Last semester I boasted about my newfound ability to say “no.” Now I am searching for where that common sense went in the last few months.
One of my fatal flaws is that I am incapable of understanding what "too busy” looks like. I have always been someone who sees an hour of free time and feels guilty for not filling it with any kind of activity. My main goal for freshman year was to break that pattern of time management and learn to create a healthy work/life balance. It got there, for a short moment in time, and yet here I am looking at a calendar with spaces of nothing and all I can think is “I’m not doing enough.”
And in my heart I know that’s not true. I know that just because I have one free afternoon doesn’t mean I am lazy or inferior to others who are out and about, it just means I have free time and that’s a good thing.
I don’t long for the days where I was running myself into the ground to the point of physical sickness and yet I keep coming back to that mindset.
The reason I feel so inclined to reflect on this unhealthy habit is that I am currently on hiatus for two of the projects I am a part of. We are using the month of March to focus on independent study and research so our regular meetings during the week aren’t happening. As I sit in my room with nothing to do on a Monday night for the first time in months, I am stricken with guilt and convince myself that I am a waste of space that contributes nothing meaningful to society. Which doesn't hold any actual merit outside of my own mind but I haven’t been able to convince myself of that yet.