

How would you confirm if what you're doing is actually your Passion? - panjaro

After being an ordinary developer for 6 years, at age 30, I started Masters By Research. For those 6 years, I always wanted to check if research is really what I love to do.<p>I&#x27;m really struggling in the University courses. But I try hard these days and things are slowly making sense. I may not be getting better marks yet but my inner voice says &quot;I want to try again and again and again&quot;. Almost all of the time I think of the problems in class, about ways to get better at it. Instead of being lazy and sleeping in free time when I was developer, these days I wake up suddenly at night and start looking at the algorithms. 
However, research has consequences. I don&#x27;t think I will be a very good researcher and would be able to secure grants in future as others do because I do not have good academic record. But I have to make money because I started my life from scratch and have gone through a lot of financial hardship to get here.<p>Now, I&#x27;m not sure if research is really my passion and if I should go ahead or should I fall back to developer to live financially better life.<p>Has anyone gone through this situation?
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rogeryu
You could find out what motivates you. Look at the SIMA method, or find
something similar. And realize this method may not work 100%, but it should
give you good directions.

[http://www.amazon.com/Power-Uniqueness-The-Arthur-
Miller/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Power-Uniqueness-The-Arthur-
Miller/dp/0310242886)

Based on the idea that every person is endowed from birth with a unique
pattern of competencies and motivations, or giftedness, this book describes
your Motivated Abilities Pattern (MAP), which indicates your personal
giftedness and encourages you to pursue your unique calling and live a
purposeful life that is highly productive and richly satisfying. Formerly
titled Why You Can't Be Anything You Want to Be.

~~~
dalke
That sounds like BS, but I haven't read the book.

Was Knuth 'endowed from birth' with the motivation to work in computer
science? If so, what happened to all of the similarly endowed people from the
1100?

In '20000 Leagues Under the Seas', Ned Land was 'King of the Harpooners', with
no equal to his trade. Stubb, from 'Moby Dick' was a gifted whaler. They are
of course fictional, but here's a real-life reference,
[http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40316513?uid=3738984&u...](http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40316513?uid=3738984&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21106825288173)
, quoted through Google as:

> Tessuin, a uniquely gifted whaler who was actively sought by competing
> companies that wanted him to work for them ..

The actual book uses the lines "expert harpooner" and "renowned harpooner" to
describe Tessuin.

What are all those people born in land-locked Oklahoma in the last 50 years,
who are endowed from birth with competencies in whale harpooning, supposed to
do?

Based on the reviews, it appears that Miller believes that some sort of
supernatural force is at work to prevent this from happening. If one is
willing to believe in supernatural forces that intervene in the natural world,
than can't that be used to justify any action in this best of all possible
worlds?

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dalke
Passion is overrated. I've done passion. Passion doesn't care about you.
Sometimes the 'fire in the belly' is heartburn.

You do realize there are commercial developer positions where algorithms
development is important, yes? You don't need to return to the same job you
left.

And even inside of academic research programs, there are research programmers.
This is part of the support staff, and not in charge of securing grants;
though they may help with writing the grants.

Is there a graduate student adviser you can talk with about post-graduation
career plans?

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bobajeff
I've accidentally stumbled on this line of thought. Ask yourself a
hypothetical. If you had to sacrifice your life and well-being for it would
you still do it? If the price was unreasonable and ridiculas would you still
want it?

~~~
panjaro
I can feel that it makes me happy but makes my wife sad because I'm thinking
only about academic stuffs and not giving her time. I wouldn't want research
career at the cost of relationship.

