A comparison mindset and ADHD struggle
During my whole academic career—which includes the time I spent as a student from high school to doctorate, and now as a postdoctoral researcher—one of the problems I regularly struggled with is comparing myself to other people, especially to my colleagues. In high school, it used to be my classmates whom I was comparing with for getting better marks. I was very competitive, but I didn't know that I had ADHD. So, following others' league and being unaware of having a different type of mind, I made my own situation worse. Nevertheless, I survived high school due to my father's guidance, as he also had ADHD, and he knew how to deal with it.
Later in university, I tried to apply my father's advice again, but there were some limitations to his strategy. For instance, one trick was to learn by writing. This was a nice solution for my confused ADHD mind, but only when you have a less number of textbooks to read. In university, life was fast, and coursework was intense, so it was impossible to write down every single word of each book. So I struggled again. I was good in subjects where mathematics was required, but was bad where I needed to memorize stuff. However, an improvement in my situation came while working on a thesis for a master's degree and then for a PhD. My thesis supervisors taught me to never compare with others and to focus on doing good-quality research. Also, I should turn my focus toward having fun and doing physics rather than getting more results. These were life-changing lessons that kept me motivated enough to survive student life with some ups and some downs. In later years of my PhD, I almost forgot this comparing mindset, so I was excited for the future.
Sadly, after joining a new research group, this problem of comparison came back. Thanks to one colleague of mine whose main goal is publishing more articles in prestigious journals, and nothing more. He even calls his work shit. I, on the other hand, am trained to solve problems and to have fun in doing research, and not to be worried about where it will be published. All of my research projects were precious to me, and I am proud of my achievements. Usually, a good and novel research paper defaultly goes to a good peer-reviewed journal, so I never thought that way. Also a good research takes time, especially when it is not just computational work.
Alas, it's a common practice in most academic circles to focus on publishing faster and more, though not always in good journals. I do know that there are talented individuals—maybe my colleague is one of them—whose research output is very high, but they are not numerous. Most of the highly productive people I know are just average. So if the average ones try to follow a highly productive path, it could lead to problems. For example, this publishing competition can push people to do unethical things [1] because it can influence their career path—they can get good grants and a permanent position in universities. I even have a colleague from my master's degree, who recently got a permanent position at an IIT last year, and his research output is too good to be ethical.
No matter how good my research ethics are, people are still publishing better and more in number, while I am a slow turtle in this race. The long-gone comparison problem became stronger now because I know that soon I need to compete with these guys to get a position in Indian universities, which I think is going to be a hard task. The competition there is cutthroat, and a lot of candidates are applying for a very few available positions. Moreover, based on my previous experiences, I know that I am not very good at competitions. So I am doubtful that I will ever succeed there.
My power lies in sole exploration without doing any treasure hunt. My philosophy of life is also similar, that the fun is in the journey and not in the destination. That's how I survived with my ADHD brain. That's how I learnt to live a deep, meaningful life without being worried about productivity and the future. That's how I found some peace of mind.
I think from now on I should be more strict with myself in following my supervisors' advice, and stay away from these people. It will not guarantee any success, but it will give me peace of mind for sure, and that is what I needed the most.
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