Letter about modern-day academia / Pismo o akademski sferi, druga plat

Tokrat objavljam malo drugacen post. Pismo je bilo poslano vsem raziskovalcem in vodstvu univerze EPFL v Lausanni. Upam si trditi, da bi podobno bilo lahko napisano na večini univerz po svetu. K sreči lahko za večino spodaj omenjenih trditev rečem, da v mojem primeru ne držijo. Kakorkoli, pismo je namenjeno v razmislek vsem, ki delajo/delamo/so delali v akademskih vodah. Osebno avtorja ne poznam, poznam pa marsikoga, ki bi se verjetno z veseljem podpisal pod pismo, zato z veseljem objavljam, prilagam tudi originalen link do pisma.

http://crypto.junod.info/2013/09/09/an-aspiring-scientists-frustration-with-modern-day-academia-a-resignation/

This time I post something quite different. The letter, that was sent to all EPFL researchers (presumably) by a doctoral student during the week-end. It expresses feelings that are worth to think about. Luckily, I can say, that this is not my case. Personally, I don't know the author, but I do know the cases like following. If you are or have been in the academic world, I think it is worth to invest 10 minutes to read this text. Link to original post is attached above.

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Dear EPFL,

I am writing to state that, after four years of hard but enjoyable PhD work at this school, I am planning to quit my thesis in January, just a few months shy of completion. Originally, this was a letter that was intended only for my advisors. However, as I prepared to write it I realized that the message here may be pertinent to anyone involved in research across the entire EPFL, and so have extended its range just a bit. Specifically, this is intended for graduate students, postdocs, senior researchers, and professors, as well as for the people at the highest tiers of the school’s management. To those who have gotten this and are not in those groups, I apologize for the spam.

While I could give a multitude of reasons for leaving my studies – some more concrete, others more abstract – the essential motivation stems from my personal conclusion that I’ve lost faith in today’s academia as being something that brings a positive benefit to the world/societies we live in. Rather, I’m starting to think of it as a big money vacuum that takes in grants and spits out nebulous results, fueled by people whose main concerns are not to advance knowledge and to effect positive change, though they may talk of such things, but to build their CVs and to propel/maintain their careers. But more on that later.

Before continuing, I want to be very clear about two things. First, not everything that I will say here is from my personal firsthand experience. Much is also based on conversations I’ve had with my peers, outside the EPFL and in, and reflects their experiences in addition to my own. Second, any negative statements that I make in this letter should not be taken to heart by all of its readers. It is not my intention to demonize anyone, nor to target specific individuals. I will add that, both here and elsewhere, I have met some excellent people and would not – not in a hundred years – dare accuse them of what I wrote in the previous paragraph. However, my fear and suspicion is that these people are few, and that all but the most successful ones are being marginalized by a system that, feeding on our innate human weaknesses, is quickly getting out of control.

I don’t know how many of the PhD students reading this entered their PhD programs with the desire to actually *learn* and to somehow contribute to science in a positive manner. Personally, I did.  If you did, too, then you’ve probably shared at least some of the frustrations that I’m going to describe next.

(1) Academia: It’s Not Science, It’s Business

I’m going to start with the supposition that the goal of “science” is to search for truth, to improve our understanding of the universe around us, and to somehow use this understanding to move the world towards a better tomorrow. At least, this is the propaganda that we’ve often been fed while still young, and this is generally the propaganda that universities that do research use to put themselves on lofty moral ground, to decorate their websites, and to recruit naïve youngsters like myself.

I’m also going to suppose that in order to find truth, the basic prerequisite is that you, as a researcher, have to be brutally honest – first and foremost, with yourself and about the quality of your own work. Here one immediately encounters a contradiction, as such honesty appears to have a very minor role in many people’s agendas. Very quickly after your initiation in the academic world, you learn that being “too honest” about your work is a bad thing and that stating your research’s shortcomings “too openly” is a big faux pas. Instead, you are taught to “sell” your work, to worry about your “image”, and to be strategic in your vocabulary and where you use it. Preference is given to good presentation over good content – a priority that, though understandable at times, has now gone overboard. The “evil” kind of networking (see, e.g.,http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/networking-good-vs-evil/) seems to be openly encouraged. With so many business-esque things to worry about, it’s actually surprising that *any* scientific research still gets done these days. Or perhaps not, since it’s precisely the naïve PhDs, still new to the ropes, who do almost all of it.

