Dilemmas Solved

After thinking long and hard about both opportunities (DC to do proposal reviews and the State of the Arctic conference in Miami), I decided against both.

For DC, I just decided that up-ending my life in one week just to do MORE work for a relatively small amount of compensation wasn't worth the stress, both from the fatigue and the incredible amount of extra work I'd have to do. It's best that I just concentrate on those projects that I'm supposed to be working on this term.

And, for the State of the Arctic, I found out that the registration fee was literally one-third to one-half of my available funding. I thought I should save it for something else.

And, after I made those decisions, I felt lighter. The other tasks all of a sudden seemed much more doable and I felt less scattered. That's a good reminder of something I'm learning: if I am spending that much time trying to justify doing something because I *should* do it, it must mean that it's not really something I should do. I am learning how to listen to my body and my mind more. In the end, they just weren't worth the stress. So, now it's back to my regularly scheduled life. Which is busy enough, BTW!