I keep forgetting to write Friday's post. This week I haven't!
I've downloaded the You Are Your Own Gym app for my phone, and I've made it through the first two weeks. I'm calling this Operation "what? dammit, those jeans fit three months ago. I don't want to buy new pants." Not much change as yet, but it's still quite early. Unfortunately, it's also getting into the time of year when pants are a necessity. Hopefully I'll at least be able to put on my jeans and, you know, move around while wearing them before November, when it starts to *actually* get cold here in Carolina.
What else? I got a room in the Hilton for next year's DragonCon. The host hotel land grab is absurd (the Hilton sold out in 20 minutes), but I prefer host hotels, especially if I'm costuming. They've added a bunch of overflow hotels within reasonable walking distance, but walking a mile in costume ... not really fun.
It's just over 3 weeks until Viable Paradise. ACK. I am not prepared. Aside from the fact that it's going to be COLD up there and Yankees apparently don't believe in heat (and I don't own a whole lot of layerable clothes because it just doesn't get that cold here, y'all...I've had Thanksgiving dinner on my deck), I'm nervous about getting the critique and feeling inadequate and getting sick. Apparently everyone feels that way, so I'm not alone, but it's still nerve-wracking.
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
20 September 2013
06 March 2013
On Saying No
Yesterday on twitter, I came across this article, which purports to be about the pros and cons of "being agreeable and saying yes." Except there's just one little paragraph about the perils (being overextended), and the rest of it is about why you should always say yes, even if you're already overextended.
If you will pardon my French, bullshit.
Saying no is a valid response. Looking at how many things you've already agreed to do and how many other things are going on in your life (like maintaining relationships, raising a child, working a 9-5 job to keep food on the table, illnesses, etc) and knowing that you just can't do everything is an important skill. You have to protect yourself.
I also wonder how much of the scutwork of housekeeping and childraising falls to Salesses' wife while he overextends himself, and who has, he believes, his best interests in mind when she tells him to say no, but does he consider her feelings? Does he consider that maybe she's overextended because of his foolish insistence on saying yes? Not in this particular text.
He generalizes his personal experiences to everyone. Because a few times he got some good opportunities by always saying yes, everyone should always say yes. First off, not everyone gets invitations to write things for people. Most of us just have to write our stuff and send it off to magazines or agents or editors and hope they like it enough to buy it. Once you've established yourself somewhat, that's when the invitations to write for anthologies come in.
Second off, not everyone has the privilege he does. Not everyone has a wife who is willing to pick up the slack when he can't do his share of the housework because he's too busy. (I assume; he doesn't go into detail, and I refuse to give the Good MRA Project any pageviews to read his other writing.) Women still perform the majority of household chores, even if they work outside the home and the male partner does "some" housework. (Here are some numbers.)
In our society, women are taught to always be agreeable, always say yes, and if we have to say no, to do it with a smile and as gently as possible. Women who say no are bitches, disagreeable, cold. Articles like Salesses' perpetuate this particular thread of misogyny. (Before you react, no, he's not addressing women specifically, but we do make up half the population.)
I had a job once where I could literally not say no to anything, because my (female) bosses would guilt trip me until I agreed, or tell me what a horrible, disagreeable person I was because I'd already made plans with someone else for Friday night and it's Thursday, and you can't just drop new work in someone's lap like that. Or because I had strep throat and was too sick to go to work, let alone drive two hours each way for a monthly conference, which made me disagreeable and not a team player. It was a seriously toxic situation, which was fortunately only a one-year contract position.
Saying no is valid. Saying no when you know you're too busy, too sick, or just don't have enough interest in it is valid. It is self-protection.
I don't talk much about my health in this forum, but I'm chronically ill. I have hypothyroidism and two kinds of migraines (typical and variant). If I don't get enough sleep over a period of time, I get a migraine and am not functional until it goes away. If I'm lucky, it's a typical migraine and a triptan makes it go away. If I'm unlucky, it's the abdominal variant, which I just have to ride out. Either way, I spend the rest of the day in post-migraine fog. Through experience, I've learned that I can be two hours low for three days before I get the early warning signs that I need to get to bed early. (Which is why I missed the post-Hugo fun at WorldCon last year. I'd hit that wall. Now I know that I should plan sleep accordingly, because post-Hugo fun looked awesome.) [And my migraines are also linked to minor perturbations in thyroid hormone balance. Fun!]
If I took Salesses' advice and always said yes, I wouldn't be getting enough sleep to function*, and I'd spend half my time sick. Which is counterproductive, don't you think? If I were Salesses, I would generalize my experience based on my health and say that people should always say no.
But I'm not him, so I'll say that every person gets to decide for him- or herself which new projects or tasks they want to say yes to and which they want to say no to. They get to base that on whatever criteria they feel are most important. Every writer gets to decide whether the invitation to write a story for an anthology is worth it, whether the call for submissions that just opened up and they have a great story that isn't more than a line on a card at the moment is worth dropping other things, potentially at the risk of missing a deadline. They know what's best for their careers and their personal lives.
No one else gets to decide for you. You can be disagreeable. You can do the things you need to do to maintain. Like they say, put your own air mask on before helping others. Tell the people who think you always have to say yes to take a hike.
*well, no one's beating down my door with anthology invitations and column proposals, but if they were and I were as overextended as Salesses.
If you will pardon my French, bullshit.
Saying no is a valid response. Looking at how many things you've already agreed to do and how many other things are going on in your life (like maintaining relationships, raising a child, working a 9-5 job to keep food on the table, illnesses, etc) and knowing that you just can't do everything is an important skill. You have to protect yourself.
