Nowadays, the woman I am becoming is trying to ascertain her worth based on how warm and loved she makes people feel— not how many emails she can respond to within a single hour or how many accolades she can win.
I am pretty confident that I have been a workaholic since I was in the fourth grade. Constantly desiring more for myself, I’ve always been innately inclined to push myself to “get ahead in life,” whatever that has looked like from elementary school until now.
I love that part of myself. I nourish her, I choose her and I allow her to be this way. I welcome her and I appreciate her because I know she just wants the best in life for me.
But during the winter of 2022, I realized she could not be all that I am.
Countless hours, little sleep, and missed meals — a mindless rotating cycle — culminated with me being bedridden for months in my hometown. A terrifying health scare led me from the sunny skies of Los Angeles to the cooler and more brisk walls( this imagery isn’t parallel – think sunny skies and brisk winds, or dorm to a hospital) of a local hospital outside of Greater Philadelphia, the area that I am from.
After being undiagnosed for several weeks, doctors determined I had mononucleosis, likely a severe response to pushing myself too hard for too long.
I am not a stranger to random health scares, or I was not a stranger. I often became sick for weeks, finals-season health decline. I ran track meets with flu-like symptoms, simply because I don’t want to ever let anyone down.
But there comes a time when either you or your body has to say, “Enough is enough.”
For me, because of my stubborn nature, it ended up being my body telling me that I needed a break.
I am a stubborn woman. I’m not afraid to admit it. I will push myself for hours on end with no sleep and no breaks just to receive the productive satisfaction of achieving a task. These are the small everyday pleasures that bring me joy — to some, it’s evidence of instant gratification but small successes keep me going.
When people encourage me to take a break or to step away from an assignment, I often ignore them and allow their qualms to inspire my relentless pursuit of whatever it is in that moment that I’m pursuing.
It wasn’t until I was bedridden with an empty stomach that I realized I needed a change — and I quite literally needed it right then and at that moment. As I lay in that hospital bed unable to hear, smell or see, I realized that there was something deep inside that needed transformation.
Ever since being diagnosed with mononucleosis and successfully beating it, I’ve taken a new approach to life, where I am learning balance, mindfulness and even kindness to myself. Because as much as I’ve always believed my self-affirming success was my version of self-kindness, was allowing myself to deteriorate in the face of skipped meals and no sleep really me being kind to myself? Can I really say that I love myself if I force myself to work 24/7 with no breaks?
No, so I started with me.
Ever since that fateful winter, I’ve dedicated myself to putting myself first. I go to the gym every day even if it’s just for 20 minutes so that I can escape my mind on the treadmill or allow myself to run freely in a park. I go to yoga, I practice mindfulness and I take steps to learn what it means to be still, and to appreciate the small things in life that, as they turn out, are not actually that small.
I have so many random goals that mean so much to me, but they’ve become so overshadowed by my workaholic, cyclical tendencies that they’ve been pushed to the side for years. This year, however, I decided to revive those passions. Now my poetry journalism is permeated with inky writing and my yoga mat is actually being used. I’ve enrolled myself in programs I’ve always wanted to take and I even swapped an extra course at school for a fun pilates class.
I’m becoming this new version of myself that prides herself not just on what she produces every day and not just how many emails she responds to, but on the art that I create, the way I make other people feel and the way I make space for my loved ones to be heard and listened to.
The other day as I approached LAX, I had a really emotional conversation with a close friend, and she brought up a great point.
“At your funeral, nobody is going to give a speech about how many projects you managed or campaigns you led. They are going to talk about how you treated them, and how you made others feel.”
Nowadays, the girl that I am becoming is trying to ascertain her worth based on how warm and loved she makes people feel, not how many emails she can respond to within a single hour or how many accolades she can win.
This stubborn young woman is starting to realize her worth is undoubtedly and innately undeniable. Her worth exists not because of what she does, but because of who she is.
Her worth exists because she is.
I am starting to really like this new me, although she stemmed from a dark time in my life, I simply would not have her any other way.
