Five years in
A mid-PhD reflection on what I thought research would be.
Year one me thought research was mostly about having good ideas. Year five me knows it’s mostly about finishing things.
Ideas are cheap. The hard part is sitting with an idea long enough to know whether it’s worth the next six months of your life. And then doing the work even after it stops being exciting.
I don’t think I’d have believed that if someone told me at the start. I probably needed to find out the slow way.