On feeling stuck in career
Mar. 28th, 2026 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
posicScott D. Clary writes in Facebook -- https://www.facebook.com/scottdclarypage/posts/pfbid025pmj4kS1RDxGvsLdQZJMEUZM1QwLbw5MLyAth3SvCuJn8fbsMGzfs1iKNLS856rHl :
Most people who feel stuck in their careers are not actually stuck. They're avoiding the next move because the next move is uncomfortable, visible, or uncertain. The stuckness is real as a feeling. It's almost never real as a fact.
***
I feel that my career advances by leaps and bounds, and the reason for that is precisely because I am not looking out for "honor" (in the local sense of the word, like in "if you consider it an honor"), prestige, or money. Instead, I am using the rather good working conditions that I have in order to write and publish. Yes, the name of my position does not change very much, and my salary does not grow fast. What does grow fast is my list of publications, and people tell me that my papers are all over the place. If anyone were following the topics and genres of my publications, they would have noticed that every second year is different from the previous one (while I am still doing contramodules and contraherent cosheaves just as a quarter century ago). I am building something, even though it is not businesses or material assets.
Most people who feel stuck in their careers are not actually stuck. They're avoiding the next move because the next move is uncomfortable, visible, or uncertain. The stuckness is real as a feeling. It's almost never real as a fact.
***
I feel that my career advances by leaps and bounds, and the reason for that is precisely because I am not looking out for "honor" (in the local sense of the word, like in "if you consider it an honor"), prestige, or money. Instead, I am using the rather good working conditions that I have in order to write and publish. Yes, the name of my position does not change very much, and my salary does not grow fast. What does grow fast is my list of publications, and people tell me that my papers are all over the place. If anyone were following the topics and genres of my publications, they would have noticed that every second year is different from the previous one (while I am still doing contramodules and contraherent cosheaves just as a quarter century ago). I am building something, even though it is not businesses or material assets.
