas of success, the ones we were programmed to believe in are actually detrimental to a scientist's well being. "Just do it!" and "Be all that you can be!" makes us believe we are in full control of our destiny.That if we just worked and pushed hard enough we will ascend to the top and reap our just rewards.

I think a better approach, one where you will feel like you are "winning" more of the time, is to look inside yourself and ask yourself : Why are you doing this? Why this project? What exactly about it appeals to you? What makes you feel alive/good/excited/ interested when you read things and talk to your colleagues? Listen to the little voice inside that questions unusual things in the data. Notice the specific times that you feel the best when you are working. Focus on that. What you focus on will grow. If you start with a good seed, a positive and life-enriching foundation, then what comes from that will have a better chance of sustaining you instead of beating the spirit out of you.

There are many aspects to the day, other than the results of your experiment, that can be fulfilling and rewarding. If you really think about the things that get done in a week with a rational and non-ego driven mind you may find that the majority of what you did worked. A recent student came to me after a week. Her conclusion: Nothing worked. I had to remind her that she created three specific point mutations in a gene we were working on. In less than three days. Sometimes we forget to celebrate the truly amazing that happens on a daily basis. By doing that we blind ourselves to the enjoyment all around us just because we didn't get the miracle we were expecting.