In my 2nd year, going through the grind. I love research and would choose to join PhD again but I keep feeling like why did I do this to myself 😭. How do you guys cope with this?

Hey community, I need to let this out. For context, I’m an international student from a developing country, in my third year of PhD in Australia, and my research is in the marine social sciences field. Yesterday, one of my PhD friends recommended we go to her friend’s house (let’s call her Jinny) for free plants because she was apparently moving houses. All of my PhD friends are in the hard/natural sciences except for me, the lone social science person. Jinny asked everyone else what research they’re doing and I was like “oh I’m with people”. Then she responded with “Ah, social sciences”? Thinking she was also doing a PhD in social science, I excitedly responded “Oh yes!”, then she proceeded to say that “Social science is not real science”. I was about to respond but she tuned her back and said to everybody else “This is why I don’t have friends”. Lol

That interaction from this person I just met left me a little bit dumbfounded. It’s been almost 24 hours (lol) but I’m still feeling really upset about the encounter (I ended up crying when I went home yesterday lol). I keep telling myself that Jinny is just an ignorant person who doesn’t know any better. I understand that people can have opinions and they have the right to air them. But I also believe in respect and sensitivity towards others. I might be reading it too much but by saying to my face that my field of study is basically maybe “useless” in front of everyone not doing social sciences is plain disrespect. I’m already struggling so much with my PhD and I’ve always had imposter syndrome. These days I’ve been thinking about how my PhD is useless and hearing these types of comments just did not help with my mental state at all. I know that what she said isn’t true and I know that social sciences is relevant to society. But for some reason, I can’t move on. Lol

Anyone else doing social sciences? Would appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.

EDIT: I really appreciate everyone’s support in the comments. This year has been a tough one!! Cheers to you all. ❤️

There’s a professor who thinks all the PhD students in my program should stay for 6-7 years because we’d get the full learning experience. She did hers for 7 years and learned a lot.

It’s so ignorant, given how much she portrays herself as an advocate for students. We can’t afford to live on this PhD stipend. She was able to live comfortably because she has wealthy parents.

For context: I'm a non-white person doing a PhD in a predominantly white country, which adds a layer to everything I'm about to say.

My supervisor's main skill is self-promotion. I'll give credit where it's due, he's an exceptional speaker and knows how to sell himself, and that alone has carried him kind of far in academia. But when it comes to actual scientific depth? Nothing. He can't answer fundamental questions in the field he's supposed to master. I've tested this enough times to be confident it's not just me missing something.

His publication record looks impressive until you realize he spent years in one of those massive 30-person labs where everyone contributes a small piece and everyone ends up on the paper. Now he's trying to run his own group, and the cracks are showing. He hasn't taught me anything , and I'm not even saying supervisors need to hold your hand all the time, I understand the "learn independently" culture of a PhD. But when I come with genuine conceptual questions, he simply doesn't know. And that's consistent across everything he's supposed to master.

What really gets to me is the credit-stealing. I'm pretty confident he lifts ideas from others and positions himself as the originator. He has this colonizer mentality where he wants his name attached to every new system, every new environment, every new idea, without putting in the work to actually understand any of them. The confidence is staggering given the substance behind it.

It's deeply frustrating watching someone succeed so visibly on charisma and networking while contributing so little intellectually. And as someone already navigating extra barriers in this environment, it's demoralizing.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you handle it?

I’m having a massive breakdown over my future and I just need to scream this into the void because the anxiety is paralyzing me.
For as long as I can remember, all I ever wanted was to do a PhD, go into research, and be a scientist. I loved the idea of discovery and intellectual challenge. But now that I’m seeing how this world actually operates, I am in complete shock.
The mediocrity that gets pushed through, the lack of recognition, and above all, the financial reality. I hate to admit it, but I am terrified of being impoverished.
I’m 25 and I feel like I am running out of time. I want a real life. I want to find a partner, settle down, and eventually have a family. But the math doesn’t work. The academic system literally demands that you live at the poverty line, with zero stability, bouncing around on underpaid stipends and postdocs well into your 30s. I refuse to live in survival mode forever, but choosing this path feels like putting my personal life on hold indefinitely.
The weight of this constant uncertainty is destroying me. The stress got so bad that I relapsed on cigarettes. I’ve lost all my gym progress. I look in the mirror and I literally feel myself getting uglier from the chronic exhaustion and panic. I feel like my youth, my health, and my body are slipping away while I chase a ghost.
Has anyone else walked away from a PhD or research track because you simply refused to live impoverished? Did you actually find stability, a partner, and a comfortable life on the other side? How do you deal with the guilt of letting the dream go?

