By Giselle Lee | Staff Writer
Disaster struck me on a Monday.
It had not been a pleasant day. The rain turned dirt into mud and painted a frown as gray as the sky across my face. I was trying to eat my Sushic noodle bowl at the Bill Daniel Student Center in a futile attempt at cheering myself up, only to make the mistake of opening my laptop and looking at the list of things I’ve yet to complete.
I let out a sigh.
For weeks, I had been experiencing chronic busyness: a state in which I am constantly looking for ways to keep myself occupied. To put it simply, staying still is not an option.
Admittedly, I had also been challenging myself a lot more than the previous semester: I took on my first real job, joined the Baylor Crew team and continued working on my independent project, all while balancing my rigorous coursework and trying to spend time with my friends.
Yet I still thought that there was something missing.
I still needed to prove my worth by being accomplished; after all, no one on LinkedIn is hiring unless you have the statistics to back yourself up.
Consequently, instead of doing anything productive, I resorted to doomscrolling, trying to understand the internet’s definition of success and secretly comparing myself to the internships or side quests other people were doing. My list of “to-do’s” only grew longer and longer.
From my social media adventures, I concluded that the only way I could feel “enough” was to work more.
My eyes stung from the light radiating off my screen. I shut my laptop.
Before I could lament in my head about the endless number of tasks I had to do, my friend took a seat opposite me. A conversation began, and before I knew it, I had an Oscar-worthy crash out. In real life. With an actual person bearing witness.
I thought to myself, “This is not good.”
I spent too much time creating an image of calmness and composure, or at the very least a decent impression of being optimistic, only for it to disappear in a moment.
I began preparing for her to respond, but what she said surprised me:
“Even when you think that you are barely staying afloat, there is someone on this campus that looks at you and asks how you manage to do everything you’re doing and do it well.”
As I went along with the rest of my not-so-merry day, her words stayed in my mind.
Initially, I refused to believe it. If there was room to do better, what I have achieved so far is not worth celebrating yet. However, that way of thinking hindered me from seeing how much I’ve overcome, especially living 8,000 miles away from home for the first time.
We are in a constant pursuit of more, but with every two steps we take, it can feel like we are still one step behind. Despite that, I think we should give ourselves some credit for the little things in life that we achieve just by showing up and doing our best every day. Everyone’s journey is different, but we should celebrate one another all the same because sometimes others see us better than we see ourselves.
After all, if you take two steps forward and one step back, you’re technically still taking one step forward.
As we approach the final push in the academic year, if you know a friend who might be struggling, I urge you to tell them how proud you are of them; it might just be the shred of hope they have been waiting for.
