{"id":7086,"date":"2026-10-30T19:27:46","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T19:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/?p=7086"},"modified":"2026-10-30T19:27:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T19:27:46","slug":"guilt-on-saying-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/2026\/10\/30\/guilt-on-saying-no\/","title":{"rendered":"Guilt on Saying No"},"content":{"rendered":"

Retirement is a strange state, at least for me. I\u2019ve written recently <\/a>about one aspect of it, looking at whether or not I had achieved anything like a coherent \u2018portfolio\u2019. Writing that previous blog reassured me I had not taken on a crazy mishmash of activities just in order to fill my time. However, there is still the question of when to say yes and when to say no. This will be a question that can perplex an individual at any stage in their career, and it is another topic that has turned up previously <\/a>on this blog. However, here I am thinking not so much of \u2018roles\u2019, ongoing activities that might be added to either the day job or a post-retirement portfolio, but the singletons. If someone asks you to come and do X, be it at the other side of the country or the other side of the world, what factors should you think about before giving an answer?<\/p>\n

Everyone\u2019s response to this will be different, depending on what they value, their domestic arrangements and their diary. Nevertheless, if the request is viable but not particularly attractive, or if it looks lovely but would put a significant strain on other parts of your life, it can be harder to make a decision. I realise, for me and I\u2019m sure for others, guilt can also come in to play. This, I recall, was a conversation I had many years ago with Mary Beard, as her fame took off. People wanted a \u2018piece\u2019 of her, at schools, in the media or at festivals, to give a few examples of types of \u2018piece\u2019. As the requests were coming thick and fast, she was struggling to make choices between many worthy opportunities. If there is, technically, space in your diary, is it reasonable to say no to some deserving group? The answer has to be yes, because otherwise collapse, mental and\/or physical might ensue. Collapse also of the space to think about the next piece of work, the next undergraduate lecture, book \u2013 or the family.<\/p>\n

That was Mary\u2019s conundrum at that point in her career. Now she is retired from a formal University role, like me, no doubt she is re-evaluating such decisions. As am I. Retirement may make it look as if one has all the time in the world to visit the extremities of the country (although my diary certainly doesn\u2019t read like that), but retirement also means energy levels are not that of a twenty-year old, nor does new information necessarily stick so well in the brain, as brain plasticity slows down (depressing but true). So, I am having to rethink what is reasonable given these factors.<\/p>\n

Many years ago, I was asked \u2013 and agreed \u2013 to present the prizes at a girls\u2019 school at a location that was annoyingly difficult to get to by train (and I\u2019m no great driver, leaving aside my carbon footprint). I went and realised that for an hour on a dais shaking teenage girls\u2019 hands as I murmured encouraging words on their success was a poor return on many hours on multiple trains and a night away. I decided at that point that this was not something I would repeat, unless there were some additional motivation, such as combining the visit with something else nearby or a particular connection with the venue.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been asked to participate in formal debates, and decided \u2013 regardless of location or prestige –\u00a0 that that did not coincide with my skillset, given I could be pitched, as a novice with zero experience, against those who\u2019d spent many years perfecting skills in debating societies. Thus, when I was asked to take part in a so-called disputation elsewhere in Europe, however interesting the topic (and I forget what it was), it was easy to say no for that reason, quite apart from what was clearly going to be another tricky place to reach with a tedious, long-winded journey.<\/p>\n

However, the guilt for me really comes in when it\u2019s a school that\u2019s putting in a request. I want to feel I can pass on some of my love for my subject to those just setting out. I get letters asking me to come in and inspire their classroom and, sometimes, I simply feel that to squeeze in another long train journey is asking too much and I have to decline. But it doesn\u2019t stop the guilt lurking. I can\u2019t help but notice that the requests tend to come from those schools which no doubt are used to lining up a series of such talks, rather than the ones where the pupils never get the chance to meet a real scientist.\u00a0 The ones with a nice middle-class PTA and money to cover a speaker\u2019s travel are the ones that put in a request. I would far rather go to a school in a disadvantaged area \u2013 there are plenty such not that far from Cambridge city centre \u2013 even while knowing the class I would meet is far more likely to be disruptive or bored. Yet, reaching one child to raise aspirations in such a school should be its own reward, Being just one speaker amongst many, where children have already mentally sorted themselves into interested in STEM or not, because they\u2019ve been able to gain a good impression of what that means from previous speakers…doesn\u2019t feel so inspiring to me. It is certainly one criterion on which to base my decisions.<\/p>\n

Everyone, retired or not, has to decide what is \u2018worth\u2019 it for them, as well as their audience. Which invitations or new challenges to take up is very personal, but the guilt may still linger when saying \u2018no\u2019, necessary though that may be for the good of one\u2019s health and diary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Retirement is a strange state, at least for me. I\u2019ve written recently about one aspect of it, looking at whether or not I had achieved anything like a coherent \u2018portfolio\u2019. Writing that previous blog reassured me I had not taken … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,5],"tags":[419,1789,1788],"class_list":["post-7086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-careers","category-science-culture","tag-diaries","tag-requests","tag-school-visits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7087,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7086\/revisions\/7087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}