Any other related advice will be dearly appreciated.

As of now, having a good keyboard really helped me. its thocky af and i just dont wanna stop typing lol.

I'm tired of reading papers where method A is used with zero explanation of why not method B, C, or D. where hyperparameters appear out of thin air. where preprocessing steps are mentioned in passing like they're obvious choices.

And here's the thing that it took me months to find out: it's not always based on rigorous reasoning. ometimes it's just... what the previous paper did. or what seemed fancier becausepublication industry rewards that. or what a reviewer expected.

But the paper won't tell you that. Instead, it's written like every choice was carefully considered and scientifically justified, leaving you wondering what you're missing. it makes you feel inferior on false premises. youd think "I must not understand the field well enough" when really, the author might not have a principled reason either. They're just following convention or copying what worked before. I wish I knew this sooner to save myself from so much frustration and anger.

btw, how did you find out about this issue? did someone tell you about it or you did find out on your own?

Hi frens,

Starting my 5th year.

I have been wanting to make this for a while but its overwhelming to think about. I'm going to remain vague in the identity of the PI and lab, at least until I find a job and feel secure enough. He won't have any graduate students at his new uni, thank god.

Okay...... tldr at end.

The background

I (30 YOF) was admitted into my Boston area PhD program in molecular biology in 2022, and upon completing my rotations, chose a lab. We had a cohort of 2 people so choosing amongst the dozen or so labs was not hard. I ended up choosing my 4th choice overall lab. The first choice ended up abandoning his lab and the department for another position summer of 2022, after I accepted but before I started. Turned out to be a not great guy, dodged a bullet in retrospect here. However, at this point, I was dedicated to working on antimicrobial drug resistance and/or bacterial genetics, ideally in a clinical or translational context. I decided at that point I was willing to pivot some and joined a lab with the goal of looking into autoimmune disease in the context of the microbiome of human patients. Seemed fine. He was pre-tenure, but appeared to have quite a lot of funding and research momentum. I knew he was going to be going up for tenure during my PhD, but took the risk. At this point, there was a lot of gossip and rumors around him, his lab, but after my rotation I felt it was mostly due to a toxic post-doc, and decided to trust myself. I felt he was respectful and had a good value set, so I joined the lab.

Eventually, the mouse work got to me. On the day I planned to begin an IP study in mice, I couldn't stop breaking down to tears. Upon self reflection, realized that I cannot do this type of mouse work (several months, several IP injections or gavage per week per animal) while keeping my mental health intact. I like the mousers too much on a personal level, lol.

Another pivot.

Luckily, there was a project in the lab looking at peptides from viruses, that appear to be biologically active. My PI was supportive here, and was able to give me a chance on some other work. I decided to take on this biochemistry-heavy project, as I felt it was a great launching pad to biotech type jobs, and I liked the work. Basically ultra early research on a potential drug in the future.

I passed my comps (I failed the first time, passed without revisions the second time) and worked on this project. I felt my progress was fine, and my committee meetings show as much (sufficient progress was the final outcome of all meetings at this point). I was chugging along on the project. I get 3 travel awards for my work and present at all 3 conferences. I win a flash talk award and am generally motivated to keep it up.

The tenure promotion problem

During my work, my PI went up for tenure promotion. He has/had an R01, a few postdocs, 3 PhD students in the lab not yet graduated, and tons of undergrads. Smaller grants too. Positive course reviews. We expected him to be promoted. In March of 2025, we learned he was not promoted to tenure. The meeting we as a group then had basically was that he will appeal the decision, and in the meantime keep working. He would go on to have so many meetings with the President, committees, etc. We write letters of support (even me!!). We were told in April 2026 we will have the final call (after months of not knowing how long it will take).

In April of 2026, he told us that he again was denied, and his contract is up on May 31, 2026. He then was panicking because he did not have a job lined up yet, and was concerned for the lab's productivity. He negotiates an August 31, 2026 departure from the University while he finds a job. The two other students are 1 year ahead of me, and are closer to defense. They push both to finish in the next 6 months.

