What do you want to do for your future?

He asked me, "what do you want to do for your future?". A legitimate question. I have had a hard time these last weeks. I had to make a decision about my future career, about my future place, where I want to live, whether I want to stay a few hours of train away from my husband or a few hours of plane away? Even if I was selfish, he would complain, he would rebel, repeating those annoying sentences, "I stayed for you in Trieste, but you do not stay for me here". He is partially right. He knows I do not fully agree with him. However, he is partially right.

"What do I want to do for my future?", I murmured. "I do not know!", I loudly responded. I know it is awful. This lousy response on such important matters is not accepted from a thoughtful girl or from a pretending-to-be-thoughtful girl. I felt ashamed--yes ashamed not just guilty--for this response. Then, I said, "OK, I do not know if I really want to stay in science. I sometimes feel that I like it, but something inside me strongly rebels and do not let me imagine myself sitting in a lab, worried about results, even not certain about the question." I was brutally honest. I have such inner struggle about whom I expect from myself. I know this state is not promising. All the self-help books urge you to choose your ultimate goal, otherwise you won't get anywhere. I think they are right. But, I continued, "maybe this is for my bad PhD experience"---not sure whether I usually tell that just not to feel guilty or it is true, at least partially.

"So, I would say going to Edinburgh would be better for you if you would like to go out of science. There will be more industrial opportunities for you out there." he said.
-Yeah, I know. In fact, one of my friends, Federico, did the same.
-But you know, he is a European citizen. You cannot easily think of these options.
-Yeah, I know. But, anyway, it will be easier there than in Italy.

Apparently, I convinced him, though surely he did not really need those extra useless information. He is too smart.

"What do I want to do for my future, really?", I just asked myself. It is one week later. My inner voice overcame, "I like to help people. I do not care about understanding natural phenomena. It is not really something that I die for. I have seen some people who strongly feel this discovery thirst. I do not feel it much, at least not often." I remember I gave the same response in another desperate situation. I was in a future-career workshop.

"I want to help people." I replied when I was asked what is my main motivation behind my career. But I felt lying. I think everyone else felt that. Did I leave my country for helping people? Surely, I left it for helping myself, first. I was going to almost kill myself. I hated those years, that hopeless life. I am very glad that I left the country. But why do I think that my main motivation is to help people? Maybe, because I know how hard the life can be. I feel empathy with many people, people suffering from financial and intellectual problems. This empathy might make me feel that my main motivation is helping people. However, obviously by now I have almost helped myself, not anyone else, at least not directly.

"How could I help people?", I asked myself after my new smile mediation. Yeah, smile meditation! It is what I have just learned from the medicine man in "Eat, Pray, Love". In this mediation, you need to sit down and smile. That's it! No mantra, no pray, just smile. I love it--at least for the beginning. It seems relaxing. By doing such simple smiling act, I feel that some changes physically happen in my brain. I do not understand what they are exactly, but I just feel some strong signals in different lobes, especially left part. But, please do not ask more!

Anyway, How could I help people?