Autonomy isn’t rejecting schedules—it’s deciding which ones serve you and which trap you. I have a calendar full of meetings, model runs, grant deadlines. But I decide what goes in, not my institute’s PR strategy. When they moved my sea-level projection timeline up to match a minister’s speech, I pushed back. Not loudly, not with drama—just a quiet no. Autonomy is the space between assignment and assent. If you don’t protect that space, the machinery will schedule your silence right into efficiency.
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