Do you always get what you want? – Animal Behaviour Zone

Question: Do you always get what you want?
- Keywords:
  success
Asked by 482anmh48 to Carrie, Cedric, Ellen, Ines, Rupert on 9 Mar 2017.
- Carrie Ijichi answered on 9 Mar 2017:
  
  Definitely not! Life doesn’t work that way so it’s better to be really grateful when you get what you hoped for and to accept that you can’t always get it. If you always got what you wanted, you’d never be grateful for anything…
- Ellen Williams answered on 9 Mar 2017:
  
  Absolutely not! I don’t think anyone does, but as Carrie says that is actually a blessing! If you don’t get what you want (in life or in science) you need to look at why you didn’t get it and what you could do differently – there is always a positive outcome!
- Rupert Marshall answered on 9 Mar 2017:
  
  No. But what we want is not always what we actually need. Being nice and working hard can help you get what you want if it’s a good think that is worth having.
- Ines Goncalves answered on 11 Mar 2017:
  
  No, absolutely not! I wish though! In fact, I dare say a career in academia is a lesson in humbleness. It is very rare that you do get what you want. You have o write many grant proposals to have 1 funded so you can do the studies you want to do. When you finally do the work you want and analyse it and write it up, then you need to convince reviewers that your work is good enough to be published, and often you get your manuscripts rejected from journals. It is sometimes hard not to take it personally, but we need to keep reminding ourselves that we’re all in the same boat. There just isn’t enough money to fund everyone’s research and so life in academia is difficult for everyone.
- Cedric Tan answered on 12 Mar 2017:
  
  Not always! But not having something means u can try harder and better the next time. It also means that when you get it, you will learn to be more appreciative.

Question: Do you always get what you want?

Comments