(2) Academia: Work Hard, Young Padawan, So That One Day You Too May Manage!

I sometimes find it both funny and frightening that the majority of the world’s academic research is actually being done by people like me, who don’t even have a PhD degree. Many advisors, whom you would expect to truly be pushing science forward with their decades of experience, do surprisingly little and only appear to manage the PhD students, who slave away on papers that their advisors then put their names on as a sort of “fee” for having taken the time to read the document (sometimes, in particularly desperate cases, they may even try to steal first authorship). Rarely do I hear of advisors who actually go through their students’ work in full rigor and detail, with many apparently having adopted the “if it looks fine, we can submit it for publication” approach.

Apart from feeling the gross unfairness of the whole thing – the students, who do the real work, are paid/rewarded amazingly little, while those who manage it, however superficially, are paid/rewarded amazingly much – the PhD student is often left wondering if they are only doing science now so that they may themselves manage later. The worst is when a PhD who wants to stay in academia accepts this and begins to play on the other side of the table. Every PhD student reading this will inevitably know someone unlucky enough to have fallen upon an advisor who has accepted this sort of management and is now inflicting it on their own students – forcing them to write paper after paper and to work ridiculous hours so that the advisor may advance his/her career or, as if often the case, obtain tenure. This is unacceptable and needs to stop. And yet as I write this I am reminded of how EPFL has instituted its own tenure-track system not too long ago.

(3) Academia: The Backwards Mentality

A very saddening aspect of the whole academic system is the amount of self-deception that goes on, which is a “skill” that many new recruits are forced to master early on… or perish. As many PhD students don’t truly get to choose their research topic, they are forced to adopt what their advisors do and to do “something original” on it that could one day be turned into a thesis. This is all fine and good when the topic is genuinely interesting and carries a lot of potential. Personally, I was lucky to have this be the case for me, but I also know enough people who, after being given their topic, realized that the research direction was of marginal importance and not as interesting as it was hyped up by their advisor to be.

This seems to leave the student with a nasty ultimatum. Clearly, simply telling the advisor that the research is not promising/original does not work – the advisor has already invested too much of his time, reputation, and career into the topic and will not be convinced by someone half his age that he’s made a mistake. If the student insists, he/she will be labeled as “stubborn” and, if the insisting is too strong, may not be able to obtain the PhD. The alternative, however unpleasant, is to lie to yourself and to find arguments that you’re morally comfortable with that somehow convince you that what you’re doing has important scientific value. For those for whom obtaining a PhD is a *must* (usually for financial reasons), the choice, however tragic, is obvious.

The real problem is that this habit can easily carry over into one’s postgraduate studies, until the student themselves becomes like the professor, with the backwards mentality of “it is important because I’ve spent too many years working on it”.

(4) Academia: Where Originality Will Hurt You

The good, healthy mentality would naturally be to work on research that we believe is important. Unfortunately, most such research is challenging and difficult to publish, and the current publish-or-perish system makes it difficult to put bread on the table while working on problems that require at least ten years of labor before you can report even the most preliminary results. Worse yet, the results may not be understood, which, in some cases, is tantamount to them being rejected by the academic community. I acknowledge that this is difficult, and ultimately cannot criticize the people who choose not to pursue such “risky” problems.

Ideally, the academic system would encourage those people who are already well established and trusted to pursue these challenges, and I’m sure that some already do. However, I cannot help but get the impression that the majority of us are avoiding the real issues and pursuing minor, easy problems that we know can be solved and published. The result is a gigantic literature full of marginal/repetitive contributions. This, however, is not necessarily a bad thing if it’s a good CV that you’re after.

(5) Academia: The Black Hole of Bandwagon Research

Indeed, writing lots of papers of questionable value about a given popular topic seems to be a very good way to advance your academic career these days. The advantages are clear: there is no need to convince anyone that the topic is pertinent and you are very likely to be cited more since more people are likely to work on similar things. This will, in turn, raise your impact factor and will help to establish you as a credible researcher, regardless of whether your work is actually good/important or not. It also establishes a sort of stable network, where you pat other (equally opportunistic) researchers on the back while they pat away at yours.

