Track 42 – What if (Creed)

-What if I had not listened to my parents who told me repeatedly between 2002 and 2007 to consider studying Pharmacy?
-What if I was assigned a Bachelor’s research project within the Department of Pharmaceutical Biology or the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmacy, which were the other two mentions on my top 3 preference list (besides the Department of Analytical Biochemistry where I was eventually placed in the Spring of 2011)?
-What if I had not taken the advice of one of my study mentors to select the Pharmacy Master’s program but, instead, would have switched to Medical Pharmaceutical Sciences in the Summer of 2011?
-What if I had not started studying a half year in advance to get a very good grade for the exam of the Clinical Chemistry and Pathophysiology course in the Spring of 2012, given that such a good grade was an (unofficial) entry requirement for conducting a Master’s research project within the department of Clinical Chemistry at our local hospital?
-What if my partner did not start a PhD project in Groningen in the Spring of 2013 but, instead, would have accepted a job offer elsewhere in the Netherlands?
-What if I had been hired as a PhD student by the honorary professor whose laboratory I visited in the Autumn of 2013 and where I saw a very advanced analytical device not being used to its full potential, after which I decided to send an email that same evening (or night) in which I sold myself as the person he did not know he had been looking for?
-What if my eventual PhD position had been cancelled in the Summer of 2014 (more than five months after accepting the corresponding job offer), which almost happened because of a last-minute dropout of one of the funding partners in the overarching research consortium?
-What if my PhD supervisors had not provided me with ample opportunities between 2014 and 2018 to make the best of my project, for example allowing me to work with state-of-the-art analytical instruments, to analyze unique sets of clinical samples, to work on side-projects, to take the courses I found interesting, and to establish many research collaborations which allowed me to write more than fifteen first-author publications (which is roughly ten more than what most other PhD students in our field used to produce back then)?
-What if my PhD supervisors had not tried to convince me over and over again between 2016 and 2018 to pursue a career in Science?
-What if I had been admitted to the Clinical Chemistry training program in the Hague or in Apeldoorn upon making it to the final interview rounds in the Spring and Summer of 2014, respectively (which I apparently screwed up royally by being, well, by just being myself during the interview sessions)?
-What if my PhD supervisors had not come up with a clever way to extend my appointment for six additional months when my contract ended in the Summer of 2018, by which I could write my first grant proposal for a research project abroad and which allowed me to take on one last analytical challenge of my own choice resulting in three additional publications?
-What if I did not make the move to Switzerland and furthermore did not make the many decisions (and let Lady Fortuna make the many other decisions) I have been writing about in my blog posts in the past years.

Reassuringly, life offers a large collection of ‘what if’ questions, and none of the questions above could rob me of (too) much sleep. The thing is, I always strive for happiness in my life, hence if I would have taken any other direction in my professional life than it would have inevitably brought me at a place that would have suited me well.

So, my advice to
…anyone who is unhappy in their current position: please consider pursuing happiness elsewhere (or at least realize some sort of change in your current work);
…anyone who is uncertain about which direction to take in your career: please share your uncertainties with others and also gather the opinions of others;
…anyone who is not only asking ‘what if’ questions but who is also trying to answer them: please consider finding a different time use, like drinking coffee with me.