So, here it is. I’m 39,042 feet above the ground flying from Deutschland to India and writing this post.

If someone asked me to define the previous week in three words- I would say: “Sleepless, self-contained and thoughtful”.

I was busy last week and felt each and every second of those 7 days. In total, I slept 20 hours during those 7 days. I meditated, I wrote the final draft of my undergraduate thesis, I went to beautiful Christmas market in Dresden and I attended a Kochabend (‘cooking evening’ in German). The last week in Dresden was as before (2016)-busy but filled with all kinds of mixed feelings.

“Experience counts”.

The thesis report could have been better. The work could have been better. BUT, if I look back what I achieved in terms of experience, I would say a lot. I got an opportunity to work on a long-term research project with a fantastic supervisor. I got to know how it is to be a researcher at Max Planck Institute. Each and every bit of your work is put under a magnifying glass of thoughts, discussions, and suggestions. In return what you get is an improved version of yourself than what you were 6 months back. Isn’t that good?

“Perfection is the enemy of done”.

What I learned during my stay at MPI is that there can be two approaches by which you can complete your project. First, choose the end goal and do whatever needs to be done to reach that goal. Second, have an idea what the end goal looks like and don’t be afraid to try new things and optimize your approach. The first approach works well if you have less amount of time because then you have to take steps which lead to the end goal as fast as possible- getting the things done. On the other hand, the second approach works well if you have ample amount of time because then you can try all sorts of things to reach the end goal and may discover something new as well as get an optimum result- more towards perfection. The moral is that we need to guess how much amount of time we have on hand and work accordingly.

“World has more problems than yours. Accept responsibility and be accountable.”

The previous week I was a bit stressed but when I talked to people about their problems I realized my problems/conditions are too small or of no significance. The predocs were complaining about their hectic schedule. Someone was busy writing the first TAC report. Others were busy preparing the first TAC presentation. Many were busy improving the final draft of a paper. Others were busy in writing grants. What I realized is that the world keeps on moving and the time keeps on advancing. It is we who should take the responsibility to move forward. How well we respond to a situation corresponds to how well we take the responsibility. The responsibility in itself is “response-ability” i.e. the ability to respond. Isn’t it?

That’s all for the week. I have to read some papers for my next project which starts from January onwards. I’m really excited for the same.

Oh one more thing, I met an old German lady on the train from Frankfurt to Dresden. Her name was Heidi (inspired by children’s fiction, Heidi, published in 1881 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri) and we had some interesting talks. I’ll share more about it and about the coming week in the next post.

Till then, goodbye!