The Guardian

Sometimes you need to put your friends on hold, and I now understand that's OK | Matt Beard

At first I mocked the idea of friends asking each other’s permission to share their woes, but then I realised that protecting yourself is not always selfish
As much as we’d like to be, we can’t always be available for our friends. Photograph: vadimguzhva/Getty Images/iStockphoto

I once met a professor who lamented the amount of time he had to spend marking, preparing lectures and consulting with his students. He spoke something every academic has thought at one point or another: “The university would be a vastly improved place if we simply got rid of all these students!”

His focus on his own research goals was so intense that he’d managed the ultimate moral solipsism: he’d reduced other people to mere burdens – intrusions on an otherwise blissful life.

I’ve been thinking about that professor a lot while

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