Desperately Looking For A Purpose In Life

I've always been told by my parents that I am a talented genius who is going to change the world for the better. Now, I know that this might sound a bit silly or egotistic, but after awhile when your parents repeat something over and over again to you as a small child, you start to believe it. For some time now, I've been convinced that if I work hard I could become a Real Life Science Hero - the guy who is going to solve our energy problems, save the planet from pollution, and end material scarcity with miraculous technology.

It isn't working out for me. I'm great at memorizing random facts, and thanks to my curiosity and bookworm ways I've accumulated a lot of information - enough to make it seem like I'm a smart guy to most folks I've met - but its all shallow and I actually lack basic understanding of important concepts. On some level, I've known this for quite some time, but I've refused to acknowledge it because I so desperately wanted to maintain The Masquerade, thinking that if I kept on struggling with the science, eventually something useful would pop out and my family's and especially my parents' expectations would be met.

But I've hit a wall that I simply can't climb - Gaussian surfaces and polarization. I've desperately tried to understand the material, but I just can't sit down and concentrate on the subject because I just simply do not care about it at all. It's not interesting, and its certainly not fun, and its the basis for almost all modern physics and thus necessary knowledge for anyone hoping to make it in the field of physics. I'm not happy, and I don't want this to be the rest of my life, but the pressure to continue on and succeed is huge. My parents have put a lot of effort into me, and I just so desperately want to make them proud, but I have to face it: I'm not a genius, I'm a parrot that is good at recall.

So what can I do? I've already devoted so much time and effort into physics, backing out now would be a profound waste of tuition, but moving forward means I'm stuck with a career that I'm finding out is mostly soul-crushing hours of sheer repetitive tedium punctuated by brief and fleeting moments of discovery, coupled with an inability to talk about your job with anyone else but a small group of often socially awkward and dull people. I feel like I'm meant for more than that, but I cannot see how to get there. I am Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life.

Any ideas?

The important question to ask here is, what do you want?

Why don't you switch specialties into something you enjoy? It's more important to love what you're doing.

You're hardly the only college student to realize their major isn't working out for them, so don't feel like you're trapped or in an unusual spot. My best friend started out in Architectural Studies before realizing it wasn't working out, and switched to Communications instead. I have a friend who actually completed a Physics degree but wants to work (and has been working to a limited degree) in comics. And so on.

I would recommend trying to take a self-assessment and look back and the classes you've taken, any hobbies you have, and any jobs you've had, and see what you enjoyed doing the most and got the most fulfillment out of, and go from there.

I mean, heck, maybe you might even land yourself back in science again after all. There's only about a billion different scientific fields to study in. Just because physics isn't your thing doesn't mean you can't enjoy biology, or chemistry, or computers, or sociology, or geology, or etc. etc.

Be sure to talk to your college's career counselor, too! There's always somebody at a college willing to help students with these sorts of things.

edited 1st Nov '11 7:02:09 PM by Jeysie

That's just it, I do not know.

Well, I kind of do, but it is impossible - I'd want to be a pioneer. Set out to a new land, and build something from nothing. But there are no more undiscovered continents on Earth, and I don't see us reaching Mars before I've lived through the better part of my lifespan. So what does a pioneer spirit do in a world that has no more frontier?

I like science fiction (it's a line from 2001:A Space Odyssey), but science fact, when it comes to astronomy, isn't quite as exciting. Sure, we are finding cool stuff out there all the time, but its like a snowglobe - you can look at it all you want, but you can't touch it. And I've never liked snowglobes, you know?

edited 1st Nov '11 7:06:04 PM by MyGodItsFullofStars

Or astronomy, or anthropology (whoo!), etc etc. From your username, can I infer you like stars? You can always be an astronomy - isn't space the next frontier, anyway?