Unfortunately, not only does this lead to quantity over quality, but many researchers, having grown dependent on the bandwagon, then need to find ways to keep it alive even when the field begins to stagnate. The results are usually disastrous. Either the researchers begin to think up of creative but completely absurd extensions of their methods to applications for which they are not appropriate, or they attempt to suppress other researchers who propose more original alternatives (usually, they do both). This, in turn, discourages new researchers from pursuing original alternatives and encourages them to join the bandwagon, which, though founded on a good idea, has now stagnated and is maintained by nothing but the pure will of the community that has become dependent on it. It becomes a giant, money-wasting mess.

(6) Academia: Statistics Galore!

“Professors with papers are like children,” a professor once told me. And, indeed, there seems to exist an unhealthy obsession among academics regarding their numbers of citations, impact factors, and numbers of publications. This leads to all sorts of nonsense, such as academics making “strategic citations”, writing “anonymous” peer reviews where they encourage the authors of the reviewed paper to cite their work, and gently trying to tell their colleagues about their recent work at conferences or other networking events or sometimes even trying to slip each other their papers with a “I’ll-read-yours-if-you-read-mine” wink and nod. No one, when asked if they care about their citations, will ever admit to it, and yet these same people will still know the numbers by heart. I admit that I’ve been there before, and hate myself for it.

At the EPFL, the dean sends us an e-mail every year saying how the school is doing in the rankings, and we are usually told that we are doing well. I always ask myself what the point of these e-mails is. Why should it matter to a scientist if his institution is ranked tenth or eleventh by such and such committee? Is it to boost our already overblown egos? Wouldn’t it be nicer for the dean to send us an annual report showing how EPFL’s work is affecting the world, or how it has contributed to resolving certain important problems? Instead, we get these stupid numbers that tell us what universities we can look down on and what universities we need to surpass.

(7) Academia: The Violent Land of Giant Egos

I often wonder if many people in academia come from insecure childhoods where they were never the strongest or the most popular among their peers, and, having studied more than their peers, are now out for revenge. I suspect that yes, since it is the only explanation I can give to explain why certain researchers attack, in the bad way, other researchers’ work. Perhaps the most common manifestation of this is via peer reviews, where these people abuse their anonymity to tell you, in no ambiguous terms, that you are an idiot and that your work isn’t worth a pile of dung. Occasionally, some have the gall to do the same during conferences, though I’ve yet to witness this latter manifestation personally.

More than once I’ve heard leading researchers in different fields refer to other methods with such beautiful descriptions as “garbage” or “trash”, sometimes even extending these qualifiers to pioneering methods whose only crime is that they are several decades old and which, as scientists, we ought to respect as a man respects his elders. Sometimes, these people will take a break from saying bad things about people in their own fields and turn their attention to other domains – engineering academics, for example, will sometimes make fun of the research done in the humanities, ridiculing it as ludicrous and inconsequential, as if what they did was more important.

(8) Academia: The Greatest Trick It Ever Pulled was Convincing the World That It was Necessary

Perhaps the most crucial, piercing question that the people in academia should ask themselves is this: “Are we really needed?” Year after year, the system takes in tons of money via all sorts of grants. Much of this money then goes to pay underpaid and underappreciated PhD students who, with or without the help of their advisors, produce some results. In many cases, these results are incomprehensible to all except a small circle, which makes their value difficult to evaluate in any sort of objective manner. In some rare cases, the incomprehensibility is actually justified – the result may be very powerful but may, for example, require a lot of mathematical development that you really do need a PhD to understand. In many cases, however, the result, though requiring a lot of very cool math, is close to useless in application.

This is fine, because real progress is slow. What’s bothersome, however, is how long a purely theoretical result can be milked for grants before the researchers decide to produce something practically useful. Worse yet, there often does not appear to be a strong urge for people in academia to go and apply their result, even when this becomes possible, which most likely stems from the fear of failure – you are morally comfortable researching your method as long as it works in theory, but nothing would hurt more than to try to apply it and to learn that it doesn’t work in reality. No one likes to publish papers which show how their method fails (although, from a scientific perspective, they’re obliged to).

These are just some examples of things that, from my humble perspective, are “wrong” with academia. Other people could probably add others, and we could go and write a book about it. The problem, as I see it, is that we are not doing very much to remedy these issues, and that a lot of people have already accepted that “true science” is simply an ideal that will inevitably disappear with the current system proceeding along as it is. As such, why risk our careers and reputations to fight for some noble cause that most of academia won’t really appreciate anyway?

