Do you fear new challenges? Maybe you shouldn’t!

In spring 2017, I got laid off from my first job and spent the summer looking for a new one. While I knew what I wanted to do, I also realized that I had to be open minded in case my “perfect” job didn’t exist in New York City yet. Neuroscience companies were hard to come by in the Big Apple. One option I was considering was working at a contract research organization (CRO), because I always thought of myself as “process oriented”.

Long story short, I ended up finding a CRO-type job, just in an academic setting. Boy, was I wrong! Four and a half years of “process” taught me a lot of useful skills, no doubt. But it also drove me up the wall. My job entailed performing relatively routine studies for other labs that required almost no thinking on my part. I was bored out of my mind! I missed the complicated project I had before the layoffs, which made no sense on most days, but certainly was anything but boring.

Now that I am back on the research side, I started stumbling upon new problems, new observations that make no sense, and new challenges. And while it can be maddening to have no rational explanation for my observations, it makes me feel excited and rejuvenated. I am able to think again!

Here’s a picture of one of my current conundrums. For the life of me, I cannot understand why the green and red signals don’t overlap with each other. But if I did, it wouldn’t be called science!

What makes your brain bloom? Please let me know in the comments section below!

“Brilliant Mind”, 2020

12″ x 12″ x ~10″

$4,500