There's also oceanography to consider. The world's oceans haven't been mapped yet, did you know?

edited 1st Nov '11 7:04:04 PM by Katrika

Anthropology could be a good one. Or exotic botany or geology; there's still areas of rainforest and desert and the like out there that actually haven't been fully explored yet. Or a marine science; the ocean depths still have a lot to discover yet. Or you could try a different NASA-worthy science after all; just because Mars isn't around the corner doesn't mean there isn't still lots of cool space stuff to discover.

Cultural anthropologists do a lot of traveling and integrating themselves with isolated populations to better understand them. There's a lot of discovery there.

The purpose of life is to have fun. What is fun for you? Do it.

I worry though, with biology. Take Norman Borlaug, the man behind the Green Revolution which has fed a billion people, and probably the closest thing to what I aspire to be. Here's a quote about him:

"At a time when doom-sayers were hopping around saying everyone was going to starve, Norman was working. He moved to Mexico and lived among the people there until he figured out how to improve the output of the farmers. So that saved a million lives. Then he packed up his family and moved to India, where in spite of a war with Pakistan, he managed to introduce new wheat strains that quadrupled their food output. So that saved another million. You get it? But he wasn't done. He did the same thing with a new rice in China. He's doing the same thing in Africa - as much of Africa as he's allowed to visit. When he won the Nobel Prize in 1970, they said he had saved a billion people. That's BILLION! BUH! That's Carl Sagan BILLION with a "B"! And most of them were a different race from him. Norman is the greatest human being- and you've probably never heard of him."

However, Borlaug admitted that at times, the extremely repetitive and boring process of breeding new strains of rice nearly killed him. He has basically contemplated suicide numerous times out of sheer boredom. I'm not sure I'm strong enough to do what Borlaug did, and worry that even if I did change my career to a different science, it would only end up being a repeat of my experience so far with physics, and frankly I'm getting older and not sure I can keep repeating college forever.

I'd recommend looking for a new major in something you like, yeah. I entered college to be a computrer programmer. I hated it so much I burned out on school for years before coming back to get a degree in something I knew I liked.

Well, TBH, a lot of science is grunt work and repetition. It often consists of carrying out and repeating lots of experiments with minor tweaks and sifting through data in the hopes of finding the one interesting tidbit. The excitement of science is more on an intellectual and academic level than a visceral one.

edited 1st Nov '11 7:21:08 PM by Jeysie

I always wanted to make video games, and went into college with the idea of getting some background in computer sciences with a degree in business, in an attempt to, one day, make my own gaming company.

Turns out I'm horrible at basic math.

So I sat and thought, and realized something. When I started playing World Of Warcraft, I was more amazed by the idea that the company that made it created a world, albeit a virtual one, for real people like me to inhabit for a time. The graphics were a bit bland, and characters weren't completely realistic in terms of actions, but almost no detail was lost in the creation of this world I could play around in. I liked that most of all, alongside the amazing story. Hell, most games I play and have played, I realized, I played based on the story they had, regardless of gameplay or mechanics of any sort. I also realized that writing, despite people claiming that it was crazy hard, came pretty natural to me, and I've always loved reading and books and such.

So I tried out writing by changing my major to creative writing, and never looked back, and loved every minute of it.

You'd be surprised how often what you like and what you're good at line up nicely.

Thats pretty much how I got into art.

I loved videogames. I loved computers. I thought that meant I'd love programming. I also hate math. So then I quit college and worked odd jobs a whie..and got into painting warhammer 40k Miniatures. And it was FUN.

and then a lightbulb went on and I realized "Holy shit, I should be an artist!". And after my very first drawing course, I knew I was right. I loved this shit. Two years later I'm chasing a bachelor's in Graphic design and enjoying every minute of it.

edited 4th Nov '11 10:12:14 AM by Midgetsnowman

I'm going through a similar phase as the OP. Unfortunately around here, there is very little flexibility in terms of college majors: you pick what you want to do when you enter college and while changing courses is possible, it may involve undoing a great deal of progress. By the time I realized I didn't like my chosen field (Aerospace Engineering), I had already spent too much time in college and didn't want to delay things further. I'm still figuring out what I want to do.

Find something you like to do, and commit yourself to be the best at it.