Blogging once a week in medical school is hard. Dancing three times a week in medical school is also hard. Having practical anatomy sessions in medical school is even harder.

I’m reminded of the joke where the blonde goes to the doctor and says ‘Doc, everywhere hurts. When I touch my arm it hurts, when I touch my knee it hurts, when I touch my head it hurts.’ The doctor says ‘I think I know what’s wrong: your finger’s broken’.

Little things have a sneaky way of adding up to big things. It is so with organizing time. I do a bunch of little activities, say yes to practically everything because “it doesn’t sound that hard”. At the end of the day, I’m left with a dozen little things where I’m working my butt off everyday, as opposed to one big thing that I could spread out and deal with in bits and pieces.

I know I need to stop saying yes. Everyone tells you that. The problem is I don’t know how to say no. It isn’t in my vocabulary (unless we’re talking about studying, because that gets said no to a lot). My day usually goes like this:

Today I’m not going to pick up any more responsibilities. I will not pick up responsibilities. I will not –
Person #1: Hey Robyn, can you do an extra-curricular, unrelated to medicine and not at all easy job? It’s going to take all semester!
Me: Yeah, sure!

…Wait. Dammit.

I feel obligated to say yes, as if I owe them for asking me a favour.

And when I do say no, I feel so guilty that I end up striking some kind of compromise that gives me the short end of the stick.

My last New Year’s resolution was to stop making promises I couldn’t keep. To make it easier on myself for next year, I’ll put a blanket ban on promises altogether. When someone asks for a favour I’ll say no first and then think about it.

Yeah, and starting tomorrow I’ll be eating an elephant.

Disgruntled pax.