Sanity Check

Writing a dissertation is difficult for many reasons. Primarily, it is very independent, very long-term work with uncertain outcome. It is very hard to evaluate progress or lack thereof. And even if you notice lack of the progress, it is hard to really know why.
You may be doing progress faster then usual yet fail to notice, you may be working on the wrong idea/topic, or you may be simply too stupid to produce anything original and useful.
I wasn't happy with my progress from the very beginning and it was driving me crazy for a long time. I'm still not happy, but finally I found a way how to keep myself sane. Here it how it works. Remind yourself that

1. You are (among) the best. Yes, you are - no matter how do you feel about it, you are easily in top 1% of the world population in terms of education, intellectual ability, knowledge and/or future income.

2. You can do it. Seriously, most people finish and you probably know plenty of those whose research is appalling by your standards. No matter what you produce it will be better than that, which is more than enough.

3. End is close (this helps if you are at least in the middle). It does not seems so right now, but you can probably think of steps you need to take to finish. Split the task into small pieces, make sure that the timing is reasonable and get to work. It will be over sooner than you think. Remember, the time is running faster in the second half.

4. Quality matters, but you need to choose the right scale. You have read hundreds of papers, most of them published in the best journals or written by the "gurus" of your niche. Don't expect that your first paper will be as good or produced as fast as papers written with 20 years of experience. Strive for quality, make sure that your work makes basic sense, but remember that most than 1/2 of the publish research is never referred to.

5. You are living the worst and the best time of your life. On one hand, you are totally independent. If you take a day off, most likely (depends on your field) nobody notices. Even if you take a week of, it would be OK. On the other hand, you are your own boss and you can be pretty tough, can't you? Also, you don't have any money. Don't worry, there is probably plenty of money waiting for you in the future, but you will have no time to enjoy them.

6. It is enough to finish just this part and the rest will be easy. Choose a specific goal, finish it and then choose another one. It will be getting easier and easier. First paper is the most difficult.


7. Find a co-author, ideally not your adviser. Dissertation committees don't like papers co-authored by your adviser, but other students as co-authors are welcomed. Find one for at least one paper, possibly (depends on your school and your job market goals) two. If you get stuck, they will help you to move along and produce something. If they are more experienced than you, even better. You will learn by doing and finish a part of your dissertation along the way.

8. Visit presentation by other graduate students. It helps to keep you informed how they are doing and you never know when you meet even bigger looser than yourself and thus improve your self-esteem.

Thing I did not do but that can help a lot.

9. Finish first paper as soon as possible. Nothing helps more than to know that 1/3 is over. Seriously. If you have 3 papers in various stages of progress, but none of them published, it feels like you have nothing! (I know, I live it every day). Focus on publishing one paper, if it is possible (and makes sense).


Repeat the previous points to yourself as often as needed, focus on those that help you most. And relax, it's fun. Or perhaps, it will look like fun when you will be 60 years old.

Religion

It is widely believed that religion has a positive impact on society. Allegedly, people who believe in God behave nicely to each other.
Does it imply that people need somebody to tell them to behave and threaten them (weekly) with Hell?

Eating healthy and bacteria

There are two pieces of a puzzle that finally fit together. First, there was a public debate (in Congress) following widespread use of anti-biotics in home cleaning products that followed reduction of price of this anti-biotic due to the end of patent protection. Second, Danone have started to advertise its "Activia" and DanActive, which are products widely used and advertised in Europe as containing healthy bacteria. I was surprised to notice that the word "bacteria" does not appear anywhere in the commercials.
Then I realized that most products sold here are "anti-bacteria", so nobody knows that bacterias can be good as well as bad. The idea that you voluntary eat something that contains those horrible, invisible bacterias is clearly unimaginable and would certainly bad way to sell.
P.S. I just saw another ad offering "living cheese" or something like that.
P.P.S. Most of the yogurts sold in the USA are really "dead" - there is nothing living in them (and I doubt that there ever was).

Risk aversion

Most people who know me would probably agree that I save too much - I try not to spend more than I really have to. I think that the reason is that I'm more risk averse and possibly forward looking than most people. I know it is not purely rational and I have all reasons to believe that I will be earning (significantly?) more money than I do today. So, I'm occasionally thinking about suppressing the subconscious fear of spending and to learn (force myself) to spend more.
There are two good reason not to do that. First, I believe that one can get use to higher living standard very easily, but reducing it is very painful. Moreover, after you get used to your new standard, you don't feel any happier than before - only the transition brings extra utility.
Second reason is more complicated. As a young person, life seems long, I have a potential to earn a lot of money, I'm smart, educated, reasonably hard working, so why should I be afraid?
Well, things happen. Imagine that you are, say, 50 years old and you loose your job. You are going to loose your health insurance (in the US, fortunately not in CR), but you are likely to get more sick. You can't change your education or major - you are to old for that. You may have 30 years to live, but you don't have many years to earn living. You will have really hard time finding a new job. And if you are alone, there is nobody to help you.
Loosing your job in your 50s can basically end your happy life. I want to be ready for that. Feeling safe is more important to me than having a better pizza for dinner.