In a tirade of job applications, midterms, and essays I have completely abandoned any hopes of a moment to breathe. To sit in the solitary beauty of stillness. Everything begins to pile up and the to-do list never seems to end. The issue is not necessarily my time management, because all it seems I do is some form of work. Rather, I take on as many responsibilities as possible in order to maximize my productivity only to end up circling back to the same feeling of inadequacy.
I mean how could I not? Coming to a school like Queen’s means finding yourself immersed in a world where everyone seems to be doing incredible things. Every person is balancing positions on executive teams, full or part-time work, varsity sports, the list goes on and on. We are all chasing the end goal of success, never questioning the methods used to get there. Is that prestigious (albeit unpaid) internship really worth the weeks of lost sleep? Are the bragging rights of balancing a completely crammed schedule worth losing time for friends? Despite knowing this, I cannot help but fall into the productivity trap. It has reeled me in, keeping a firm grasp on my mind no matter how desperately I wish to escape it.
The realities of burnout begin to creep in and I can feel myself relinquishing control over my entire life. Rather than spending my time doing things that I enjoy, I fall back onto mindless scrolling to distract from all that needs to be done. Even in the few moments I have, all I do is focus on what I could have done instead of taking a break. Endless is the cycle of capitalizing off my own conceptions of worth empirically defined through output rather than input. Running myself thin for the sole purpose of obtaining some intangible number that ultimately determines nothing.
I am only nineteen. Something that I can often forget in the insanity of my planning brain. It’s almost become automatic for me to plan my every move from years in advance. It’s a nice safety blanket to have, but what is there to gain in surrendering my time to establishing a life that I am not even living? There will be time for everything despite how it feels in the moment. The crushing pressure of a society that values productivity over all other facets of life is too much to bare in the sleepless nights and break-less weeks.
The simple truth in all of this is that you cannot give and never take for yourself. Slowing down to fill your days with experiences that bring joy as well as the mundanities that are still present is the key to maximizing the experience of life. Yes, the commitments are unwavering and deadlines will clutter schedules, but to surrender yourself for the sake of brief blips in time is the greatest sin of all.
This is a reminder for you, and for me. There is always time to stop and live. In fact, these are some of the most vital moments of life. Worth is not a compilation of your greatest academic or work achievements. It is not a film reel of assessments and stressful events that you ran yourself to the ground for. It’s time to take a step back and simply enjoy the moment. There will be time for it to all happen. Everything will fall into place, and taking an afternoon or dare I say even a weekend off is not going to destroy this.