I’m going to conclude this letter by saying that I don’t have a solution to these things. Leaving my PhD is certainly not a solution – it is merely a personal decision – and I don’t encourage other people to do anything of the sort. What I do encourage is some sort of awareness and responsibility. I think that there are many of us, certainly in my generation, who would like to see “academia” be synonymous with “science”. I know I would, but I’ve given up on this happening and so will pursue true science by some other path.

While there was a time when I thought that I would be proud to have the letters “PhD” after my name, this is unfortunately no longer the case. However, nothing can take away the knowledge that I’ve gained during these four years, and for that, EPFL, I remain eternally grateful.

My sincerest thanks for reading this far

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Naslednjič pa ponovno o čem bolj neposredno povezanim z naslovom bloga

lp, Uros

Tudi v Lizboni je lepo in potovanje kot način življenja

Pozivi, naj vendar odprem novo steklenico vina in spravim skupaj kakšno vrstico za blog se kar vrstijo, če dodam še slabo vreme tukaj med Alpami, mi kaj drugega res ne preostane. Rahlo melanholično razpoložen, kot vsakič po koncu potovanja ali izleta, sedim za računalnikom in razmišljam, kaj je pravzaprav tisto nekaj tako privlačnega v tem, ki me ves čas vleče v nove kraje, med nove ljudi, v druge kulture.

Lao Tzu, eden izmed utemeljiteljev taoizma, je zapisal: “If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.” In mislim, da je ravno to tisto, kar dobim na potovanjih, krajših in daljših. Med potovanjem se ni težko prepustiti toku, samo uživati v občutkih, ki jih imaš, ko hodiš po ulicah, v hrani, ki jo tam jedo, v opazovanju ljudi, ki tam živijo. Seveda, predvsem tudi v lepih razgledih, ki jih ponuja pokrajina in vsem lepem, kar je mogoče tam videti in doživeti. To je v tistem trenutku edino, kar okupira moje misli. In počutim se super, mirno, brez vsakodnevnih skrbi, enostavno odklopim. 

Prav ti občutki so tisto, od česar človek postane na nek način zasvojen. To je razlog, da se moje življenje v splošnem deli na obdobja, ko potujem in obdobja, ko se pripravljam na potovanja. No, da ne pretiravam, tudi v vsakodnevnem ritmu se da te občutke dobiti, le precej bolj zahtevno je zaradi takih in drugačnih obveznosti. Pa da se vrnem še na tisti bolj konkreten del sestavka, o mojih občutkih po zadnjem izletu.

Lizbona je drugačna kot druge evropske prestolnice. Par stoletij nazaj eden izmed centrov sveta, polna blišča in bogastva, je danes na obrobju Evrope, ponosna na zgodovino in vendar precej odmaknjena in zapostavljena. Medtem, ko se trume turistov zgrinja v staro mestno jedro okoli glavnih znamenitosti, malce odmaknjene četrti živijo povsem svoj dnevni ritem, ki se obvezno začne z jutranjo kavo in lokalno specialiteto 'pastel de nata'. 

 

Pastel de nata

Rahla odmaknjenost naredi Lizbono tako pristno, tudi obiskovalcu prijazno. Mogoče prav zaradi tega, ker ogromno starih stavb, ki bi jih v marsikaterem mestu z veseljem kazali kot glavne znamenitost, ni obnovljenih in razpada, ljudje tam še vedno lahko živijo v normalnem ritmu, spijejo pivo po 1€ in si občasno privoščijo slastno pripravljen bacalhau (polenovka) po človeku prijaznem ceniku, medtem ko otroci brezskrbno brcajo žogo na starem trgu pred restavracijo. V primerljivi evropski prestolnici bi povpraševanje po takem ambientu vsekakor preseglo ponudbo, posledično bi se ceniki temu precej prilagodili, četrti pa bi izgubile svoj čar. 

