Last week was a big one including a manuscript revision deadline, dog vet visits, giant stacks of term paper grading, an interminable Microsoft 365 shutdown, evening tabling as a "marine biologist" at a middle school career night, and a crazy Friday finale: a 13 hour chilly-in-the-wind boating and snorkeling field day to break down a six month long clam-seagrass co-restoration experiment. As least we got to see a cute baby octopus!
Anyway, when I was woke up this Saturday morning I was very much looking forward to doing NOTHING, or at least nothing responsible. Unfortunately, nagging responsibility interferred before I had even finished my coffee and doom scrolling. While walking the dogs (act of responsibility #1 of ?) I got the idea for a blog post / Venn Diagram about responsibility. Here it is:
My plan was to post the graphic, then do some term paper grading, which I would identify as an example of a "Least Onerous Task" per my diagram- One of those head-down-in-work-while-dodging-other-work activities that is simultaneously reponsible and irresponsible. As I crafted the diagram it started to work its cruel reality into my reasoning though, and I realized there was some ugly responsibility that would find me and kick my ass if I didn't undertake the extremely distasteful task of going through the two days of work emails that had piled up during the sequential Microsoft down day and snorkeling in the estuary day. So I DID that ugly and unpleasant work, including submitting an important project report (a day late). Eventually I got down to the beautiful (albeit fleeting) state of "email zero," and as a bonus I unloaded and stacked the dishwasher.
Yay me? I don't know. I think I can still achieve feeling guilty. The head-down term paper grading still needs to be done, the half-done paddleboard repair project on the patio isn't going to sand and epoxy itself, my bicycle's derailleur isn't going to realign by magic, the soymilk fairy won't replenish my fridge, and I should probably get some exercise and do PT exercises for my gimp shoulder. Such is life.
