Posted on by Maseteditshego

Stop, take a breath and celebrate your achievements

If you think about it, people are achieving all time the time. They are just not always achieving ‘what they set their minds to’. This is so me! Go on and do this, then that, achieve! Achieve! Achieve! That is all I ever think. How about taking a second to just celebrate what I have already achieved? My greatest weakness is the inability to celebrate. When I obtained my honours degree, acing my mini-dissertation which has inspired my forthcoming journal paper, I could not celebrate. It felt like a very small achievement. I thought to myself, almost everyone has an honours degree these days, probably with a distinction too. I felt I needed to achieve more before I could pop a Champagne cork, pat myself at the back and celebrate.

I went on to register for my Master of Arts shortly after that. Get this, I aced my dissertation with a distinction. I do not want to give the impression that I cruised through the whole process, I would be lying. It was never a smooth ride. I spent sleepless nights in my supervisor’s office and the days in the library. I had moments of self-doubt, and emotional breakdowns. When I finally got my results that I had worked so hard towards, I still felt somewhat unfulfilled. I had the same feeling I got when I obtain my Honours. And I still could not celebrate.

My inability to celebrate has to do with my inability to acknowledge myself as a hard-working, persevering and determined student. Before I even graduated with my MA I got myself a job as a part-time lecturer at a university. Exciting, right? Given the state of the economy in the country currently, I should be celebrating, but oh boy, I am thinking about a permanent post. I keep telling myself that maybe my 5th journal paper, a PhD, NFR rating and a permanent job will be fulfilling and worth a celebration. Chances are when I do get all these, I will have my sights on something more. Perhaps, a professorship and being a head of a division or department at university perhaps.

The truth is I know for a fact I have achieved so much. However, because of the pictures I have created in my mind of what success is, I am unable to celebrate my actual milestone successes. Now I wonder, is that all there is to life? Is this an academic’s whole life? I can literally feel all the other aspects of my life suffering because of my inability to celebrate my successes which fuels the need to do more, cutting off the rest of my life. To do more in just one aspect – professional growth, while all the other aspects are suffering. Our lives are made up of bits and pieces, building blocks and these needs a proper balance.

I hope I do not become unfulfilled and depressed with a PhD, a permanent academic job and NRF rating. Really! I need to stop, take a deep breath, look where I came from and give myself a pat on the shoulders and, yes, a round of applause and perhaps even whisper into my own ears that, I am, as the urban youth would say “GOAT”- Greatest of All Time.

Posted on by Maseteditshego

Am I different? I am a post-grad student but also just a young person

I know a lot of you think that post-graduate students have it all figured out. They have everything under control. I used to think the same thing as well. But it is not the case. We do not have it all under control. I know for sure that I do not have it all figured out. My life is not as perfect as you would think. I don’t think anybody has a perfect life. I go through the motions of everyday life like any other 26-year-old guy. I would like to believe I grapple with all sorts of issues, problems, or challenges that other people my age have. These include issues with romance, economic independence, and so forth.  Today I am just going to share in passing my romance journey.

I have a grandmother who is in her late 70s. She is a typical grandmother with typical elderly comments every time I give a call or visit her. I last saw her recently during the Easter holidays and she asked me two questions that I did not know how to answer. The first was “where is your wife, or at least a lady friend”. The second was “and what about kids”.  These are the two most annoying questions, and I just cannot bring myself to tell her that romance-wise it is just not working out for me. I know if I say that she would probably say “it is because of the big books you are always reading and that computer you treasure so much”.

And that is the problem, romance is not working out for me. I do not think it is my fault though. I buy roses and chocolates, open the door for her, hold her hand in public and I always text “good morning/night”. I think of myself as modern gentleman, if there is such of course.  However, it seems there is always something I do wrong or just cannot get right. I am not sure if it’s the fact that I am 26-year-old man who sill watches WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) or there is something else. But then come to think of it, no woman can stand a 26-year-old man who still watches WWE and gets sad when his favourite wrestler loses a match. I am not sporty and WWE bridges that gap for me, but it is just a lot for her to understand.

My point is, there is nothing “different” when you are an academic. The truth is we are all still human. I feel what others feel. I do what others do. Do I go partying? Yeah, I do.  I also like paintball shooting and quad bike riding, it is super nice. Most of the time I enjoy the company of those who are not academics. It is in this company that I get to take off my academic helmet and engage in debates about what really affects us and how can our societal problems be addressed.  Most importantly I get in touch with the truth. Those who are not guided by academic code of conducts but are yet still morally upright always remind me that at the end of the day, I belong to a community of different people with different hopes, dreams, and aspirations. It reminds me that there is more to life than sitting on my laptop the whole day and thinking about academic conferences, journal publications and critical theories. It keeps me in touch with the fact that not everything can be solved through academic research and approaches and not everything is taught and theorised. All these reminds me that, we are all human at the end of the day.