Kot se verjetno že da sklepati po zgoraj napisanem so Portugalci ljudje, ki v življenju cenijo lepe trenutke in malenkosti, kar je vidno vsak večer, ko najdeš domačine v parkih na razglednih točkah zato, da bi uživali v sončnem zahodu in se potem skoraj rutinsko skupaj s prijatelji odpravili na pozno večerjo in pijačo v svoje najljubše restavracije in lokale v Bairro Altu. Kot se tam počne že stoletja in se verjetno še stoletja bo. Lizbona je vsekakor eno izmed tistih mest s šarmom, mesto, v katero se človek preprosto zaljubi in mesto, ki ti zleze pod kožo tako močno, da že preden ga zapustiš začneš razmišljati, kdaj se boš vrnil. 

Lep pozdrav izpod francoskih Alp

Uros

4 meseci v Franciji in tisto nekaj balkanskega…

Sedim v svoji mali sobici oblečen v belo spodnjo majico in zgornji del moje najnovejše svetleče-modre Bench trenirke, ki sem jo dobil za božično darilce (hvala Božiček), v ozadju se vrtijo počasni šansoni gospoda Bajage, na mizi me poleg računalnika gleda na pol prazna steklenica mojega najljubšega roseja Cotes-de-Provence. Ugotavljam, da so danes potekli točno štirje meseci, odkar sem zapustil mojo preljubo Slovenijo in začel delati/študirati v Grenoblu. Morda je trenutek primeren, da napišem kakšno besedo o tem, kaj sedaj razumem bolje, kako tukaj stvari tečejo, morda celo o tem, kako gledam na sebe, na Slovenijo in na Slovence v tem trenutku. 

Torej, kaj in kakšna je Francija? O tem, da je lepa in da ljudje znajo uživati v trenutku in malenkostih sem že pisal in od tega niti malo ne odstopam. Že cel januar (natančneje od 6. januarja dalje) jem skoraj dnevno La galette des rois, tradicionalno pecivo ob prazniku Epifanie, in upam, da bom končno dobil figurico skrito v enem kosu okrogle pite, kar bo pomenilo, da bom po izročilu celo naslednje leto kralj, tisti dan pa bi hodil okoli s papirnato krono na glavi, ki spada k pecivu. (tradicija je izjemno zanimiva tudi za otrokeJ ). V kolikor pride galette na mizo v večernem času, se obvezno postreže s kozarcem lokalnega Cidra.

La galette des rois

Morda lahko dodam morda kakšno vrstico na temo 'narediti se francoza' in kot pravijo angleži 'It's all french to me!'. Ljudje tukaj so prijazni, ne glede na to ali govoriš francosko ali ne. Pregovorno namerno nerazumevanje tujcev se mi ne zdi povsem na mestu, saj oni dejansko ne razumejo. Ne le, da izjemno slabo (seveda so izjeme) govorijo tuje jezike, tudi če tujec govori francosko, težko in redko ugotovijo, kaj hoče ta nekdo povedati. Enostavno to izhaja iz tega, da se da isto besedo naglasiti na vsaj tri različne načine in da se jo (z istim naglasom) lahko na tri različne načine tudi prebere, odvisno pač od tega, katera beseda pride za njo in pred njo. Francoska izgovarjava besed kar naenkrat postane hudo hudo komplicirana in francoščina kot jezik izjemno zahtevna, ne glede na to, da so napisane besede in slovnična pravila zelo podobna okoliškim jezikom (zgolj v opombo, francoščina je šesti jezik, s katerim se ukvarjam). Drugi faktor za njihovo nerazumevanje pa je prav gotovo zgodovinski. Nikoli se jim pač ni bilo treba zelo truditi z drugimi jeziki, do prve svetovne vojne (delno tudi kasneje) je bila francoščina prvi jezik tako diplomacije kot tudi književnosti, na kar so Francozi seveda zelo ponosni. Kakorkoli, vseeno je potrebno povedati, da je francoščina dejansko izjemno lep jezik, ki se ga je vsekakor v veliko veselje učiti. 

