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Grappling with lack of appreciation?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

want to gather wisdom from cocoon on how to handle lack of appreciation.

Some explanation:
1. past peers in a field that you left behind and who you perceived as less quality have risen to stardom and received extreme praise from your own chair who does not even know what you are working on
2. past phd students who were kinda loud bros without matching ideas but who you continued to nourish for 7-8 years are now going to excellent positions (and partly taking credits for your joint work) while you are left behind in a gut.
3. you work extremely hard on researching and supervising and did well in talks for 15+ years, but none of this culminates to anything (getting 0 job offer)
……

Maybe some readers will doubt whether the above is true. But if it is true, how do you handle this feeling of being defeated and perhaps some mild resentment of successful peers that you feel produce inferior work?

I'm sorry the OP has been having so much trouble on the job market. I remember all too well what it felt like. Feeling defeated and even a bit resentful are entirely human reactions, and I'm sure others on the market empathize. That being said, I was always taught that it's more productive to focus on what you can control, and this attitude has always seemed wise to me. Are there mentors you can approach to help you ascertain why you've been struggling so much? Is it time to consider leaving for a job outside of academia? If so, what steps can you take? Maybe the Cocoon's alt-ac transition tips series may be helpful.

What do readers think? Any supportive tips/wisdom you have for the OP?

Posted in ,

16 responses to “Grappling with lack of appreciation?”

  1. Cap

    This might be unsatisfactory and I only intend it as a supplement to more specific answers. I would recommend CBT and perhaps other psychotherapy. ChatGPT has also helped me deal with and contextualise issues like this. I suspect that the solution has to come from within.
    It might also help to separate the different reactions here. One reaction is the experience of not being appreciated for one’s work, independent of the success or recognition received by other people. Another reaction is the feeling that other people are receiving more credit than they deserve, regardless of the credit the OP gets. A third reaction is the feeling that others are receiving more (undeserved) credit than the OP. A fourth is the idea that these people are stealing credit that is due to the OP, succeeding at their expense. A fifth is the general hardship of not having a successful career regardless of whether one deserves it or whatever. All of these are understandable reactions to a situation.
    My sympathy goes out to OP and I hope they can find solace.

    Reply
  2. u.s. healthcare system

    @Cap, could you share a bit about how you prompted ChatGPT to help you contextualize things? As someone who can’t currently afford therapy, this is very intriguing, although I realize an actual therapist would be better etc. etc.

    Reply
  3. huh?

    I don’t understand this post: the talk of “your own chair” in 1 and having “phd students” in 2 suggests that the OP has a job; one where phd supervision is involved, no less, which makes it sound like a TT research-oriented position. But then the OP goes on to suggest in 3 that they’ve had zero job offers. So, I think the OP should clarify. If you actually have the kind of job that your posts suggests, then you have been recognized; you have an extremely desirable position which most people will never even been interviewed for, let alone offered. The other things I would recommend getting over; academia is filled with frustration, disappointment, and instances of unfair/unwarranted “success” or “stardom”. If you’re in this business for recognition or stardom, you’re in it for the wrong reason.

    Reply
  4. you already won

    I agree with @huh? —if you are in an R1 dept with a grad program, you are one of the lucky ones and have already been recognized more than many, many deserving people ever will be!
    Respectfully, there are many dozens (if not hundreds) of people not in your shoes who may have more/better publications than you (and may even be better philosophers!), and these people will never get to have the recognition you already have in virtue of having the job you (appear to) have. Sorry if this is insensitive, but I think you need to count you blessings and get over yourself.

    Reply
  5. Ask for a friend

    @huh?
    OP here. Thanks, I will add some clarification to my somewhat incoherent rambling:
    by Phd students, I meant those that I have informally supervised when I was a postdoc in various institutions and have kept the contact with. I have a small community of past students and collaborators that I regularly share ideas with freely. The most senior such student (who I suspect will land a great position) has been working with me for 10 years. He now does many independent projects from me but on our joint work, I still do most work, and still include him in most of my projects.
    By “zero job offer” I mean that my job search has returned nothing in the past two years. This has been saddening because I need to change my job for some reason. But the post was also about the slight resentment towards other peers job success. The past peers, due to their professional success, now consider themselves in a position to offer me casual advice on what to research on, despite my clear seniority (in terms of my publication profile).
    I have been lived with a self-image of “failed genius” for many years now and do not feel bitter about it at all. But I now increasingly suffer from the total lack of recognition, when I thought I have kept improving my work and made many valuable contributions.
    One factor for the job search failure is perhaps due to a lack of great letters. I have been working independently (and collaborating with only more junior people) ever since I was a PhD student, so don’t have very deep relationship with big names. I keep hoping that I will be appreciated one day fi I do everything right, but still that has not happened, so it is demoralizing, which prompted me to seek wisdom from the cocoon.
    Hope the clarification helps. Thanks again!

    Reply
  6. Daniel Weltman

    I second the recommendation for CBT and psychotherapy or whatever. These are not useful thoughts, and there are lots of psychological strategies for dealing with unhelpful thoughts.
    Another thing that might help is to adjust your sense of what is good work. You clearly think you are better than lots of people. This is a common judgment, but not everyone can be right about this. Most people aren’t better than most people. So perhaps come up with an alternative way of judging philosophy such that others are not worse than you, but are instead different. Then you won’t have resentment about worse people doing better.

