A colleague got shit on yesterday. Instead of flying off the deep end, instead of blaming the world, instead of tapping out, he decided things happen for a reason. I disagree with his "covered with shit" decisions, but he made me think.
I went to church tonight. It was an uplifting experience.
We started off with a hymn that contained the refrain "I want to be a worker... in the vineyard of the Lord." I want to work. I need work like oxygen. Work is the poor man's Prozac. But you have to do the work you love. It cannot just be a diversion from depression. It has to be fulfilling. It has to build and maintain your confidence. It has to be something you can do well. It has to be you.
The sermon had a two-pronged message. First, do not let the things that do not matter interfere with what matters. As Bruce Hornsby said, "job is to shed light, not to master." Just because a letter is missing does not mean something is of no value. Just because I am not going to be great, does not mean I should kill myself.
The second message (adapted for my audience) was everything is not an empirical question. Free trade is good. Subsides are wrong. That tariffs and subsidies exist says nothing. You cannot win an argument with statistics. Just because something exhibits a chance regularity pattern does not say anything about causation. Evidence cannot trump common sense.
Here is my Email to another colleague who was close to the shitted on colleague:
"The most successful people in academia are assholes. To be a good graduate student, you have to always put yourself first. It isn't about principles or intellectual integrity. It is about taking care of yourself and not worrying about what makes sense.
The only thing I have learned from economics is economists are not needed."
I believe everything I said in that Email. But that says nothing about what I should do. It says nothing about right and wrong.
Things happen, maybe for a reason, maybe not. But it is up to you to decide what to do after they happen.
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2 comments:
Here's my two cents: Things happen because you allowed them to happen. Nothing "just happens", everything is interrelated, the little things we do have consequences. Everything can be controlled; people can even run away from natural disasters with the use of science and technology. But there's no use blaming oneself for the misfortunes that arise. With a lot of faith in God and in oneself, every adversity will come to pass and a brighter day shall dawn.
What I am trying to say is it does not matter if things happen for a reason. I have spent too much time in my life looking for reasons. I have spent too much time trying to answer unanswerable questions.
There comes a time when you have to move with life.
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