Vedno bolj se mi zdi zanimiv tudi pogled na Slovence in predvsem na stereotipe o nas. Zanimiv se mi zdi stereotip o pregovorno pridnih, delavnih in tihih Slovencih. Mislim, da je ključno predvsem vprašanje, kaj pod tem razumemo. Če bi imel v mislih čas, ki ga preživimo na delavnem mestu, se vsekakor ne moremo niti približno primerjati s kakšno zahodno-evropsko državo (upam, da me ne bo kdo, ki v Sloveniji cele dneve preživi v službi, stresel iz hlač). V Franciji se dela vsaj do šeste ure zvečer, velikokrat celo še dlje (govorim v povprečju), podobne izkušnje sem dobil v Nemčiji, severno od tu se verjetno dela še precej več. Vemo, kakšen je delavnik v Sloveniji. Nekaj doda tudi miselnost, ki se je v prejšnjem sistemu dodobra zakoreninila in pravi 'do dveh/treh sem v službi, potem grem pa lahko domov kaj narediti' in delo enači s tistim, kar se naredi doma, okoli hiše. Mislim, da se ne zmotim, če rečem, da smo glede tega dejansko kar pridni. 

Naša pregovorna pridnost in marljivost izhaja po mojem mnenju tudi iz tega, da smo se vedno primerjali z drugimi republikami v bivši državi, ki v splošnem pri Slovencih in primerjavah nimajo prav pozitivnega prizvoka. Morda ne povsem pošteno. Moje mnenje je, da smo drugim 'balkancem' bistveno bolj podobni, kot si želimo priznati. Mislim tudi, da smo na to lahko celo zelo ponosni. Morda je to zgolj moje mnenje, ampak kombinacija tistega melanholično slovanskega v nas in tistega živega brezkompromisnega balkanskega s kančkom germanske natančnosti, to je tisto, kar smo. In priznam, da sem ta del sebe začel opazovati in ceniti šele sedaj, ko sem daleč stran od vsega tega. In ponosen sem na to. Kot pravi moj dragi prijatelj: »V vsakem je mal bosanca«. Mislim celo, da je to tisto, kar drugi na nas vidijo. Jasno, če govorimo o znanosti ali poslu je važno, kaj se na koncu pokaže in kako dober si, po drugi strani pa tudi še nisem naletel na nikogar, ki ne bi bil navdušen nad balkansko gostoljubnostjo in odprtostjo (in Slovence štejem med balkance). Vse te zgoraj naštete stvari so v življenju še kako pomembne. To so navsezadnje ključni faktorji medčloveških odnosov in ti odnosi so osnova za življenje v okolju, ne glede na to, kje smo in kaj počnemo. 

Kaj sem torej dobil v štirih mesecih in kaj razumem bolje? Vsekakor bolje razumem, kdo sem in od kje prihajam. Z vsemi plusi in minusi, ki jih to prinese s seboj. V polni meri to tudi sprejemam. Druga in ključna stvar teh parih mesecev pa je vsekakor sama izkušnja življenja stran od vsega udobnega. Baje se pravo življenje začne, ko prestopiš mejo udobnega. Tu mislim predvsem živeti brez prijateljev, družine, poznanega sistema in jezika, skratka živeti sam, pri tem pa se naučiti premagovati najrazličnejša čustva, se pri vsem tem opazovati, na koncu vleči lekcijo za lekcijo in pri vsem skupaj še uživati. Mislim, da mi kot 'gastarbajterju' v šumeči trenirki ne gre slabo. 

Če je en sam občutek, ki bi ga moral izpostaviti, je to vsekakor občutek biti neskončno živ. Vsekakor občutek, od katerega postaneš odvisen in te žene, da iz sebe potegneš tisto najbolje, ki je redko tisto najbolj udobno. Ker veš, da je to edino, kar ti ostane, veš, da pri nekaterih odločitvah pač nimaš izbire. Če že pišem o sebi, je prav, da povem tudi, da sem izredno vesel, da vas blog zanima. Vesel sem vsakega vašega odziva, tudi jaz z veseljem poslušam, kaj se dogaja z vami, dragi moji. Se slišimo, morda celo vidimo kmalu, do takrat pa vse dobro in lep pozdrav iz Grenobla.

Uroš

Grenoble ponoči

Pot je cilj

Kar pomeni, da smo ves čas na cilju. Ali ves čas na poti do cilja. Odvisno, s katere strani pogledaš. Sama ideja doseganja ciljev, ne zaradi ciljev samih, marveč zaradi izkušenj, ki jih na poti dobimo, ljudi, ki jih na poti spoznamo in nam do cilja pomagajo, truda, ki ga moramo v to vložiti, se mi zdi zelo privlačna. Če karikiram z avtomobilom. Avtomobil, ki si ga kupimo po več mesecih želja in odrekanja cenimo bistveno bolj, kot tistega, za katerega se nam ni treba potruditi (pa mi je precej vseeno za vozni park). 

