What to do after PhD? (Pt.1 - So exhausted )

I woke up with flu-ish and fever-ish. I did not really wake up, it was more that I could not get proper sleep. Woke up after 2-3 hour sleep and stayed awake. I will need to cancel the project meeting attendance, so let's just summon this blog from the death.

It is been 7 months since I graduated my PhD and I am still pondering about what am I going to do. I am doing my postdoc and I just had good deal regarding my contract. However, the urge to change course and move out of academia is getting stronger. So clearly, good contract is not the main or the only concern for me, but my core work in academia is the main deterrent to keep going. Just so you know, it is not because I saw this story in Nature and suddenly I feel like quitting academia. Things are not happening in vacuum, the timeline below may provide an easy visualization. 

Here are the details:

• Spring 2020. The first time I thought about quitting academia (and moving country -hopefully finding a place to call home though it is away from home-) was around 1.5 years into my PhD. It was at the beginning of pandemic, everything shut down, I haven't got anything published, and I felt constantly inadequate and like a failure. That sucked, big time. I talked to campus psychologist, he essentially asking me why I want to quit, he said that I might be able to manage my work and made it less stressful. He said that if I like doing the environmental impact thingy, try to change my workstyle, why thinking of quitting and doing the same work somewhere else. Ok, I though it makes sense.  Now, I see things differently, if I can do the parts that I like from  my job in academia somewhere else (industry, think tank, government, NGO, etc.) without having to do the things that I dislike, that what I have to do.    
• Winter 2021. I have got few works published, but no sense of accomplishment, still haunted by inadequacy and felt like there was nothing healthy about race in academia: publish or parish. That slogan is not something I want to live by, I don't want to be defined by it, but if you are academia, it is integral to you.   
• On-and-off in between. Some of my friends are probably sick of me saying, "I don't want to do this anymore," without putting a proper effort in consistently applying position outside academia. Throughout the time I just applied sporadically when I felt like to do it, mostly the easy apply on LinkedIn. Got plenty interviews here and there, but nothing succeeded (yet).
• Summer 2023-now. This is the worst time I supposed. What am I even doing? I dread every morning I wake up realizing that I have to do this work. I am still functioning well in doing all the tasks, projects, manuscripts submission, and shits. However, it feels absolutely nothing, it feels like ticking the boxes because I have to do all those tasks. I believe so many academics relate to this feeling, because academic burnout is not something unheard of.  

The fact that the thought popped for the first time early on, it has been repeating pattern, and now becomes a day-to-day are real telltale sign that I should do something about it. On top of it, dealing with very dark-harsh-winter and long-day-summer consume me a lot. The fact that I managed to get permanent contract but feel unhappy (I am grateful for this, I know getting permanent position in academia is awfully difficult) and more dreaded because I am freaking out as if my fate is being sealed to do this job are clear sign that permanent contract is not my biggest concern, it is about my work that I dread and don't want to deal with. I feel trapped.