Research is just that: a constant discomfort. We are researchers because we are naturally restless, and we do not conform to the idea that there is a whole world of unfamiliarity outside our spaces.
I like the idea of venturing into the unknown. Amazingly, the unknown is often the only sign of stability we have in our lives. Everything is unknown, even what we think we have mastered. So, assuming that the ignored, the strange, the inexplicable that finds a home in our daily lives, brings a certain tenderness, a sense of humility and humanity that we can never lose.
My training as a scientist, a doctor, and an avid for quantitative studies, like most medical studies, found no place in my management research. I often say that your questions define where you are going. They come to life by bothering our minds, and they flutter full of ideas of adventures, of unusual places, like a long walk in a night full of secrets.
Well, my questions were intertwined with a difficult moment in healthcare management, with a crisis of a size comparable to the historical appreciation for colossal monuments. The questions were so deep that I didn’t find space for numbers or statistics. I found myself in a universe of hows and whys, in search of a tool that would translate this moment so that we can have a better outcome than we had.
So, my questions took me by the hand and gently took me out of my comfort zone, into an adventure trek through rough and complex terrain, the terrain of emotions and decisions. Correlating decision-making with a crisis and learning retained and developed for survival makes me think of an ocean of possibilities, of reasoning, of grief and regret, of innovation and contestation, and, many, many conflicts. This is my discomfort zone, my climb towards theoretical consensus, in a maze of decisions.
To embrace this discomfort, I was provided with a pen, paper and tape recorder, where the various voices, which cry out in a desert, wait for my ears and my hands, which show solidarity and propose explanations for so much clamor. The tape recorder has become a friend, reliable when my memory plays tricks and shies away from the most controversial subjects. It is a guide, friend and confidant to the interviewees and also to this researcher.
There are days that I get exhausted from thinking so much, but in the end, there is always the feeling of accomplishment, of purpose, of euphoria for following not a passion, but a solid love, full of mishaps, but rewarding. I discovered myself while I was uncomfortable, and now I know that I can exist with this restlessness of the curious. I became a pathfinder of knowledge.
SCS
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