Exhausted. Frustrated. Unmotivated. Overwhelmed. Lonely. Or, yeah, hungry. We all spend a lot of time with ourselves, and we all know what those conditions are that make us not able to be our best selves at work, at school, or in interpersonal relationships.
A big part of my life in my past few years of education and work has been striking a good balance between “pushing myself”: giving up sleep, exercise, or time with friends to accomplish something, and “self-care”: a buzzword-y term that’s widely circulating online right now that refers to using time for one’s own well-being. Somehow, a short heart-to-heart with a friend over lunch and skipping a whole day of work to binge-watch Broad City have both been labeled “self-care” by different corners of the Internet. As I’m sure most of us have gathered in our 20-odd years of life, it’s not healthy to never rest or do things that help you recover and feel whole, but it’s also impossible to do well at chipping away at long-term goals if we’re constantly kicking back with movies and glasses of wine in the name of “self-care.” From working on your art to finishing a lab experiment to logging enough work hours to pay a big fat bill, most goals necessitate sacrifice.
Sometimes, balancing self-care and work is very user-friendly: If you want to get the grade, you’d better show up for the test. Sometimes, though, it’s less obvious. Anxious and depressive thoughts only heighten my feelings of personal frustration and my tendency to self-diagnose failure, which keeps me from relaxing OR accomplishing. Did I really “mess up” a huge assignment by going for a run and taking a shower instead of typing away all morning in last night’s pajamas? Would I really be better off if I’d pulled an all-nighter applying to every job on the Career Services website, regardless of their connection to my qualifications, interests, and goals?
A couple years ago, I overheard a conversation that changed my conception of self-care and its relation to accomplishment during my dinner shift at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter. My volunteer supervisor was talking to a guest, a woman new to the shelter, with weathered cheeks peeking out from above her big black fleece jacket. As I passed by with a tray of food, I overheard my supervisor reassuringly telling her, “It’s okay! It would be nearly impossible for you to get a job when you haven’t eaten, showered, or slept inside in days.”
I wish more people saw homelessness this way: If you, hypothetical American who most likely has a job and a warm bed, feel like a frazzled mess before your first cup of morning Starbucks, how is it fair for you to tell a homeless person they’re simply lazy, and need to “get it together” and get a job? But this nugget of wisdom has also altered how I interact with myself, as well as my friends, classmates, and coworkers. If someone’s basic physical and psychological needs aren’t being met, it is unfair of me (or anyone) to expect them to do their best work. For this reason, it is important to both evaluate and communicate my own needs, and equally important to be sure I’m being in-tune to what others may need.
After 21 years in my own body and mind, I know some basic things I need to function best: six to eight hours of sleep, breakfast, comfortable clothes and footwear, my prescribed meds for depression and asthma, respect from my co-workers, a balance of social time and solitude, a healthy level of engagement in tasks. As I seek a postgrad job, I’m weighing a lot of bigger options with more implications about what makes me feel fulfilled and able to be productive. It may not be possible for me to live near a forest (the way I grew up, and the way I feel most healthy) while taking the kind of job I want to take: I’ll likely end up in a big city. It may not be possible for me to live on the salary of a single job in the arts, no matter how intellectually nor emotionally fulfilling the work is, so I may need to structure time for a restaurant or retail job into my next life phase along with my nine-to-five.
I am also trying to expand my personal awareness into being better in-tune with what my friends, classmates, and coworkers need. I don’t want people who are feeling unwell (physically or mentally) to be put out of their comfort zones because I am not paying enough attention to their needs. I want to be sure the people I interact with feel their personal strengths and ideas are being treated as relevant and useful. I don’t like the idea that these sorts of frames of mind are elements of “leadership”; They are, but I don’t think one needs to be any sort of a “leader” to be observant, communicative, or a listener (though I sincerely hope leaders are working to be all of these things). Respect is as vital to quality work as it is to formation of community or relationships.
If you’d told me during my freshman fall that as a senior I’d be writing to the whole Internet about being depressed/anxious, I would have thought you were 100 flavors of crazy. But the past four years have given me a lot of chances to expand my capacities for openness, open-mindedness, and articulation, and constant exposure to great writing and people hasn’t hurt. Since I’m not “me” when I haven’t exercised, I’m going to sign off now, both from this column and my wonderful stint at The Crimson.
