The Courage to Choose Again
(rebuilding myself, now rebuilding you)
Hey friends,
Hope you are well. As promised, more story coming. Thanks for following along, and hope these short essays are useful for you too.
Do let me know what this stirs in you.
The Courage to Choose Again
I stood at the crossroads after dropping out of my PhD program, feeling the weight of regret and lost status pressing down on me.
"It has improved, it has improved," I tell myself, trying to believe it.
But the truth is more complicated.
One year into my PhD—an opportunity I had spent three years preparing for, one that marked my first real career breakthrough—I walked away. The explicit reason was avoiding quantitative assignments I deemed irrelevant. The deeper truth? I was trapped in a pattern: enter structured environments, feel confined, escape for temporary freedom (oh boy, that relief when you finally break free from the prison of your own making...), then sink into regret. The cycle continues...
This cycle cost me more than a degree.
My relationship with beloved mentors fractured. That hurt like hell.
Then the pain of pushing away the opportunity to work with a brilliant and caring professor and friend and what could have opened up from there.
The pain of disappointing those who believed in me cuts deeper than the status loss, though that stings too. When people ask, "Oh, you were doing a PhD, what happened?" I no longer hide behind "it wasn't a fit." The honest answer is I couldn't follow through.
I now wear those pains on my chest to make sure I don't do that stupid move again.
I tell myself now, as someone who didn't grow up with a father (and still fathom that impact till this day): "My younger child, you messed up. I love you, and as your good daddy I'm not going to let that happen again this time."
(most of us don’t have that good of a father, which I talked about in this last post)
The painful lessons are clearer now:
Don't make decisions based on emotional highs. My choice to quit came from wanting to break free from tension. What I needed was a cooling period and honest conversations with stakeholders—my family, my mentors—who could have challenged my impulses.
Completion matters. There's dignity in finishing what you start, even when it's difficult. I've learned to question my escape instinct, to recognize when I'm "getting into tension then leaving it."
Money and status aren't shallow concerns. They reflect impact, creativity, courage, and connection. In leaving my PhD, I lost both the monthly stipend and the professional standing that opened so many doors. It’s not like I jumped to a better opportunity, from earning $2500/month to $5000. It’s $2500 to $0 (and then it comes back …) Massive loss.
There’s another lesson worth stressing:
Dark Thought is Just A Dark Thought
Here's something I rarely admit: during those quantitative assignments that felt so pointless, I’d feel the thought “I wanna kill myself!” Later, when facing the consequences of dropping out—the loss of status, the unclear direction—those same thoughts returned.
That's when I had a revelation.
These thoughts weren't unique to any specific situation—they were simply my mind's way of expressing extreme discomfort, a desperate desire to escape tension. The thought itself was just a mental pattern, appearing in entirely different contexts but expressing the same fundamental feeling: "I want out of this pain."
What differs is the nature of the pain. In one case, it was the discomfort of pushing through difficult academic work. In the other, it was facing the consequences of avoiding that work.
Given the choice between these two pains, I'd rather endure the temporary struggle of doing challenging work than the lasting regret of abandoning it. As the saying goes,
if you're going to suffer either way, you might as well suffer your way to success.
I now recognize these thoughts as mental warning signs—not to be acted upon, but to be observed. They signal when I'm at a critical decision point where I can either break through or break down.
I choose differently now. Instead of escaping, I create experiences of presence. Instead of withdrawing, I focus on seeing and adding value. Instead of avoiding, I participate and lead.
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Now, as I rebuild, I'm creating work that honors these lessons. I need structure to thrive, financial stability to expand my connections (seeing friends, supporting my aging mother), and clear deliverables to rebuild trust—with others and myself.
My strength as a learning facilitator has always been creating psychological safety for authentic development. I understand what happens in the transition between identities—the valley between mountains that must be crossed.
I've lived this transition, felt its pain, and discovered what makes it easier: the right environment and genuine connection with people who see our potential.
What does this mean for you? Perhaps you recognize this pattern too—the seeking of freedom that becomes its own trap. Or maybe you're facing a difficult choice between temporary comfort and lasting achievement.
I’d love to hear from you.
This is the journey I now help others navigate—creating environments where transformation happens naturally, where we can step fully into our roles as Main Characters in our own stories, supported by those who truly see us.
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