Perspiration

The famous Edison saying about success being 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration couldn't be more true. I'm realizing that completing a PhD and having a successful academic career is all about being bloodyminded and doggedly determined. Academic research feels like a bottomless pit which sucks in everything you offer and keeps asking for more. Never have I worked my mind so hard and still felt like I wasn't doing enough. Of course, the work is interesting and I don't really have a life outside academia. But, I feel silly for thinking that a PhD could be a smooth ride and all those PhD horror memes were exaggerating the trials and tribulations of a PhD out of an heightened sense of self-importance. Of course, I still do feel they are exaggerating a little, especially since some of the people circulating them were not in their final year. I am beginning to appreciate how much of a training a PhD is for a career in research. Research capability is not innate, as I used to believe. It has to be developed.