Too often I am pulled away from my personal pursuits because someone wants something from me. Come drink with me, come have dinner with us, go on this trip with

Too often I am pulled away from my personal pursuits because someone wants something from me. Come drink with me, come have dinner with us, go on this trip with us this weekend. I'm never going to get anything done or 'get ahead' in this life without saying no every now and then. A good perspective on this is that time is a scarce resource, and by choosing to allocate it to one thing you also choose not to allocate it to everything else. That being said, I'd imagine if most people (myself included) chose to prioritize personal pursuits over everything else, they'd end up exactly as unhappy as otherwise.