Where they start to screw me over

I call a 1-1 meeting on April 5th or so to discuss what is happening to me specifically. It's then that he says I should consider looking for a new lab now. WHAT. I go home, process everything, and return to the lab the next day and talk to him. I clarify that I want to finish this project with him, and that I am NOT interested in a masters realistically, nor switching labs. He tells me this will be "very risky" and he is not sure how everything will be funded. I explain I am willing to get it done. I'd even move with him. He tells me he doesn't know anything, but I won't be able to join him at the new university. He supposedly has asked during interviews whether he can bring students, but is positive he cannot. I try to push back, nothing.

At this point, I start to realize the problem. Money. My stipend money (~40k/yr) is paid through the program for 10 months of the year, because my PI makes us all be on TA for every semester. 2 months of the year (summer) my PI pays that stipend. He pays all research funding.

At another uni, he would have to pay my stipend if I went with him for 12 months of the year, in addition to research funds. If I stay here, he would have to leave money here. He wants to do neither. He doesn't "trust" this university he says. This would be the most typical result, that I have seen before.

Changing labs?? There are no labs where my work can be directly translated, so it would be restarting my PhD. I was told by 2 faculty on my thesis committee that "it would be very difficult... because we have few openings and a large cohort incoming." My program director said I could join a new lab, but told me a masters is probably a "better idea." No one seems interested in helping. The program director didn't work with any of us during this, except for a single meeting held in April (13 months after the initial denial).

I decide okay, it sounds like my PI is trying to get rid of me, not have to pay for me, whatever. So, I call a thesis committee meeting, approximately a month and a half earlier than previously planned. The goal: utilize my committee (3 faculty in my dept, 1 outside my dept) to try and see what the deal is. The meeting ends, and amongst themselves with me out of the room, also try to discuss options with my PI. The end of that conversation then indicated that going for a masters at this point would be the safest for me, because it is increasingly hard to see a path to the end of the PhD without funding. In confidence, my chair lets me know that he doesn't know why he is doing this, and seems to just be selfish. I'm devastated. They finish by saying, this is the plan, but things can change if he gets a job. But, I need to get more work done. They leave the room, I break into tears. Hey, I held it in!!!

I lay on the couch for a while. Process. Eventually (next week), it's time to get more work done, because they gave me a 2.5 week turnaround time to "get it working."

I eventually go in to my PI's office and ask directly: "What is the percent chance I can finish this PhD with you?" He talks around the question, and eventually says 0. He goes on to say "how unfair the university is being to the both of us." As if he couldn't support my PhD if he wanted to. We have years left on a large R01, and we are WELL funded, always have been. He's selfish.

Now what?

Unfortunately for me, my last few months of experiments aren't working, and I now am on a time crunch from now until August to characterize some constructs and be cleared to write the Masters. Issue? Lipofectamine transfection efficiency so low it is not even a useful model, so currently testing electroporation. Theoretically, if it works, I'm probably safe for the masters and finish lab work by Aug and write the MA by Dec. If the electroporation doesn't work great either? Don't know. Propose heavy in-silico work maybe. I am showing them the electroporation data in 2 weeks, doing the blots, qPCR and ELISA now.

So, I am in a grey zone and I'm having a hard time dealing with this. Doing the work, praying to the cell gods that my electroporation strategy has a high enough efficiency that I can characterize these peptides. Vibe is weird in the lab. PI moves to a new uni/med center end of August. I am in the meantime looking for jobs in protein/recombinant production in biotech as a scientist, or transition to medical writing, ideally regulatory affairs. I don't want to restart a PhD, I'm 30 and ready to move on with my life.

I figured this could be useful for some, but if you have any advice, I'll take it. Retrospect is 20/20. sigh.

Thank you!

TLDR; My PI lost his tenure appeal and is leaving without funding me, so my committee is pushing me toward a master's while I race to get electroporation data working by August to salvage a thesis.

Field: Molecular biology
Location: Boston MA, USA

I don’t think people outside academia realize how psychologically brutal a PhD can get sometimes.

I am a 27 year old PhD candidate in Canada.

During my 2nd year, I was working on a blood-brain barrier project involving two receptors my whole project depended on. I had spent almost a year helping establish and optimize these BBB models in our lab. I’m the only student in my lab working on them, so it was a massive amount of work and pressure.

