I recently turned down a research role I was super excited to join. It paid well, it was part-time so I could continue with my current job, and I would have grown a lot as an engineer. It sounds perfect on paper, so why did I turn it down? As I meditated on whether accepting it would be the right thing to do, I realized I would be doing it for the wrong reasons. To understand this, I’ll lay out how my previous semester in grad school went and the resulting guiding principles that emerged from this to help navigate me through the next semester.
Previous Semester
Spring 2022 was a rough time. I had just started a new job, I was taking a rigorous course in my Masters, I was planning a wedding, and I was about to move in a few months. Because of this cocktail of stress, I let things that were important to me slip by the wayside to make time for what I needed to accomplish. During the last month of the semester, when I was trying to keep up with final projects and exams, I started to feel very unhealthy - physically and mentally.
I was getting a good amount of sleep, but that was about the only thing I was consistent on during this semester. I had stopped eating healthy, I stopped my morning routine of exercising, meditating, and journaling. I stopped spending time with family and friends. Neglecting the things that are important for living a healthy mental and physical life really started to take a toll on me. These aren’t cop out excuses (hopefully), this is just objectively where I was at this time. This should set the stage for the guiding principles I wanted to set for the coming Summer 2022 semester.
Summer Pact
The day after my final exam, I felt antsy like I should still be studying or working. The past four months had either been:
- Doing school worrying about my job
- Doing my job worrying about school
I was conditioned to always be on edge, planning for the next thing to do. Since I didn’t want that level of stress again right now, I set out with one goal in mind: re-learn how to relax.
From this goal, I made the decision to take the Summer semester off. I wanted to spend time with myself and restart the habits I was missing. I wanted to actually be able to go out with family and friends. I wanted to sit and do nothing because that is also okay sometimes. The motivation for this was to come back energized for my Masters in Fall 2022.
Then came a job posting - it was a part-time research opportunity.
Job Offer
I applied on a whim, I didn’t think I was actually going to get a response. Then I got an email requesting an interview. “Fine, I’ll do the interview, I won’t get the job.” I said to myself. After talking with the (really cool) team, they got back to me and said they’d love for me to join. Dagnabbit. I was hoping at some point the problem would sort itself out so I didn’t have to decide. Now, with an offer in hand, what should I do?
The Decision
I really wanted to accept it. I wanted to grow as a developer and this was a great way to do that. But something kept nagging me, I had just come up with my pact a few days prior. Was I really going to throw that out the window for this? The more I discussed it with family and friends, the more confused I was. Everyone said it was a great opportunity and I should do it if I wanted to. “But what about my pact?” I whispered gently in my little noggin. I kept wanting something external to give me a clear answer - either to not get the job or someone to tell me I’d be too busy. But that wasn’t going to happen. I needed to lean on internal guiding principles to help make the decision. Therefore: I won’t take the job because it is not healthy for me right now. I realized I was mainly wanting to accept it because of how it would look on my resume to others rather than truly evaluating if this was best for me currently. So I turned down the job.
Lessons Learned
There were truly no drawbacks to the job itself, on paper it was a perfect opportunity. The only reason I turned it down was because of where I was at in my life during that time. The biggest lesson for me was realizing nothing exists in a vaccuum. It’s okay to not say yes to everything. It is important to have a clear set of goals and guiding principles so that when opportunities arise, you know the answer without even having to think about it. Although I still have a tinge of regret for what I could have experienced, it would not have been healthy for me to accept the position at that time. This shows that there is not any right or wrong answer to any problem at hand. If I had gotten the same offer, but I wasn’t burnt out and I had been taking care of myself, saying yes would have been the corret thing to do. It’s all about taking into account your guiding principles at that moment and determining the correct answer based off of that. Also, there’s no reason’s why these principles can’t change over time. This decision was healthy for me in Summer 2022, but I may be in a place to do research down the road. There’s nothing stopping me from trying to join that team when I am in a better place, I just need to know my guiding pricinciples to know how to make the best decision at the time.