Trusting versus Planning, Or: A trip down job market lane

Over the years I have spent a great deal of time worrying about and making friends with my impulse to plan. I realized I wasn't alone while sitting on a panel today for people who went on the job market this year. We were supposed to provide information about our experiences to people who wanted to know how to get a job.

I very much know the desire to have everything on a checklist, neatly ordered in my excel spreadsheet, and color-coded by due date. In fact, I specialized in operations in business school because I liked planning so much. I wanted to understand how to make everything run as smoothly as possible, with contingencies in place for every eventuality. I planned for a career in it. (A career that I didn't end up taking, it turns out).

The trouble with planning is that it relies on the premise that we can somehow predict what will come, and then effectively handle it by preparing in advance. Implicit in this is the assumption that we will somehow be less able to handle it if we haven't planned... as if the power of a color-coded excel file can avert hurricanes or restore our body temperature to normal if we acquire hypothermia. And so, we read about creating five-year-plans in academia, (written by someone who left academia because she was unhappy), and think "oh no! I hadn't even thought to plan that far ahead!"

We wonder if we are ready for the job market, because we want to plan.

Two things happen:

1. We emphasize not our accomplishments, but our deficiencies "I don't have enough of X or Y." So whether you have an article in a top tier journal or whether you have a famous advisor who can write you a killer letter, you are likely to focus most on whichever is missing. And then we talk about back-up plans and side games and spend hours imagining what will happen if the worst actually happens. So that we can prepare for it.

2. We forget that our plans rarely work out as planned. Have I mentioned my first career yet? In Operations? Yeah. Also, I planned on finishing my master's thesis in one and a half years. I got a grant to do field work after my first year of school. I wrote an NSF proposal. I was on my way. I'd be out of here in five years total, I was sure.

After two and a half years, I began my second master's thesis, having declared my first one an utter failure. Yes, I started over. I was at the tail end of the curve of people completing their master's thesis among my cohort. Suddenly, I had to revise my goal of five years to graduation. Sadly, I thought, I'd never finish on time now.

Goals and deadlines are rarely built in the real world, or else they'd look like nested "if" statements. Deadlines for enormous tasks are like budgets: a good idea, but also difficult to stick to. Especially if you make less money than you need to, or especially if you have more to do than is humanly possible, or especially if something called life happens....which it often does when you are attempting something as massive as getting a Ph.D. Saying you'll write a paragraph before noon is not the same as being able to gauge whether or not you can finish even the chapter you're working on, in a way that you're happy with, by next week. The task is too big.

My unplanned garden, awaiting plants.

***

I know how reassuring it feels to have everything written on paper, so tangible and concrete and doable. The problem I have with living predominantly in that world is that it is completely unrealistic. Furthermore, it is driven by fear. It is driven by a sense that if we could just do everything right, that we might somehow be able to control our destinies---which is patently untrue.

Bad things happen anyway. And good ones do too. I'm still graduating in five years, it turns out. I somehow got my masters and Ph.D. basically in three years. In essence, my first two were devoted to coursework. I didn't get here because I planned out finishing in three years (who would EVER plan such a thing?) I'm not here because I wrote out what I would do every day or week or month. And even when I've tried to do such a thing, I have consistently failed. I didn't fail to make the plan, I mean I have consistently failed to get done what I thought I needed to get done when I was supposed to. (Who, for example, budgets in months without typing due to carpal tunnel?) And yet, ironically, I am still farther along than I ever could have dreamed.

My success was about hard work that happened to pay off. Sometimes your hard work doesn't pay off, and you can't help it. (I cringe when I think of the hours analyzing data for a master's thesis that still sits in a milk crate in my office). Yes, I'm smart. Yes, I work hard. Yes, looking at my track record, I'm probably pretty good at interviewing. But I didn't get my job because I worried about it more than other people. Or because I strategized about a dissertation topic that would land me a job. Or because I had a spreadsheet of all the best post-docs, and a road map for applying to them. I found something I love. I talked to people about my work because I was excited about it. My enthusiasm was far more important than my fear. My fear would have told me I wasn't ready. My fear would have kept me from even trying. My fear would have kept me sitting in my office constructing a color-coded spreadsheet, lamenting my lack of publications. Instead, it was love and happiness and joy that brought me to this job.

I don't know if there are "better" jobs out there. The compulsive part of my brain wants to scour the job ads to weigh the relative merits of positions. And yet, I know this one is perfect for me, right now. It's flexible in the ways I'd like it to be, and also seems supportive and nurturing. I know I will be mentored and given space to grow and thrive. And it happens to be at a great school, in a location where I have friends.

There are a lot of ways to get things done. And some planning is essential. You must do research to even find a job to apply for. And yet, consider perhaps that a great deal of planning does more harm than good. That it very possibly reinforces the fear parts of your thinking, especially given that the best laid plans so very consistently go awry. This can make you miserable.

Intentions conversely, such as a will to live a life you love, allow space for change and fluctuation. Intentions can remain effective even if you turn a chapter in late or your dream school doesn't hire you, because they are about something bigger, something more important. They are about doing what you love, and trusting that life will allow you to flourish.

So that is the one thing I wish we had talked about more today. Not how to plan, which we are all so good at. But how to trust. That is another way of getting somewhere, and one that is far less practiced and much, much gentler. This is perhaps best expressed by another academic, Kenji Yoshino's mother: "Don't think so hard," she said. "Life is not that simple."