I also wonder how much of the scutwork of housekeeping and childraising falls to Salesses' wife while he overextends himself, and who has, he believes, his best interests in mind when she tells him to say no, but does he consider her feelings? Does he consider that maybe she's overextended because of his foolish insistence on saying yes? Not in this particular text.
He generalizes his personal experiences to everyone. Because a few times he got some good opportunities by always saying yes, everyone should always say yes. First off, not everyone gets invitations to write things for people. Most of us just have to write our stuff and send it off to magazines or agents or editors and hope they like it enough to buy it. Once you've established yourself somewhat, that's when the invitations to write for anthologies come in.
Second off, not everyone has the privilege he does. Not everyone has a wife who is willing to pick up the slack when he can't do his share of the housework because he's too busy. (I assume; he doesn't go into detail, and I refuse to give the Good MRA Project any pageviews to read his other writing.) Women still perform the majority of household chores, even if they work outside the home and the male partner does "some" housework. (Here are some numbers.)
In our society, women are taught to always be agreeable, always say yes, and if we have to say no, to do it with a smile and as gently as possible. Women who say no are bitches, disagreeable, cold. Articles like Salesses' perpetuate this particular thread of misogyny. (Before you react, no, he's not addressing women specifically, but we do make up half the population.)
I had a job once where I could literally not say no to anything, because my (female) bosses would guilt trip me until I agreed, or tell me what a horrible, disagreeable person I was because I'd already made plans with someone else for Friday night and it's Thursday, and you can't just drop new work in someone's lap like that. Or because I had strep throat and was too sick to go to work, let alone drive two hours each way for a monthly conference, which made me disagreeable and not a team player. It was a seriously toxic situation, which was fortunately only a one-year contract position.
Saying no is valid. Saying no when you know you're too busy, too sick, or just don't have enough interest in it is valid. It is self-protection.
I don't talk much about my health in this forum, but I'm chronically ill. I have hypothyroidism and two kinds of migraines (typical and variant). If I don't get enough sleep over a period of time, I get a migraine and am not functional until it goes away. If I'm lucky, it's a typical migraine and a triptan makes it go away. If I'm unlucky, it's the abdominal variant, which I just have to ride out. Either way, I spend the rest of the day in post-migraine fog. Through experience, I've learned that I can be two hours low for three days before I get the early warning signs that I need to get to bed early. (Which is why I missed the post-Hugo fun at WorldCon last year. I'd hit that wall. Now I know that I should plan sleep accordingly, because post-Hugo fun looked awesome.) [And my migraines are also linked to minor perturbations in thyroid hormone balance. Fun!]
If I took Salesses' advice and always said yes, I wouldn't be getting enough sleep to function*, and I'd spend half my time sick. Which is counterproductive, don't you think? If I were Salesses, I would generalize my experience based on my health and say that people should always say no.
But I'm not him, so I'll say that every person gets to decide for him- or herself which new projects or tasks they want to say yes to and which they want to say no to. They get to base that on whatever criteria they feel are most important. Every writer gets to decide whether the invitation to write a story for an anthology is worth it, whether the call for submissions that just opened up and they have a great story that isn't more than a line on a card at the moment is worth dropping other things, potentially at the risk of missing a deadline. They know what's best for their careers and their personal lives.
No one else gets to decide for you. You can be disagreeable. You can do the things you need to do to maintain. Like they say, put your own air mask on before helping others. Tell the people who think you always have to say yes to take a hike.
*well, no one's beating down my door with anthology invitations and column proposals, but if they were and I were as overextended as Salesses.
01 September 2010
Accursed mystery ailment
Since the end of June, I've been dealing with periodic nausea. It resulted in leaving for ReaderCon later than planned and missing half of NASFiC because I was in the hospital.
Because the universe finds it amusing, I woke up with nausea this morning. This does not bode well for driving to Atlanta, but we'll see. We're not scheduled to leave until Thursday around 10 am. Today my anti-nausea drugs had kicked in by then, so with any luck they'll work tomorrow and the rest of the week. (With even more luck, I won't wake up sick again. That's a lot more luck than has been on my side lately. I was hoping that I'd have a 3-week respite again, like the one I had for most of July. No such luck.)
For the curious, I've been to my GP, a gastroenterologist, a GYN, and the ER/hospital. I've been tested for food allergies, celiac disease, pregnancy, gallstones, pelvic cysts, parasites, and bacteria. I've had ultrasounds of my gallbladder and pelvis, and an upper endoscopy. The only test that showed any abnormalities was the endo, wherein my GI doc found a polyp, which she sent off for biopsy. Results may be in tomorrow, or early next week, depending on how complicated it is.
If I have to skip D*C, I'll be sure to post here, on facebook, and anywhere else I can think of.
Because the universe finds it amusing, I woke up with nausea this morning. This does not bode well for driving to Atlanta, but we'll see. We're not scheduled to leave until Thursday around 10 am. Today my anti-nausea drugs had kicked in by then, so with any luck they'll work tomorrow and the rest of the week. (With even more luck, I won't wake up sick again. That's a lot more luck than has been on my side lately. I was hoping that I'd have a 3-week respite again, like the one I had for most of July. No such luck.)
For the curious, I've been to my GP, a gastroenterologist, a GYN, and the ER/hospital. I've been tested for food allergies, celiac disease, pregnancy, gallstones, pelvic cysts, parasites, and bacteria. I've had ultrasounds of my gallbladder and pelvis, and an upper endoscopy. The only test that showed any abnormalities was the endo, wherein my GI doc found a polyp, which she sent off for biopsy. Results may be in tomorrow, or early next week, depending on how complicated it is.
If I have to skip D*C, I'll be sure to post here, on facebook, and anywhere else I can think of.
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