Why am I pursuing a PhD?

I wanted to do my PhD and started writing to various Universities in 2006. Praise the Lord, I got a position in University Kassel  and started working / my PhD.

If you were to ask me "Are you happy with your work?". My answer would be "I try to make my job enjoyable." I love working, interacting with people, learning new things and of course having your work recognised, as well as knowing that you overcome a challenge. I guess in my current situation I can only say I am doing it to overcome new challenges or at least trying to come up with ideas to solve some problem. Rest of the requirements do not seem to falling into its place.

Why am I pursuing a doctorate? I had been asking this question lately. I am doing my PhD to fulfill my curiousity and to ensure that my few years here in Germany are well spent. Hopefully, it would be over in a few years time and perhaps after that I would move on to new challenges. The only problem that I am having right now is - I work more than doing research for my PhD (or at least I think so). Hopefully, I would be able to spend more time doing my doctorate this year.

One small problem that I have is sometimes I doubt if I am the "material" for doctorate. At some point, I would look back and realised I did not make much progress and I tried to comfort myself - well you spent the first 3 months getting used to the department, another 13 months learning about automation engineering and working on a project that has nothing to do with your doctorate, and therefore you only started your PhD about 3 months ago! Ha..ha.. then everything does not sound so bad a all :P

Challenges of doing a PhD - having your papers reject over and over again, trying to acquire some projects but not very good at selling, wanting to solve a problem but I think the problem is too big or the problem had been solved. Adding on to challenges of doing a PhD - getting accustomed to a different working culture, not understanding the jokes your colleagues make, food that does not fit your pallette, 6 months of no sunshine and where there is sunshine - you are sitting in the office, missing your church and your family. 

I would know if this would work out in two years time. I hope it works and I would at least conduct an experiment to prove my thesis in two years time... ha..ha.. and of course I need to first define a hypothesis before that. So my advice to you is do not do PhD if you think you can earn more. I think you would earn more if you work in the industry. Pursue your Phd if it is a personal challenge else go ahead and do something else!