This post I guess has been a long time coming, basically hit it’s zenith and then subsided. About a month ago I had serious doubts within the PhD, around whether I was ‘good enough’ to complete. The majority of doubt focused around completing what I had perceived to be an easy task of implementing a ‘simple’ algorithm. This turned into three weeks of nothing. Breakthrough occured on what was supposedly a three day break in Marseille – before a 12 day conference schedule in Avignon (AGILE) and Amsterdam (WhereCampEU).
It would be fair to say I’d hit the lowest point of the PhD then. It was a sequential thought process, if I can’t do this simple thing, how am I prepared for the harder things later. Doubt set in, and the analysis was concluded in that I should quit. Then the break through came and all was good, confidence restored. I then read ‘The Valley Of Shit‘ a blog about going through the same thing; “Valleys lead to somewhere else – if you can but walk for long enough. Unfortunately the Valley of Shit can feel endless because you are surrounded by towering walls of brown stuff which block your view of the beautiful landscape beyond.”
Anyhow, I feel out of the valley now. All is good.
Written and submitted from Coffee Company, Amsterdam, Netherlands (52.371554,4.896772)
Good to hear you’re out of the valley. I hope you wiped your shoes.