Dare to escape the safety bubble

I was talking to one of my lecturer's yesterday while tutoring, and up came some crazy mention about this bare-knuckle boxing thing. It sounded painful as it is, and she described how she knew two friends from college who did it for a few months, punching walls to create micro-fractures that harden the bone.

For a while I actually thought she said they were punching micro-spikes (mini-versions of ice crampons), which would have been just as painful if not more...

Like really, you hear absurd stuff all the time. What would it take for you to beat the status quo?

Later at home that night, I was scrolling through my usual list FIRE blogs. Currently binge-reading millennial orientated ones, because well, I'd like to join the narcissistic club. Anyhow, I came across this blog post by Gwen from Fiery Millennials called "Thrashing the Early Retirement Threshold" which mentioned this threshold thing by a sociologist named Mark Granovetter.

This threshold is sort of like the "Tipping point" idea popularized by Malcolm Gladwell. We all have our personal beliefs, but whether we stay true to that belief is governed by some threshold. Different people have different thresholds, some people follow the mania easily, while others might sit on the sidelines screaming "No, no, no!!!" until their peers persuade them in.

Remember Pokemon Go?

Going back to that conversation with my lecturer, she said that Pokemon Go was the 'killer app' for Augmented Reality (AR). Before that, tough luck for anyone trying to talk people into funding AR.

So why is it important to understand this threshold?

Crossing that threshold it seems, typically requires a critical mass of people. Unconventional people who are more open to experience, let's call them high-O, have a low threshold. I'm one of those people (4 on a scale of 1-5) actually!

It doesn't take much for me to be accepting of new ideas. Travelling is my thing, and yes, exploring new frontiers does come with risks, but there are also rewards out there to be found. Granted, not everyone is willing to take risks, but what of the risk of not taking any risk?

Interesting how sticking to a stable, well known path can sometimes be damaging. Maybe it's not actually that, maybe it's just that we're not as prepared for surprises if things turn out the wrong way.

Somewhere in our conversation, my lecturer asked what I was going to do after my PhD. I said: "Oh, maybe go into academia". Just putting it out there, since I almost have to state that as an option right?

The nice thing about an academic job, or tenure is how stable it is. Compared that to a roughly equivalent 'permanent' job in industry (and I say this from personal experience) where you can be laid off by your boss, or the company falls over, or gets acquired, or whatever. Sure, tenure isn't exactly set in stone. Universities hardly go down (unless there's an earthquake), but that's not to say your department might close, or all of your students are scared away by your high assignment expectations.

She did give me a tip though, and it almost goes without saying: "Publish". Now this was one of those strange recommendations, where you're vouching something, but you know that given the choice, you wouldn't actually advocate for it. It all comes down to the "Publish or Perish" pressure academics face, where quantity is favoured over quality.

Is there a way around it? Well, it depends what your research field is in, but yes, there is a movement of sorts to combat this. Suffice to say I might need to write a whole other blog post to cover this "Publish or Perish" topic.

"Oh, maybe I'll start a business". She laughed, and I chuckled too. The funny thing is, that was actually a serious option I had considered just two months ago. Again, another topic for another blog post.

Towards the end of our short conversation (really, it was like five minutes), I mentioned how finding a niche seemed crucial. She also said that timing was an important factor. Really, there are too many confounding variables and scenarios that can happen in life, that one simply cannot account for. I might be at the top of my niche by the end of my PhD, but will the world have moved on to some other hot topic?

Does it come down to luck then?

Hah, a scientist resorting to plain ol' luck?! No way, I'm sure there is a way to graduate and find myself doing something I enjoy.

It comes down to having a Plan A, B, C, ..., X, Y, Z. E.g. Academia, Be my own boss, Corporate job...

There are traditional routes, and unconventional pathways. I joke sometimes that no matter what job I get into, I'll be facing the computer screen anyway.

Long gone is the lifetime career where you work forty odd years until retirement. What I haven't alluded to my lecturer is how I've got plans to take the extreme opposite of that last sentence.

What if there was a way to gain your independence early? What if you don't have to be tied into a broken system?

Dare you escape from your bubble?