Logično je, da ravno od ciljev, ki si jih zastavimo visoko, dobimo največ, saj se moramo za njih potruditi najbolj oz. doživeti največ. Na tem mestu ne mislim zgoraj omenjenih odrekanj pri nakupu avtomobila, pač pa predvsem izkušnje, ki jih prej nismo imeli. Zanimivo je tudi, da se ljudje največ naučimo ravno iz negativnih izkušenj, predvsem, če smo sposobni te vzorce opaziti in jih preučiti. Tako nam včasih celo uspe, da gremo na led samo enkrat. Naslednjič, v podobni situaciji smo (v najboljšem primeru) sposobni prepoznati svoje občutke, vemo, zakaj do njih prihaja in tudi vemo, da bodo ali minili ali se zavedamo kam peljejo. Na nek način jih razelektrimo, zmanjšamo jim intenziteto in s tem vpliv na naš notranji mir, k kateremu naj bi stremeli. Teoretično. Praktično se lahko znajdemo tudi v začaranem krogu napak in poskusov, ki lahko traja in traja in traja.

Vseeno nimamo druge možnosti, kot da poskušamo dalje in se učimo na napakah. Vse to nas nekako žene naprej. Doseči želene cilje, narediti čim manj napak in se v križiščih odločiti za pravo pot, ki pelje naprej in ne na dodaten krog po obvoznici, kjer poznamo vse filme na poti že na pamet. Dobro je včasih tudi prepoznati križišče in tam napraviti odločitev, če vidimo samo eno pot, potem smo že na začarani obvoznici. Opisano pot po začaranih krogih in križiščih se da razumeti tudi kot igro, verjetno je tako lažje, po navadi nismo preveč razočarani, če pri igranju kart potegnemo napačno potezo in pri tem vemo, da imamo možnosti, da to popravimo v naslednji potezi. In vedno dobimo nove in nove možnosti, sicer bi se ta svet nehal vrteti. 

Pot k cilju je torej že cilj, ne glede koliko ovinkov in krogov po obvoznici je potrebno narediti. In več, ko si zastavimo, več lahko dobimo, ne glede na to ali na koncu res pridemo do tja kamor smo si zastavili ali kam povsem drugam. Randy Pausch (umrl 2008) v svojem Time Management (toplo priporočam poslušanje) pravi, da če imamo prioritete in cilje, jih lahko spreminjamo in prilagajamo potrebam, če jih nimamo, ne moremo spremeniti nič. In tip ve o čem govori, zdravniki so mu namreč diagnosticirali rakavo tkivo in mu napovedali 3-6 mesecev dobrega zdravja. Kako srečni smo lahko, da imamo zdravje in vse možnosti na dosegu roke. Občutek minljivosti je zelo povezan z občutkom hvaležnosti za vse kar imamo in kar bomo še lahko imeli. Velikokrat se tega povsem premalo zavedamo.

Randy Pausch: Time Management

Vse zgoraj omenjene teze se morda še veliko bolj kot k materialnim, kariernim, lokacijskim ciljem ipd. nanašajo na cilje, kaj hočemo postati, kakšni hočemo biti. Ne poznam nikogar, ki si ne bi želel postati dober, pošten in srečen, na nek način izpopolnjen. Kakor se sliši skrajno preprosto, vemo, da niti približno ni tako. Veliko težje je zaviti v križišču stran z obvoznice, na pot, ki jo ne poznamo, ki nam prinaša strah, negotovost, nove napake pa tudi upanje. Upanje, da je to pot, ki nas bo naredila boljše, močnejše, na koncu morda celo srečne, bodisi že na tej poti ali pa nekaj križišč kasneje. In to je vse kar potrebujemo. Upanje, srečo in veselje, da lahko hodimo po novih poteh, odkrivamo nove dele sebe in postajamo boljši. Prav to vam vsem želim v novem letu. Poguma pri odločitvah, za katere čutite nekje v sebi, da so prave, neomejene količine upanja, volje do iskanja novih križišč in seveda obilico ljubezni do sveta in soljudi. Konec koncev ni lepšega kot nekoga iskreno ljubiti in biti iskreno ljubljen. 

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