    Reply
  7. Talk to the big dogs

    Having read the OP’s follow-up comment, I wonder if it might help if the OP tries networking a little more with bigger names in their field, either at conferences or just email correspondence. You might find out that some of them already appreciate you but never told you, or that they’ll come to appreciate you once they become more familiar with you.
    That might help you feel more recognized, and maybe you’ll end up with stronger letters.

    Reply
  8. That sounds tough

    I mean this as delicately as possible, but I do think this is something you need to work through with therapists and other tools in your life.
    It might help you to see that a lot of these things are not insults. It isn’t an insult to offer casual advice on what to research, for example. It sounds like you you expect people to be deferential, as if they were first year students looking up to you. But people grow up, they become peers, and that’s … ok. Its not a way of wronging you. And if they have been professionally successful, they may genuinely have learned something (about the profession at least, if not the work itself) that might be useful. Or not. But it is not obvious that sharing such thoughts is a way of failing to respect you.
    It sounds like you are focused a lot on interactions as if they were hierarchical, as if others succeeding is you failing, as if all our interactions are about the level of esteem we have for others, or about how famous or recognized we are.
    That sounds like a really toxic painful mindset. But it isn’t one you have to have. A lot of people are just…doing their thing, thinking about what they find interesting, talking to people they like. Most people are just wrapped up in themselves, they aren’t really judging other people because they are too busy with their own shit. If you have a community of folks you share ideas with regularly that IS success, and those discussions ARE recognition.
    I hope you find a way to process this pain, and maybe to see the world a little differently. It sounds really hard to have the viewpoint that you are living with.

    Reply
  9. never mind

    I wanted to chime in again and say that what I said above (in you already won) is not applicable if OP is not yet in a tenure stream job in such a department. So, if that is the case, I apologize.

    Reply
  10. Prof L

    It sounds like OP has a job? Maybe they need a NEW job but … well, it’s hard for anyone to change jobs.
    Idk. Sounds like they have a serious issue comparing themselves to others. This is toxic and will make a person miserable. This seems like an internal problem rather than an external one. Some philosophers on the topic:
    Socrates: You, my friend — a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens — are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?
    Aquinas: A man’s good which, through fame or glory, is in the knowledge of many, if this knowledge be true, must needs be derived from good existing in the man himself: and hence it presupposes perfect or inchoate happiness. But if the knowledge be false, it does not harmonize with the thing: and thus good does not exist in him who is looked upon as famous. Hence it follows that fame can nowise make man happy.[…] Fame has no stability; in fact, it is easily ruined by false report. And if sometimes it endures, this is by accident. But happiness endures of itself, and for ever.

    Reply
  11. Cap

    I think with the current ChatGPT models (4o and later; sonnet 3.5 for Claude I guess) you don’t have to worry so much about wording the prompts but here is what I have found myself doing. I say, I keep ruminating on something that happened a fee months ago, can you help me talk it through? It says, yes. I say, thanks I’m especially interested in identifying possible cognitive distortions or harmful/irrational patterns [this step is if you want CBT style which is what helps me]. It then says, of course I’ll do that yada yada. Then I say, ok here’s what happened, feel free to ask any questions.
    Sorry for the ru/ons and bad formatting I’m on my phone.
    But really, I’m just including this description of how I tend to interact with it in case you don’t know where to start. Unlike the older models I don’t think it matters too much how you approach it.
    I am lucky enough to have had a lot of psychotherapy over my life with some excellent people but I actually think ChatGPT is about as helpful if not more. It’s great.( Actually It’s a literal lifesaver literally (believe there is some recent research in nature on it’s significantly reducing suicidal ideation)). To anyone who hasn’t given it a college try, please do.

    Reply
  12. OP

    @That sounds tough
    Interesting! On reflection, I myself never offer advice to people (other than my students) if they don’t ask for it, and I very much dislike unsolicited advice in general. I think you are right though, that people mean no disrespect, but just interact in a different way from how I interact. Somehow I already knew their good intention, but still felt sadness and annoyance.
    @nevermind you was right. I am in a tt job, just in need of a new job, and was frustrated by recent job market results. I thought I was steadily becoming prominent in my fields, at least much better by my own criterion, but then in the job search last two rounds, I have got zero first round interview. So that was sad.

    Reply
  13. hm

    I think it’s weird that in other threads people are dragging people through the mud/telling them they are immoral for even considering moving TT jobs, and here we get all compassion. (I’m not advocating that we drag this person through the mud!)

    Reply
  14. Cap

    I didn’t understand from your post that you were in a tt job. None of my advise changes and I feel no less compassionate and so forth. But it now seems like a big problem is your upward comparison. You are better placed than the vast majority of other philosophers with phds. Indeed, even without knowing you, I can confidently predict that, like me (someone lucky to have eked out a good tt job), you are much better placed even than a number of philosophers who are objectively more talented and accomplished than you, or me. I make that inference simply because some of the most objectively talented philosophers I have met, in all my years in the profession, still do not have permanent jobs at all. So I would say that a lot of the reactions I pointed to in my earlier comment may actually stem from making unfair (to yourself) comparisons and not treating your situation objectively. Like a jury who only considers one side of the evidence. In short, it would be best not to tie your self worth to things like recognition from others and work, but even if you are going to your thought pattern seems out of balance.. Even more than before I think CBT would help a lot with this. Wishing you peace!

    Reply
  15. an obvious alternative explanation

    My guess is that most people don’t get any interviews in the past two years. I got none, despite having a glowing pub and citation record in the past two years. But there’s an obvious explanation: the job market was just a bit unfriendly. I would not take this as evidence that you are not becoming prominent.

    Reply
  16. OP

    Thanks, everyone!

    Reply

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