Beyond Diaries

I am a researcher, and why I chose to be in this profession is a question I often ask myself. Was it the monetary perks? Was it the respect one gets for being a scientist? Or was it a consequence of a deep-rooted habit having its origin in childhood? I don’t remember a single dramatic moment when I decided I wanted to be a researcher. What I remember instead is asking questions constantly, instinctively, and sometimes inconveniently.

As a child, I questioned ideas and claims and never took them on face value. I was raised in a culture that does not encourage children to question the elders. Despite this, I was way ahead in the game. I would question everything, not settling until I was satisfied, building my curiosity over the years. During my childhood days, I did not have access to the internet. People and books were my only source of information, and I am grateful for them. I say this because in today’s world, information overload has stymied critical thinking, leading to mental laziness. When I was a kid, the world did not move so fast. Access to information was restricted to a certain extent, but still available. The power I had in asking, “Why do I believe in this?” fascinated me greatly. The streak continued in my high school. I would seek answers, and my curiosity never faded. I wanted to know it all.

But it was not until I completed the undergraduate degree that I became comfortable with not knowing it all. I seldom struggle to accept that I do not have answers to certain questions. However, I am coping with it and challenging my stringent ideology. As I moved ahead in my journey to graduate school, I realized research is not about having all the answers. It’s about learning how to ask better questions, and that’s where I started developing greater critical thinking (something that is essential to help you grow as a person).

In research, you are allowed—required, even—to pause and interrogate assumptions. To sit with data that doesn’t behave. To follow results that contradict expectations. To accept that progress is often incremental, nonlinear, and occasionally humbling. I learned that meaningful discoveries rarely come from certainty. They emerge from curiosity disciplined by rigor. There is a quiet joy in research that’s hard to explain unless you’ve felt it: the moment when a pattern starts to emerge, when a hypothesis survives its first real test, or when a negative result teaches you more than a positive one ever could.

These moments don’t make headlines. They don’t happen on schedules. But they accumulate. And over time, they change how you think—not just about science, but about problem-solving, doubt, and persistence. Research trains you to respect complexity without being paralyzed by it.

When I say I chose research as a career, what I really mean is that I chose to honor the part of myself that never stopped asking questions. The child who wanted explanations. The student who lingered on footnotes.

Research allows me to live at the intersection of curiosity and responsibility—to ask questions that matter, in ways that are careful, ethical, and grounded in evidence. Trust me, it is not always glamorous. It is often slow. Sometimes it is lonely. But it is deeply aligned with who I am and who I aspire to be.

I still don’t have all the answers. I don’t expect to. What I have instead is a framework: ask thoughtfully, test rigorously, accept uncertainty, and stay curious.

Looking back, the roots of my career choice are clear. They weren’t planted in a lab or a lecture hall. They were planted in childhood, every time I asked “why” and refused to move on too quickly.

Research didn’t change who I was. It gave my questions a home.

So, my question to you is: would you rather think critically or accept things as they are? Maybe ponder over this.