contrast

There are so many things in my life right now that make me exceptionally happy I am alive. Today while at the grocery store I ran into a couple, one a post-doc, the other a lab tech, I know from my graduate school career, which threw just how much better my life is now into sharp relief. I walked away from our brief conversation about PI's and other academic people with the strong reaffirmation that, for me at least, all the misery is just not worth it. Terrors for PIs, failed experiments, long hours, lack of job satisfaction, never seeing any good come out of excruciating painstaking work...not worth it. I'll take high quality of life over a few more letters after my name any day.

It's been about a year since I bottomed out. Three since I moved to Texas. Grad school got me to Austin, and thus is the reason for so many of the wonderful things I appreciate so much. I wonder though if I shouldn't have realized earlier just how miserable I truly was. Then again, hindsight is always clearer.