Freestyle Week !5

This is a letter that I wrote to a friend of mine in Germany this morning who is also embarking on a career in physics. I decided that I wanted it to be one of my last entries on this blog because it sums up so well how I feel about school...about this first step.

Albert Einstein said, “People miss opportunities because they come dressed in overalls and look like work.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said that quote over and over to myself these last few weeks of school. It was so hard and I was so nervous that I chose a study that was above my potential. I thought that I would never get it and would be copying answers that I didn’t understand for my entire school career.

Here’s what I’ve learned since:

An important thing that a degree (or whatever you get from the schooling when you complete) says about and to us is that we can look that difficulty straight in the eye and do it anyway. It says that we can finish what we start and that the goal is more important than any of its difficult components.

It’s tough for everyone, even those that make it look so easy. When you are done with this chapter and move on to the next semester or whatever, (the further that you go the better your understanding) these pieces will make more sense and be tools in your belt.

I have heard a number of times that it doesn’t get more difficult. It’s the first part that weeds out all of the people that can’t face that test of mental and intellectual fortitude. The more tunneled your education gets, when we start studying astrophysics, it will all be interesting and less difficult. All this that we’re learning now will start to mesh in our understanding. We’ll likely have to keep looking stuff up for a long while to come. And that’s perfectly okay.

What we love requires work. You love it though it bites at you. It bites at me too but it isn’t going to scare me into not pursuing it. Just get through this hard part I tell myself. Just remember what it is you’re doing and look toward why. Imagine yourself working on a problem that might one day allow us to see something that we never imagined. That’s what we’re doing in school. We’re finishing to work at something that we love. And truly, it won’t get more difficult every semester. Once we prove ourselves through this, we’ll be rewarded with the opportunity to learn about what we really love and then to practice it AND get paid for it. Keep your sites on that.

It’s easy for me to say that safely on the other end of that first really difficult step but I told myself these things over and over again to get through that. And I will tell myself that until I reach the stage that allows me study what I love integrating all of these steps. Your understanding is solid. It’s just warped by the work. Do what you have to do to get through it. Study, take a lot of meditating breaks and push yourself until you complete what has to be completed, whatever you have to do to get there.

Then on your break have nothing to do with it except what gives you pleasure.

There certainly is a lot of talk about the way that we are educated and the way that it scares more than it encourages A lot of studies have been made into new ways to approach it that will invite more people and ideas and seem less daunting. I agree that it’s time for a change and maybe that is part of our purpose here. Maybe it won’t be different for us but maybe we can help in facilitating a change for tomorrow. It all ties together in my mind. It’s part of the strength that’s needed to get through it, strength of purpose that serves not only myself but others as well.

You have to feed and clothe and make comfortable your hearth. You have to earn a living. And if you have to sell your time, you should at least sell it to do something that you love. What you love, what you could do forever is what you’re working towards now. Stay the course. Let it work for you.

Just because you feel that you’re just copying the answers now and you’re burnt out and not learning anything, that is the way it happens. Weeks from now you’ll see that you understood a lot more than you thought.

Even if the passion for physics doesn’t seem enough… finish because of what it says about you and to you. Later, in deciding your next step you can review the possibilities.

Finish mostly because you started.