research and the story of my life

Most people fail to appreciate how difficult and how many hours are required merely to dig up a lot of information that one needs to write about something, particularly when that thing is either out of your reach (highly expensive subscription database that would be hard on an individual's pocket, particularly an individual unaffiliated to any institution and is from a country with a relatively 'small' currency) and who is unfamiliar with the subject. Maybe that's why I've to really decide. If I really want to work with ideas, what kind of ideas do I want to work with? Who do I want to work with? And what kind of work do I want to do? Why do I want to do it?

It's no fun being jill-of-all-trades researcher. Firstly, you are bound to have to do something you have little interest in yet have to spend hours unearthing (made possibly frustrating when you don't know where's the best place to start). I do enjoy doing research, but mainly in areas of interest to me. And I am interested in working with ideas. So where should I be? In the academia? Anywhere else? Perhaps start my own enterprise?

Trying out a test for a research-related job application really got me thinking: do I really want to do this kind of stuff for the rest of my working days, yet not quite getting anywhere, as in getting into something that makes my going to work something of a bang (despite the unavoidable down days that had less to do with job frustration but more to do with unavoidable or unpredictable circumstances) instead a bummer. Life is too short to do just things for money while being miserable throughout your youth. However, not having enough money can also do that for you. So where can I be where I can have enough without the financial struggle while doing something that holds a meaning bigger than a 'job.' How do I seek an opportunity to do that? Well, that's where research as a skill comes in. While skills in commercial research pays well and can have a good demand once one becomes a pro at it, it does not have the same meaning as when one is demand for being good at something that fulfills.

So, it is certainly time for me, by early next year, to begin preparing myself for the one that will define my career goals, and to persevere by it despite the immense difficulties I might fall into, because the goal and objective is now clear. Should I not succeed by that, at least I will still have the skills that could be used elsewhere. Rather than always trying to have my feet in two boats and being all tensed, anxious and stressed out because of that. This might mean taking a pay-cut and a job that has little recognition in society, but I think that would pay out in the end. After all, I've tried a different and more 'sensible' way forward, trying to give up on my dreams for awhile and that had come close to disaster a few times. So I do know now, that by a strange quirk of personality, I am not someone who can take on a job with heavy responsibilities and which requires a high level of performance if I am not personally engaged by it.