On growth

Lights out Alice!

A poem from the book Have a little Faith resonated quite a bit and I felt like noting it here. Page 176.

I walked a mile with Pleasure;

She chatted all the way;

But left me none the wiser

For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow,

And ne'er a word said she;

But, oh! The things I learned from her,

When Sorrow walked with me.

- Robert Browning Hamilton

What scares me currently Alice, is the fact that I have grown too complacent and ignorant, to the point where while having little to no knowledge on a subject, I claim to have beginner or even intermediate level understanding on it. The job is mundane and all over the place. Most of it is redundant and menial labour. Very rarely does it require use of a brain or any amount of thinking at all.

Every day I am losing track. Losing focus. Losing that mental acuity. I have become so lost in this vast open savannah of professional life that I am unable to move because I don't know which direction to head into. On one side, too many directions catch my fancy, be it data, analysis, operations or marketing analytics or even just plain brand marketing. On the other hand, I don't trust my gut because it is looking at it from an outside in perspective and would be equally unhappy if I put in the effort to get there and actually do.

This paralysis to begin is compounded by the fact that I know I will never be even remotely close to being good enough in any field, not even in the same hemisphere as the top mathematicians in the field. It hurts to know that I am not that good, but the procrastination that prevents me from putting the effort exponentially compounds the anguish.

I hope I get back on the right rack soon Alice!