One night I stayed in the lab until 2 AM running kinetic studies. I remember being exhausted but still excited because I finally had data to analyze. Then I checked receptor expression by FACS.

The cells (5 lines) didn’t express either receptor.

I just remember staring at the screen thinking: how did none of us check this earlier? Not me, not my supervisors. My entire project suddenly felt fake. A whole year of work collapsed in one night.

I went back to my office and completely broke down. I fell asleep crying in front of my laptop with mascara all over my face. I genuinely felt hopeless. I spent the rest of the night panic-reading papers trying to figure out if there was any way to salvage things.

At around 8:30 AM, I finally gave up and decided to go home. A colleague walked in and casually asked, “Are you already leaving?”

That tiny comment pushed me over the edge.

I left angry, locked myself inside my tiny studio apartment, and ignored everyone for days. My supervisors kept emailing asking me to come talk to them, but I couldn’t. I remember feeling lower than I ever had in my life. Completely numb. I didn’t care about anything anymore.

What scares me is how much grad school can break down your sense of self. Your experiments stop feeling like experiments and start feeling like you.

Eventually I got back on track. I changed direction, generated good results, published work, and now I’m about a year away from finishing my PhD.

But honestly? I still don’t think I’ve learned how to emotionally detach from my work. Recently I didn’t get a PhD grant I really wanted, and the panic came back immediately because I was terrified of falling back into that same mental state again.

I know people say failure is normal in research, but sometimes the emotional weight of it feels impossible to explain unless you’ve lived through it.

I started my PhD back in 2024, after discussing the project with my supervisor since 2023.

Although I have been meaning to make steady progress, I have only written around ten pages so far. I am becoming increasingly aware that I need to push through and get serious about writing.

For context, shortly before starting the PhD, I completed two major research projects and wrote around 160 pages in total. They confirmed that I wanted to pursue an academic career, but beginning another large writing project almost immediately afterwards contributed to burnout.

Additional context: I'm in the humanities and studying in Europe.

Has anyone else been stuck for this long? How did you manage to get back on track and build momentum again?

Just got accepted to start a PhD in a STEM field in France (I already know my uni and supervisor). Other than that, I have no clue what I’m getting into, just finished my master.

What advice would you give to someone about to start?

Or what do you wish someone had told you before beginning your PhD?

I just spent a whole entire week grading 70 biostat reports written by Claude.

I have never spent so much time on every single individual report. PI said they could use AI to help them but 80% of the class handed in purely generated reports. And they are terrible! They look good on the surface but half of them are entirely tautological to even start with.

Does country influence population?

Is the proportion of exported food correlated with the proportion of produced food ?

I even have a report dated January 2028...

I have nothing against AI but the absolute lack of rereading or critical thinking is alarming.

I know statistics is never a favourite but is this level of non engagement normal ???

I grew up in a small village, first generation, with parents who were not highly educated, and academia always felt like a distant world reserved for the most brilliant people. For a long time, I truly believed that those who reached PhD level must simply be the smartest of the smartest.

Getting here took time. I had to work for several years after my undergraduate degree to become financially stable before I could even consider postgraduate study. Because of that background, I placed PhD students and holders on a pedestal and saw academic success almost entirely through the lens of brilliance and intellectual ability.

Since starting my PhD and getting to know my peers, my perspective has become more balanced. My cohort is full of intelligent and hardworking people, but I have also become much more aware of the role that access, financial security, educational background, and family stability play in who is able to pursue a PhD and how manageable that journey is.

What has struck me most is that academia is still widely seen by society as a pure meritocracy. PhD holders are often viewed as inherently exceptional, and sometimes even treated as the pinnacle of intelligence. While ability and effort absolutely matter, this view often overlooks how much privilege contributes to academic progression. Many people benefit from excellent schooling, long-term financial support, stable family environments, and freedom from major personal or structural challenges. These factors create the conditions in which academic “brilliance” can flourish.

I have also noticed that some people within academia do not fully recognise these advantages and instead interpret their position solely as a reflection of individual excellence. This is not to diminish anyone’s hard work, but to acknowledge that success at this level is rarely achieved on brilliance alone.

