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.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Flow at the Bench
My non-science friends think I'm crazy but I go into the lab on the weekends. Early in the morning before my three children wake up. Sometimes for a couple of hours or even 15 minutes to put on an antibody. It makes things easier for me and things get done faster. The effort doesn't feel proportional to the time spent there and I think this is because there is a sort of flow that happens with experiments.
Things seem to work out best, with least effort if they keep moving. If I don't freeze the samples and think I'm going to finish the experiment in a couple of weeks or if I don't let that blot dry out thinking I'm going to re-probe later.
When the whole experiment gets done in a couple of days it almost always seems to work. If things are left too long I need to play catch-up or make some ridiculous effort to get a result.
It's better for me to move through an entire experiment even if that means coming in on the weekends and then take a break after it is done. Work and then rest.
I believe the flow at the bench is is part of the flow that the Taoist's talk about. The more you are flowing with things the more effortless things will become. It feels like experiments have an energy, momentum, and life of their own and when I'm in tune with that I can make things happen.
When I'm in the flow things are easier with a quiet quality about them. Sometimes when I'm splitting cells in the hood or doing a routine assay I feel like I am floating in water suspended waiting-almost hovering above things. When I'm in the flow I can see all that needs to be done, when it needs to be done, with multiple experiments going on simultaneously and it feels clear and obvious.
When I'm not in the flow the cells are too confluent, the microscope is screwed, there is a missing reagent, I forget my keycard and can't get into building. Everything is hard and nothing works out. When I'm out of the flow I step back and gather myself. Get back to basics, throw out the cells, re-read the protocol, re-make the reagents, read some papers, take a day off.
Sometimes I see students or post-docs moving frantically through their experiments. The craziness is often driven by the fact that nothing is working and they can't repeat anything. I've been their myself. The thought is that if you just work harder something is bound to work out eventually and you will get out of the mess you are in but I don't think that works very well. The energy is scattered and your mind is not thinking clearly. I think it is better to try and ground yourself and go back to basic principles.
Something Benjamin Hoff wrote in his book The Te of Piglet really captures what I mean about basic principles.
"Observed, deduce, and Apply. Watch what is around you-putting aside, as best you can, previous conceptions that you and others might have about it. Ideally look at it as if you were seeing it for the first time. Mentally reduce it to its basic elements-"See simplicity in complexity", as Lao-tse put it. Use intuition as well as logic in order to understand what you see (a vital difference between the Whole Reasoner and the Left-Brained Technician). Look for connections between one thing and another-notice patterns and relationships. Study the natural laws you see operating through them. Then work with those laws, applying the smallest possible amount of interference and effort, in order to learn more and achieve whatever you need to- and no more."
I try and remember this when things get hairy and it gets hairy pretty quickly and fairly often here at the bench.
Things seem to work out best, with least effort if they keep moving. If I don't freeze the samples and think I'm going to finish the experiment in a couple of weeks or if I don't let that blot dry out thinking I'm going to re-probe later.
When the whole experiment gets done in a couple of days it almost always seems to work. If things are left too long I need to play catch-up or make some ridiculous effort to get a result.
It's better for me to move through an entire experiment even if that means coming in on the weekends and then take a break after it is done. Work and then rest.
I believe the flow at the bench is is part of the flow that the Taoist's talk about. The more you are flowing with things the more effortless things will become. It feels like experiments have an energy, momentum, and life of their own and when I'm in tune with that I can make things happen.
When I'm in the flow things are easier with a quiet quality about them. Sometimes when I'm splitting cells in the hood or doing a routine assay I feel like I am floating in water suspended waiting-almost hovering above things. When I'm in the flow I can see all that needs to be done, when it needs to be done, with multiple experiments going on simultaneously and it feels clear and obvious.
When I'm not in the flow the cells are too confluent, the microscope is screwed, there is a missing reagent, I forget my keycard and can't get into building. Everything is hard and nothing works out. When I'm out of the flow I step back and gather myself. Get back to basics, throw out the cells, re-read the protocol, re-make the reagents, read some papers, take a day off.
Sometimes I see students or post-docs moving frantically through their experiments. The craziness is often driven by the fact that nothing is working and they can't repeat anything. I've been their myself. The thought is that if you just work harder something is bound to work out eventually and you will get out of the mess you are in but I don't think that works very well. The energy is scattered and your mind is not thinking clearly. I think it is better to try and ground yourself and go back to basic principles.
Something Benjamin Hoff wrote in his book The Te of Piglet really captures what I mean about basic principles.
"Observed, deduce, and Apply. Watch what is around you-putting aside, as best you can, previous conceptions that you and others might have about it. Ideally look at it as if you were seeing it for the first time. Mentally reduce it to its basic elements-"See simplicity in complexity", as Lao-tse put it. Use intuition as well as logic in order to understand what you see (a vital difference between the Whole Reasoner and the Left-Brained Technician). Look for connections between one thing and another-notice patterns and relationships. Study the natural laws you see operating through them. Then work with those laws, applying the smallest possible amount of interference and effort, in order to learn more and achieve whatever you need to- and no more."
I try and remember this when things get hairy and it gets hairy pretty quickly and fairly often here at the bench.
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