Wasted Time and Muddled Journeys
This post is about hindsight and the stories we tell ourselves when we finally arrive at the place we’ve been working so hard to find.
We can be hard on ourselves when we finally realize a long-deferred dream, and, instead of celebrating our ultimate triumph, we say things like “if only I had done X sooner, this would have happened years ago.” As an Early Career Academic, you might feel this when you finally finish your degree, get a job, reach tenure (ha), etc. It’s hard not to look back on how long it might have taken you (especially if it was longer than others peoples’ timelines) and feel like you wasted so much time getting to that point. Well, I’m here to say that you should try telling yourself a different story - a more complete story about your journey. Zoom in on that timeline a little bit so that you realize you were very likely doing everything you could with the resources and information you had to reach your goal.
Take my current pregnancy as an example. I got married in early 2017, but my spouse and I didn’t start trying until after I finished my dissertation (one baby at a time was my logic). Starting in 2018, it took us four years to become pregnant with this baby. If I think about the sheer number of years it took, it feels like I could have done more to have children faster. In fact, I beat myself up for months after we finally reached success because, like many academic women, I am of “advanced maternal age” and had planned on having more than one child at this point. BUT when I look at the actual timeline and the decisions I made along the way, I can see clearly that I did the best I could to realize my dream of growing my family with the information and resources I had available to me.
Before I did this exercise, I forgot that our doctor counseled us to wait a year before undergoing diagnostic testing. I forgot that the foster application process took an entire year from start to finish (due somewhat to the Covid-19 pandemic). What many people don’t realize is that if you become pregnant during a foster or adoption application process, your process is suspended and because a lot of that process includes qualifications that expire (like a background check), you almost always have to start over from the beginning if your hopes are once again dashed (failed adoption, miscarriage, etc.). This cycle could have continued with more fits and starts along the way, but, thankfully, we got lucky. We suspect that what turned the tide in our favor was a completely (seemingly) unrelated surgery my husband had done a few months before we got pregnant the first time. Who knew? Certainly not any of the myriad of doctors we spoke to.
Our timeline doesn’t entirely reflect all the constraints of our journey toward parenthood (such as the laws in our county dictating that one must foster before one adopts or the prohibitive costs (for us) of just one IVF cycle ($20,000) and private adoption ($50,000)). It does, however, demonstrate that we did what we could with the information and resources we had. So even though I sometimes wish I was on baby #2 instead of baby #1, I can’t find fault with myself or my partner for the delay.
I did a similar exercise on my PhD journey, which did take longer than average, and came to a similar conclusion. Having zero funding, working full time, and facing a depressing job market absolutely delayed my PhD progress. But instead of kicking myself for all the other choices I could have made, I’ve decided to pat myself on the back for persevering in spite of all those constraints.
So if you’ve “arrived” at your goal and feel guilty for how long it took you or disappointed with the path, try to reframe it so that you don’t rob yourself of the joy you deserve for realizing your dream. If you haven’t yet “arrived” remember that all you can do is try your best with the knowledge that some day you’ll be past it (whether you arrive or not). As cliché as it sounds, there is value in the journey—-even one that feels like a soul-sucking slog toward the bog of eternal stench. You owe yourself the courtesy of looking back at your progress proudly regardless of the outcome.
What are some of the hindsight stories you tell yourself?