Leaving the PhD

An update, and some preliminary finding.

Hello everyone,

I hope you are well.

So much has been happening with me, and I thought of updating you.

In Sept, I gave up my apartment in London, ready to head back to visit Vietnam after a year.

Just last week, my PhD journey also came to an end, at least for now.

The short story: I didn’t complete school assignments, and thus didn’t meet the requirement to pass to the next year.

Here is the fuller story, with some reflection. I hope it sparks something in you.

I saw this teaching two weeks ago, and didn’t expect its eerie timeliness. Yet, it was.

Saw a teaching from the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh on the book street in HCMC. I teared up reading it.

“If you can’t listen to yourself, how can you listen to others? If you can’t recognize your own suffering, how can you understand the suffering of others? How can you bring peace and harmony to our relationships? - Thich Nhat Hanh

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1st moment: meaninglessness.

August 15th, afternoon, at WeWork in King Cross, London.

I was finally making time to crank out my overdue Quantitative Method assignment, After a few hours, with plenty of chatGPT support along the way, I finished.

The sun already set, and as I went to the rooftop, I had this unforgettable moment of painful meaninglessness. "I am going to die. Do I want to die doing this?"

I have enough of this doing something I don't care about, playing a game that I'm not interested in. Even if it supports a larger goal.

2nd moment: “somebody that I used to know”

October 14th, Vietnam

I received an email from the course coordinator warning me about another assignment not yet submitted, and that my grades weren't good enough to pass the first year. It felt like a punch in my gut. Academically, it’s called “an identity threat".

I have set myself up. This is real stake.

I reached out to my wise coach friend Gregoire for support. We explored my resistance to the assignments, my pattern of resisting doing things that I don’t resonate with - so called “playing the game”.

After a lot of back and forth, he seemed to get frustrated and challenged me

“Khuyen, imagine a conversation with the dean, supervisors, and everyone involved. Make a case for why you should be doing it”

I paused, and then gave the reasons I often gave: “PhD is about self-searching, asking important questions for practitioners and scholars, and securing a platform that opens up more opportunities to serve my home country Vietnam.“

However, as I spoke those words, I felt a profound emptiness in the pit of my stomach and in my heart.

And then I broke down crying.

It just wasn't me. Or more precisely, it wasn’t me anymore.

The PhD Khuyen was "somebody I used to know". An identity that I tried to build, and was no longer viable.

I couldn't believe that it was just a few months ago I was so passionate about that PhD story.

or was I?

Was I just deceiving myself, telling a motivating story, where in reality another part of me already moved on?

My friend Gregoire then encouraged me to consider the opposite perspective, that I would not be kicked out of the program, but instead choose to leave.

I paused and said "I am leaving. I have been studying entrepreneurs, and I've been hiding. Now is the time to stop that. Time to leaping into the unknown".

A wave of relief came. I felt light, liberated.

I've blown up the most beautiful cover for what I want to do. I mean, a PhD doing research on the ground is the perfect excuse to just hang out with great entrepreneurs.

and I blew it up.

I am naked now.

I am going to be naked.

I don't have anything lined up.

I am scared, and I am loving this. This very openness is who I am.

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3rd moment: The Confirmation.

Oct 16th 2023, Vietnam

Before the conversation with the course coordinator to confirm the news about my inability to pass, I thought: "okay, I knew the worst that could happen is to walk away with nothing. I'm comfortable with the worst.”

I asked myself: “If this is a negotiation, what is the best possible outcome then? My mind quickly came up with the answer “to not have to submit overdue assignment, still stay in Vietnam, still work, but not with a lot of pressure, not with a lot of expectation and still get the funding."

And to my big, big, big surprise, when I said that to myself, my whole body went flat, like zero response, zero aliveness.

Even the best possible outcome imaginable didn't bring me alive!

This is it already. There is no turning back.

And then I asked myself “okay, then what really would be a yes, hell yes then?”

An answer came to my bigger surprise: just stay in Vietnam and be completely in the unknown. I noticed a big grin coming to my face.

That is true.

This is the act of clearing out my life to receive the right opportunity, one that I can give myself to even more fully, more deeply. And I'm saying no to the rest. and I'm saying yes to full expression of everything I care about and bring it all together.

And I'm making space for that and not doing the PhD.

and to create everything I'm waiting for.

And that bring me so alive.

Reflection: the meta story.

For me, the PhD journey has been a container of self-transformation.

It was perhaps no surprise (but still somewhat ironic) that my research topic was about identity change and letting go of the old self. Well, it really happened. Somehow along the way, I had become a new person, someone who no longer recognized my old self. In a way that my conscious self totally didn’t expect.

There were many red flags for myself. I didn't do well in coursework. I could have put in more effort, but somehow I couldn’t. I used to be a good student (A-) who knew how to meet external expectation, but that old identity was gone. I couldn’t summon it back.

Perhaps it is a self-sabotaging pattern. Perhaps it is some kind of wisdom. Nobody knows, really.

In hindsight, it was clear that I was in denial for a while. The denial was necessary to shelter my psyche from the full force of uncertainty that is this life. And now, no more.

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Post “breakup” notes

It hasn’t been the easiest thing.

Personally, it felt like a failure, and no matter how well I could reframe it as a “pivot”, the felt sense is still of pain. I am not avoiding it. I am grieving, often, in waves.

The pain comes upon the thought of regret. In many ways, it was almost the perfect path for me. It was so close to what I wanted. Now, no more.

Relationally, dealing with the impact of this decision on the close relationships has been challenging. Many people who have supported me so much, such as my adopted parents and my supervisor Nettra, were very upset.

• My adopted brother in law asked me a pointed question: “Can you feel the cost of this decision on your relationship? It was heavy.

• I am so, so grateful for the unconditional love, with and without the ongoing support. I know that while people love me, they may not trust me to work with. And that’s okay. That’s growing up.

Postscript

For those interested in this a dangerous game of self-transformation, all I can say from this experience is that

If you truly listen to the quiet, shy yet persistent voice inside that made zero sense, be prepared for the surprising consequence.

Imagine being that shy voice. Imagine being ignored most of the time by the cacophony of voices there.

The internal mechanism of self-transformation works just like Gandhi’s famous quip on Non-violent Resistance.

First, they ignore you.

Then they laugh at you

Then they fight you.

Then you win.

Do write back,
For now, take good care. Let the real story unfold.

Khuyen