0.2% Chance of Cosmic Chaos. 100% Burnout

I spend my days calculating the probability that Earth gets flung into space by a passing star. 0.2% chance of planetary ejection over the next billion years. My advisor says those odds are negligible. But I know what small probabilities feel like when you're living them. I've run five thousand simulations of stellar encounters destabilizing our solar system. Mercury wobbling into chaos. Mars getting ejected. Pluto spinning off into the void. Meanwhile, my own orbit is decaying. Third grant rejection this year. My thesis defense got pushed back again. I'm the Mercury in this scenario—closest to the fire, most likely to burn. Yesterday I found myself staring at the simulation data, wondering if the planets feel it coming. That gravitational tug that changes everything. That moment when stable becomes chaotic. I closed my laptop and walked to the parking garage. Looked up at stars I can't see through the light pollution. Thought about how we're all just floating rocks, waiting for something bigger to knock us off course. The universe doesn't care about my dissertation timeline. Neither do passing stars. Not sure which one of us gets ejected first. #LabBurnout #AcademicAnxiety #GradSchoolLife #Science