I love what I do.
Research is hard. It takes time. It takes legwork. It takes patience.
It takes time: reading through an article just to get to the one nugget that is waiting tucked inside, ready to be unearthed and admired.
It takes legwork: chasing after one idea only to find that it is wrong or completely different from what you thought and unable to fit into your thesis.
It takes patience: waiting for a book to show up at the library through interlibrary loan, or trying to keep from losing your temper when jstor logs you out while you’re reading and you have to log back in and start turning at the beginning of the article to get to where you were reading near the end.
Research is fun. You learn. You absorb. You discover.
You learn: even if the article you happen to find has nothing to do with what you’re looking for, you can improve your mind in an area that you knew little about before.
You absorb: not every book you read is going to have exactly what you want on every page. The information you are looking for may be there, but in the meantime you can absorb everything else that the author has to say.
You discover: when you’re chasing information, sometimes you find the things you thought you would. Sometimes you find the opposite. And sometimes you find something amazing that you never expected.
I have the best job in the world.
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