I do often struggle.
I fight severely to get my timeblocking and routines to work.
In all aspects of life.
Does it have anything to do with my PhD? I don't know. Probably not.
I can, with humble tones, say that working on a PhD is not easy. Yet, I don't want to blame my PhD for this.
Even though doing a PhD is traditionally a lot of struggle, science and research is that much of a thrill and excitement - that I somehow find it worth it.
Yet, there exist people like Bill Gates who never did a PhD. Some dropped out of college even just two years in, and are still succesfull. So there is nothing unique with having a PhD.
The unfortunate truth is that roughly a quarter of PhD students drop out. In some countries it is up to about half. I respect any decision on this topic, and I'm not even sure it is unfortunate to drop out - as there can be many reasons for why. And unless we have key insight, we often don't even have the information to know.
I can only speak of my own experience in my PhD journey.
In summary, I'm very lucky to have had people around me that support the work.
I'm not feeling alone in my PhD research and others researchers are very kind and supportive regarding my time. I'm very grateful for their support and compassion.
I decided to do a startup in parallel in the same period of starting a PhD.
In my own experience, doing a PhD while having a startup with 16 full time employees is not always easy.
And then I became a dad.
Becoming a dad to now a 5 month baby-boy doesn't make it easier.
Yet, because of the support of people I make it work out.
Yeah, in the end it is the people.
Having the people around you to support and provide guidance is the ultimate driver.
And I don't think this has anything to do with a PhD. A PhD is similar to a job in many regards. In any job we need the right people.
I'm lucky to have you in my life - you know you are. I'm grateful for our talks - from being brutally h0nest to each other.
For your kind words when I've been struggling and your words that have pulled me back up when I've been feeling down.
Life, tech, science and people is too much an excitement to not work with - thanks for being nerdy with me.