There is a stage in life where you find yourself in a comfort zone. It’s easy to stay there. It doesn’t always mean life is easy in this zone, but it’s a place that is comfortable for you to navigate. Sometimes, you get sucked into this life so deeply that you don’t even realize you are in your comfort zone.

Troopers burst my bubble. And now that I am awake, I have no choice but to push harder, because suddenly, it’s no longer comfortable for me to be in the comfort zone.

Two years ago, when I came back from Troopers, I started my blog. On that exact same day. It was a dream I had for a long time. That is simply the power of Troopers, it’s a conference that changes your life.

Just this month, WordPress asked me if I wanted to renew my annual subscription for the blog. Honestly, I didn’t open the email because I didn’t want to face the truth: that I hadn’t prioritized doing research for a whole year, and that the blog’s days were numbered. But as it turns out, the payment was configured to auto-renew every year unless I actively decided otherwise, so it happened to stay alive.

During the conference, people told me they enjoyed my talk, and asked a lot of questions. People even came up to talk to me about a talk I gave two years ago. I felt wanted in the community, rather than feeling like I was forcing my way in. I felt like I belonged, and I felt respected.

This conference reminded me of what I am good at, and what I truly enjoy doing. I am good at explaining things, especially complicated concepts. I am good with people. And maybe, I’m not bad at research either. It turns out that people actually read my blog posts!

The talks at the conference were amazing. I won’t do any spoilers, and I will wait for the videos to be uploaded, but I learned so many new things. It is so inspiring to spend time with people who enjoy this work just as much as I do, it reminded me of why I fell in love with this field in the first place.

One of the most significant moments for me happened during a pretty casual conversation with one of the other speakers. I shared my difficulties regarding doing research in my free time, and my doubts about my ability to succeed in producing good research. He gave me the simplest answer, the one I needed to hear the most: “Try harder.” Just like that. There is no special recipe, no superpower, you just have to work hard. And that is exactly what I plan to do.

So, to summarize, I think the number of people who will actually read this post is probably in the single digits. And yet, I am no longer afraid of how many people will read what I wrote, or what they will think. For me, this post is a public declaration of intent, that I plan to work harder than ever, and try the absolute hardest I can.

See you in the next post, which will hopefully describe some wonderful failed research!