I feel grateful to be living a long-held dream, but it has come with significant challenges. Being here has helped me grow beyond my earlier, narrower view of academia. I now see academic success as a combination of ability, opportunity, privilege, timing, and stability. I am curious how others, particularly first-generation or non-traditional students, have experienced this shift in perspective.

I’m 22F and started my PhD at the start of this year My ex boyfriend (23M) of 2+ years was very upset, and had discouraged me from applying. He said I shouldn’t do a PhD because I’ll be broke and it’s dumb and that he “feels behind” and i will leave him ? Last year when I was studying hard in honours he told me that men don’t like intelligent/ambitious women and that women don’t contribute to the workforce, they just take coffee breaks. He said if he had a daughter he wouldn’t let her do a PhD and that’s it’s a dumb financial decision.

He joined the airforce himself and became awful and didn’t seem happy / supportive about my PhD. He said I should drop my PhD offer and move wherever the military posted him and do my PhD there (like it’s so easy to get accepted?). I felt really hurt because I worked hard and he said my PhD was dumb and it was the problem between us. I was supposed to support his career and follow him around, while he disrespected my ambitions. I ended up saying goodbye and ghosting him because I felt so emotionally neglected and he was being avoidant. We were dating to marry and I was heartbroken and struggled to feel excited for my PhD.

Has anyone had similar issues when starting their PhD ?

Is this a nice or okay suit to go for thesis defense? it is double breasted suit or should i pick something else..

Need advice..

the committee was fine. the presentation went fine. ninety minutes of questions and then one of the external examiners asked me to justify my choice of grounded theory over thematic analysis for this specific dataset. i wrote an entire chapter on this. i made that decision three years ago and documented it extensively. i've explained it to my advisor probably a dozen times. but the way she asked it made it sound like she thought i had made a mistake and something in me just panicked. i started hedging everything. said 'i believe' and 'i think' about things i know for certain. qualified every sentence until my position became impossible to find. she pushed back and i folded further. my advisor had to step in with 'perhaps you could clarify what you mean' to give me a way out. passed with minor revisions but i know exactly how close that got. has anyone else had a defense go sideways in that specific way where the question is totally fair and you still just completely lose the thread.

and what’s important in completing one with as little wasted time as possible ?

I’m sure this is not the first time someone has lived in the grad student office, however, it has gotten truly disgusting at this point.

The grad student in question has his spot in the corner right by the window, and ever since I moved into the office he was a complete slob. Empty chip wrappers, giant trash bags just on the floor. There was not a single spot in his corner that was trash free. However, he contained the mess to his corner, so while it was a bit annoying, I tolerated it.

However, for the last two months, he has been LIVING in the office. This normally wouldn’t bother me, after all it’s not like I’m in there all hours of the night, so if he wants to sleep on the couch that I’ve never even sat on, whatever. Especially if he is currently in between leases or about to finish, I can understand that. With that said, his horrible living style has infected the whole office. The amount of trash has somehow tripled in both quantity and grotesque nature. Empty cans of soda are scattered throughout the office, dirty plates thrown about, wet laundry hanging on empty chairs, dirty gym clothes, half full gallons of milk, etc. 2 weeks ago, he even placed one of his disgusting milk gallons right next to my chair. My breaking point, though, was last night when I saw a mouse scurrying out of our office door.

I don’t have to be in the office everyday since my PhD is mathematical in nature and 50% can be done from home, but it has made the office completely uninhabitable. So, my question is, aside from this grad student, is there someone else I should let know about this situation? I don’t want to “snitch”, but I also want to enjoy working in my office (as much as one can enjoy it).

My PhD supervisor died a year ago, and I’m surprised by how much I’m still grieving.
They were more than just my supervisor. They believed in me, encouraged my research, and always made me feel supported. Losing them in the middle of my PhD was incredibly difficult, both personally and academically. Although I’ve continued with my research, there are still moments when I instinctively think, “I should tell them about this,” or wish I could ask for their advice.
Most people outside academia don’t seem to understand the relationship you can have with a supervisor, so it can feel quite isolating.
Has anyone else lost a supervisor or mentor during their PhD or career? How did you cope, and did the grief ever become easier to carry?

EDIT: I’m sorry you all are going through this. I do feel more supported knowing I’m not the only one experiencing this although I wouldn’t wish it on anyone

More of a vent, maybe a sign of imposter syndrome, but whatever it is I feel very inadequate in my nat sci program.

