Making decisions and saying no

It seems like one common theme of the journey through my PhD thus far is that of making tough decisions...I reiterate,  not just any decisions tough decisions. I feel like each week presents me with a new challenge and each week said challenge means I have to choose between one of two or more things. And there never seems to be an obvious choice.

One of the things I have the hardest time making decisions with is what to take on and what to not take on. I've talked to a lot of different faculty about this and the opinions vary but they all seem to have the same foundation. Most people suggest that until you get where you want to be in life, you just say 'yes' to everything and once you get there, you only say 'yes' to things that will help you advance your career or keep your job. I would imagine that this would be especially true once you decide to start a family.

There is definitely value in saying no though. I had lunch a few weeks ago with a wonderful women who did her PhD at Queen's years ago. She now works for a Biotech company in Alberta. She said, alluded at the fact that during your PhD especially you have to do things that make you stand out and take opportunities when they arise, but always do things that really have your ultimate goal in mind. If it won't help you, and you won't enjoy it then don't do it.

I say 'yes' to a lot of things, and always have, and I think I always will. It's part of my personality. I'm a self-proclaimed 'busy body'. On a busy body side note: I always considered myself that type, especially since my final year of my Undergrad, and then I saw an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (embarssingly a favourite show of mine) and it was called "I busy-body". And when I watched it, it was all about how she meddles in everyone's lives. That's when I decided to look up the definition of a busy body and found out that indeed that is what a busy body does, meddles in other people's business... or as urban dictionary defines it: "the person you want to punch in the face for being so damn annoying". Anyways, I quickly learned my lesson that I am not a busy body. I did a google search for what I might call myself and it turned up many interesting terms, "busy bee" I will stick with, as I don't think jack of all trades fits.