Durrell, an ex-colleague who graduated a few years before I did, is still teaching here and there in Canada and the U.S in search of a full-time tenure position.
Olivia, an associate professor starting her teaching career at UCLA during my last year there, has been awarded a research fellowship, which funds a year’s leave, enables her to write her second book, & takes her to archives in Paris, Marseilles, Bordeaux, and Nantes. Her career is going to soar.
Where am I heading professionally? Staying local at all cost? Going for a stable teaching job at an institution with little or no research resource? Or taking the path of research with the risk of starving and the possibility of landing on something prestigious? I'm not that top-notch, and I’m not into fame anymore. (I once was.) I really don’t need to see my name printed in a published work to feel successful, and I don’t need to give a talk in a conference to feel empowered. I'm completely not motivated.
The problem is that I've only just begun. Isn't it too early to settle in mediocrity? I thought of Eric Lidell. What do I do so excellently that I feel the pleasure of God while doing it? Becoming an inspiring teacher, publishing something intelligent and insightful? Argh.... still not motivated.
I read an essay about people do some kind of mental adjustment every 10 years. Am I going through such adjustment ... again?
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