“Too much of one thing is not a good thing”. We’ve all heard this saying, right? And honestly, it’s true. Too much of one is not a good thing. It’s hard to juggle everything in our lives already, but especially as a college student emerging into adulthood.
We’re being told to somehow be able to balance sleep, nutrition, physical activity, a social agenda, academics, talking to our family, having time for ourselves, jobs, and extracurriculars with no problem. But the reality is that life is too damn hard to balance everything perfectly all the time.
We let certain things slip because we value other domains more. There are days where we value our academics and extracurriculars more than we value our social lives and there are days where we value hanging out with our friends and going out before studying for an exam. Neither are bad! It’s just the reality of emerging into adulthood.Â
I think that this notion can be applied to pretty much every aspect of our lives. We can love our alone time and independence, but too much of it at one time makes us feel isolated and lonely. If we want to go out with our friends and have too much to drink we feel horrible the next day. If we want to eat cake and we eat too much of it our stomach hurts. If we go to the gym too much we’re sore constantly.Â
We all make choices (sometimes they’re mistakes) but if they feel right in the moment then we can learn from them later! That’s all maturing and growing up is – constantly learning and evolving.Â
We can allow ourselves grace and permission to live life the way we want to live it. Yes, there are certain habits that are unhealthy to indulge every day, but like I’ve said before: everything in moderation.Â
Over-doing it from time to time doesn’t make something evil or diabolical, it just makes us human. We aren’t going to be perfect all the time and it’s ridiculous that we expect perfection from ourselves. That’s just not realistic.Â
Understanding this lesson is something I am actively trying to remind myself of daily. Throughout high school and well into college I struggled with food and my relationship with food. Sometimes I still do.Â
In high school I labeled different foods as “good” and “bad”. Consuming the amount of social media and TikTok as I was during COVID, it was impossible to avoid. I want to disclaim right here right now: absolutely NO foods are strictly good or bad. All foods serve a purpose for either fuel or enjoyment and there is nothing better about one than the other.
I would restrict myself from having anything I actually wanted because in my mind I decided that it was “bad”. But, what would happen sometimes is that if I finally did allow myself to have the food that I denoted as “bad” I would overeat it because I framed the occasion as a one-time occurrence and I didn’t know when the next time I would allow myself to have it was. I would eat too much of it in one sitting because my survival instincts kicked in, I would feel physically worse than before, and I wouldn’t be satisfied because I couldn’t allow myself to truly enjoy it.
I would truly only allow myself to have the foods that I’ve convinced myself were safe and “good”, but led to another slew of health problems and my mental health was consistently starving. I was technically “healthy”, but too much restriction was not good for my physical or mental health.Â
That’s no way to enjoy life. So go! Eat the cake, drink the tequila soda, go to the gym, go out with friends, stay up late to dance, do whatever! Life is meant to be lived and enjoyed to the fullest. Everything that fills you with excitement, love, and a zest for life is worth it. You deserve to be happy and enjoy the life you have.