I Want to be a Mathematician

Mathematicians do math. They don't read message boards. They don't watch TV. They don't do any number of activities designed to distract and postpone doing real work. And I want to be one. I want to be thinking about mathematics when I wake up, and when I go to bed at night. The question is: How bad do I want it?

Of course, the above paragraph is a bit simplistic. Mathematicians are people, and they have lives, and do things that regular people do. But they also make math a priority, and often it is the number one priority. This is something I have consistently not done, which is certainly one of the reasons I am struggling to finish graduate school a year later than everybody else. So I wonder, almost every day, if this is really the life for me or whether I am just going through the motions.

But then, I find myself getting into a problem, and losing an hour or two. I find myself writing in LaTex and getting so into it that I almost am late for work. I found myself getting excited explaining even the most mundane SAT problem. And this leads me to believe that I do want it. But it isn't going to come easy. Barbie was right when she said "Math is hard."

So I am challenging myself: do more math. I have a stack of library books, half of which are math texts, and I need to read them. I have at my disposal all the journal articles I could ever want, and it is about time to take advantage of that. Every day, I pledge to ask myself: "Were you a mathematician today?