Yes, you are right, ‘bore’ is the word-you-are-not-supposed-to-speak-out-loud when doing research. Why? Because if you bring it on your tongue, people think you are incapable, inefficient, fickle-minded and simply stupid. They think that you are just giving a reason of getting out of the situation instead of facing it. Well, screw them!!
Are you bored out of your skull doing “research”?
Are you the one who has no clue what you are doing?
JOIN THE CLUB!!
Is this the club for failures, you say?
NO
This club my friend is for all those fan-tastic people who are looking for diversity, energy and freedom from boredom!
It all started from a dream, right? A dream to be a scholar, a researcher; a dream for standing out in the vast community of research. So what went down? Here’s a guess, you woke up! “Research is amazing, requires concentration, hard work blah blah, its an honourable path” that’s what they said. But nobody warned that it would be exhausting, too-much-time-consuming and yes, BORING!!
But everything that has a beginning has an end, so let’s end this in a fun way. Let’s build this straight road into a roller-coaster ride. Here’s what you can do (what I did):
1. Attend Comic-Con (or any other not-so-boring event)
We researchers are asked to attend conferences, it’s our duty to be up-to-date with discoveries in our field. Of course the whole research will turn into a big yawn! If you feel obligated to attend such events then go ahead, who’s stopping you? But once in a while, try something new like Comic-Con. Watch all the comic characters coming alive! Red robin hood, Cinderella, prince charming, he-man, avengers, ghosts! Hell, you can even be one of those! Events like these are as refreshing as they sound to be!
2. Fight your ‘boring’ head
Can you really do that? Well, why the hell not? If you are doing research then it means that you have already earned the path to reach this phase. Now YOU deserve to go out! YOU deserve to sit on the couch on a beach with a drink in one hand and watch whatever-the-hell-you-wanna-watch on a beach! Go for night-outs, call your friends in the middle of the night, you can even fight with your parents to let go. Fight your boring head, it’s all about a change.
3. Destroy the robot of research!
One thing about research is that you are free. You have time, place, resources and your ‘mind’. But what most of us do is restrict ourselves; we make our own web, our own rules. “You have to work 5 hours a day”, “You can’t go out”, “You can’t get sick”, “You have to build a positive relation with your guide”, “You need to complete your dissertation within 1 year”. Well, these are important, yes, but are they really necessary rules? No. If you do your research, thinking about it as work, then you will turn into a robot, a robot following the orders of research. The truth is that you are stuck, and doing ‘research’ is not helping. So let’s get this one thing straight, the only rule for doing research is that there is NO RULE. Do your research but don’t make it your life. You get stuck? You feel bored? Get a professional help! Don’t think about ethics. If it’s a problem, then just solve it. Destroy that robot in your head and start breathing research-control-free air.
4. Off the ‘prove-mode’, On the ‘casual-mode’
Let’s get one thing straight, you do-what-you-do for yourself. If you keep on trying to prove your worth to someone else then, it would be a waste of time. There will always be someone or something that you would wanna prove. So are you just gonna try too hard? OR get out of those self-made boundaries and be what you wanna be. Conduct your research, bad or good, do it if you like it, and not for someone else. After all, this is not your life, but a part of it. Have you ever tried ‘being blank’ and ‘not worried’? No? Then do it now, it can be fun!
I hope that this post helped you in some way, and if it didn’t? Then please don’t sue me!
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