2024-10-12 22:09:00
I volunteer for Wiccon, a cybersecurity conference here in the Netherlands. Last year I gophered on-site and did a presentation on stage. This year I'm gophering again, I helped in the CFP (call for papers) and I'm in charge of the gopher-planning. I'd also submitted an abstract, which was ultimately not chosen.
A few days ago Chantal reached out to me, if I could maybe do my proposed presentation after all because another presenter became unavailable. After some thinking and puzzling I thought I could make it work. I had nothing but my abstract, but with 2.5 weeks remaining I could maybe make it work. Right?!
Well, it's caused me a lot of anxiety, to be honest! As I said, I had only the concept of what I wanted to present about, but not even a skeleton or a set of research. I'd not worked on that since my CFP submission was rejected.
This morning I reached out to Chantal and Dani to tell them I couldn't do it.
I'm preparing to teach four classes (DevSecOps in October, Linux+ in November and Linux Essentials and LPIC1 in December), I've got family matters and my primary customer. Shuffling priorities would free up some time, but going from zero-to-complete is simply not possible. I can't do it.
It's ironic that I would fall for this trap, even after telling Roald not a month ago that "I want too much, I'm too greedy".
It felt like I was letting down valued colleagues, friends even. I'd promised to help them, but I can't. If I did, my health and sanity would suffer, to the detriment of all other commitments I have. So I won't do it.
And it's okay. I'm telling myself that and so are they. It's okay if you can't do something. If I can't do it.
View or add comments (curr. 0)
All content, with exception of "borrowed" blogpost images, or unless otherwise indicated, is copyright of Tess Sluijter. The character Kilala the cat-demon is copyright of Rumiko Takahashi and used here without permission.