"It Takes A Village to Finish A PhD'

 I just came across this on Twitter. Maybe it is true, I don't know. Maybe if I had a village, I would finish my PhD faster. But, the fact is I don't have a village behind me, and a lonely journey has become lonelier since Covid. I have spectacularly failed to meet every deadline I have set for myself during the PhD. For hard deadlines, like uni progress milestones, I have turned in work that I wasn't satisfied with. Till about a year and a half ago, I used to tell people I am really enjoying my PhD. That is no longer the case, and hasn't been the case for a long time now. During the heights of lockdowns, my thesis was something to keep me occupied. Now, it is something that I have to finish by throwing everything I have at it, and then some. It is about pumping yourself with positive self-talk, and soldiering on, being frequently thrown by roadblocks and picking yourself up again. Constantly debating whether you are being too easy or too hard on yourself. Wondering a dozen times a day whether you will ever finish, and more importantly, finish with a PhD I am proud of, and then reassuring myself. At the bottom of my head, I know this is all a part of the journey and my trials and tribulations are not unique, They might seem that way because I don't really have a PhD cohort to compare notes with. The small cohort I had melted away during Covid. I am my own village and that is all there is to it.