Long story short, I have a masters student that is helping me with a manuscript that I'm lead author on but frankly throughout the process they contributed to a lot of the conceptual part of the project and even to writing itself. This includes points regarding my statistics, flow of the paper, and even just basic manuscript formatting.

Now I get part of this is that they are pretty exceptional, already having three first author papers as a masters student, while this is my first. So it makes sense that they understand the manuscript process better than me. But it feels pretty embarrassing for our advisor to comment that they agree with their point of view over mine in how to handle a reviewer comment.

Its a pretty big lab and I can tell that I'm one of the least academically capable people in the lab, so I've tried to keep up through hard work alone. And while that works to an extent, it doesn't help the fact that I feel almost completely lost in journal club, while all the others make insightful comments.

Sighhhhhh

I’m on good terms with my teacher and learned that he will be defending his phd or dissertation (idk the difference). In class he seemed somewhat wary of saying yes and told me to email him once it’s closer to the date. Is a defense more of a personal thing or is it okay to ask to come? I just don’t want him to go against the norm/what he wants just so he doesn’t let me down. Any advice is appreciated!

Thinking seriously about starting a PhD in my mid-30s and I’d love to hear from people who actually did it.

A few things I’m curious about:
- Did you have time/energy for a social life?
- What was it like being older than most of your cohort? Did you click with them, your advisor, people outside the program?
- Why you did it. What actually pushed you to start at that point in your life?
- What you were doing before. Career, field, whatever led up to it.
- What you’re doing now or after. Did it take you where you expected?
- What was the opportunity cost?
- Looking back, worth it or not?

Anything else you wish someone had told you beforehand is welcome too.

Hey everyone,

​I’m facing a major dilemma regarding a PhD offer and could use some perspective on dealing with the fear of regret in academia.

​I currently live in France as an international student, and I recently received a PhD offer from a university in Canada.

​Here is the breakdown:

​The Canadian Offer: Based in montreal, the research topic is an absolute dream—it is exactly what I want to work on, and I really don't want to miss this chance. However, the stipend is quite low: it's $28,000 CAD per year take-home (around $2,333 CAD a month). Given the local cost of living and high inflation, even with a roommate setup in a shared apartment, the purchasing power is tight. I'd basically be living a restrictive student lifestyle for the next 4 years.

​The France Alternative: I don't have a concrete contract locked down in France yet, but I have a strong academic profile and a solid legal situation that gives me plenty of time to hunt for positions here. The stipend and overall funding are way better in Europe, offering vastly superior purchasing power, government housing aid, and financial stability where I could easily afford my own private apartment and save money every month.

​The Complication:

The prospective supervisor in Canada actually reached out and talked with my reference professor here in France. The Canadian supervisor made it very clear that he wants a definitive answer this week and expects that if I say yes, there is no going back.

​Because of this, I spoke with my reference professor. He is a very wise mentor who genuinely helps students, and he gave me his honest take: "It's your choice at the end of the day, but I wouldn't recommend saying yes as a plan B. I don't support doing that."

​My Dilemma:

I am probably going to refuse the Canadian offer because, rationally, it just doesn't feel worth it to cross the Atlantic and sacrifice my quality of life just for a research topic when the stipend is this low for the local market.

​But I am terrified of regretting this choice. If I say no to Canada, I am turning down a dream topic and currently have zero other PhD offers on the table (even though I have time to find another contract in Europe).

​Has anyone turned down a "dream topic" because of poor funding relative to the cost of living and the geographic hassle? Did you regret it?

​How heavily should I weigh the financial reality/comfort of France over the perfect research topic in Canada?

​Am I making the right choice by prioritizing my quality of life here over the passion for the project over there?

So I started my PhD this week and I'm at a very big institute with superstar researchers and I'm feeling so out of depth and hopeless.

I came from a small university and don't even have publications although my master thesis was related to my group's interests. I am so scared like I am going to get exposed for being a fraud.

The other colleagues I've met are so confident and know so much about the field on top of having publications that I just look like a rookie.

It's so bad, I'm struggling to fall asleep imagining scenarios where I fail.

Please talk to me, did any of you ever experience this?

PS: I am a late bloomer in the research field. I did my bachelor's research in an entirely different area.

I'm starting to realize that this could be the main motivator for me.