Epiphanies during periods of epic failure

[Will]

I noticed today that I most of my epiphanies come during periods of epic failure. Examples of such periods are

• Too much work due tomorrow
• Commitments I made to things I no longer want to do
• Fear that I'm wasting time or money, or all of the work I just did was useless
• Bad grades
• Other people critiquing or insulting me[/list:u]

[Gaiyara]

You learn a lot about yourself if you're honest looking back on previous fails.

[Will]

Gaiyara Wrote:You learn a lot about yourself if you're honest looking back on previous fails.

You're suggesting that I should make epiphanies come more frequently than during periods of fail?

I think the periods of fail were much more frequent in high school than in university. Also, the fail in university seems more important even though it doesn't seem to evoke such strong emotions as fail in high school. I think this is because I have far fewer assignments, giving each one substantial weight, because I'm still in my first year and thus haven't lost faith in university yet, because it's harder to blame my unhappiness on my parents instead of myself because they're not yelling at me, and because I'm afraid of wasting time by getting emotional.

[SoulRiser]

Quote:Commitments I made to things I no longer want to do

I've learned a lot from things like that. What I realized is that a lot of the time when I thought I wanted to do something, I didn't really want to do it, I wanted some other side effect that doing that thing would have accomplished. Either that or I convinced myself that I wanted it just 'cause I thought it's a "good idea" to want it. It wasn't easy to admit that to myself, but it helps to prevent me from signing up for shit I don't really want to do.

[Will]

SoulRiser Wrote:

Quote:Commitments I made to things I no longer want to do

I've learned a lot from things like that. What I realized is that a lot of the time when I thought I wanted to do something, I didn't really want to do it, I wanted some other side effect that doing that thing would have accomplished. Either that or I convinced myself that I wanted it just 'cause I thought it's a "good idea" to want it. It wasn't easy to admit that to myself, but it helps to prevent me from signing up for shit I don't really want to do.

That's right; it's really commitments to things I never really wanted to do. I'm in this special program that gives me money and a special advisor of some sort. She suggested that everyone in the program to submit his research to a particular conference. The conference looks boring and fake and conflicts with the university-organized symposium here. If I'm going to present my research at some fake venue (rather than one specialized in my field), I'd rather do it here so I can meet people I might see again rather than at some random national conference. It also conflicts with other awesome stuff and makes me do more work this week.