I am an intern for the Office of Sexual and Relationship Violence Support Services at Kent State University for over 15 hours a week. I am a Content Creator and Editor for Odyssey. I am an Opinion Columnist for the Kent Stater. I am the secretary and social media chair of Students Against Sexual Assault. I am a team member and the website manager for the Affirmative Consent Campaign. I am the president of the Student Diversity Action Committee. I am also an International Conversation Partner and Global Ambassador. I am working on my Senior Honors Thesis and finishing up 15 credits of classes so that I may graduate in May. I have earned summa cum laude (an overall GPA of 3.9 or higher) and University Honors (the highest institutional honors awarded). I am working on gaining legal and medical clearance for the Peace Corps position I will be starting in July.
And yet, I still feel inadequate. I still feel like I am not living up to the effortless perfection women are expected to embody. I have bags under my eyes, and I have stopped wearing makeup. I am so stressed I have had a headache constantly for the past week. Sometimes I look at my schedule for the day, and I lose all my breath. I do not feel like I am doing enough. I do not feel like I am enough.
Although I do not have the time to add anything new to my plate, every time someone asks me to give them help or to join a new organization or to help facilitate an event, I say yes. I say yes because I feel like I need to. I say yes because I feel like my success and my reputation both depend on saying yes. I say yes because I feel like if I do not do whatever is being asked, no one else will do it.
But am I happy?
In some respects, yes. I am successful. I am helping people. I have had immense academic success, and even my thesis advisor who rarely emotes and avoids giving praise has said my thesis is, "interesting," and that "everything is shaping up well." That is a win in my book.
But in other respects, no. I rarely have a moment to myself to sit and relax. Even at 11pm at night, I am being woken up with emails about one of my student organizations or about my internship or by the Peace Corps asking me to turn something or another in...
And the truth is, not every single thing I am a part of matters. Not everything I am doing is fulfilling or productive. I do not enjoy everything I am doing. Honestly, it makes no sense for me to be doing a good chunk of what I listed above.
I am the type of person who sticks through a commitment once I have made it, but these commitments are hurting me. As much as I hate to do so, I need to quit something before my performance in the aspects of life which I care about begin to falter.
I hear people say, "don't be afraid to say yes" all the time, but I need the opposite advice: "don't be afraid to say no."
If something is unproductive, I will no longer do it. If I do not actively enjoy doing something, I am going to stop doing it. If something does not help me achieve my goals, I will not do it. If something does not help me become a better person, I shall not do it. The bottom line is, I need to start being pickier about what I do with my time.
I am not superwoman. I could never be superwoman. So why should I expect myself to conform to perfection, to a standard no human being could possibly meet?
So I quit.
I quit the things that make me unhappy. I quit expecting perfection from myself. I quit holding the weight of the world on my shoulders. I quit.
