Ever since I submitted my cover letter and résumé to the internship opportunity made available to me last week, I haven’t done much in the professional world. Maybe I’m putting too much stock into this alumni connection, but after last week, I felt like I had earned a well-deserved break from all my internship searching and networking and cover letter writing. It can be exhausting work to constantly put yourself out there, and to always have to ask people to help you out through connections and recommendations. That’s why this week’s post will be about self-care, something that I find to be incredibly important in terms of how to be your best self.
As I began to manage my own time in high school, I found that carefully weighing my choices about what to do with my day helped me create a healthy life balance. For example, if I had the choice to study for a test or watch a movie with some close friends, I would genuinely consider which one was best for my mental health. I’d ask myself if I really believed that I would retain what I studied, or if I could watch a movie with friends another time. In college, this choice is a lot easier to make, as I have more time to schedule my day without having to worry about eight hours of school a day, or five hours of work. I always prioritize getting meals with friends, but at the same time, I have no problem with shacking up in the library for a few hours and working on a paper. Weighing out the consequences of the choices I make has really helped me develop a healthy life balance between my social life and my academic/professional one.
Despite all my careful time management, there are still times when I feel like the forces of the universe are conspiring against me, such as last semester during finals week. I was already scared about being physically murdered by my papers when I got sick with a nasty cold, and got dumped. Not one to let boys ruin my life, I adopted the attitude similar to that of Miranda Presley in The Devil Wears Prada: work was all that mattered, and it was all I was going to do.
As we all know by the way that The Devil Wears Prada ends, this was not a healthy attitude to adopt. By the end of the third day of finals week, I found myself floundering, unable to focus on my papers. So, I began motivating myself with little acts of self-care throughout the day, whether it be wearing my favorite sundress, or buying myself an iced matcha-chacha on a study break. Similarly, I found that surrounding myself with people who were struggling equally as hard as I was with papers really brightened my spirits. Honnold-Mudd is a great place to develop this weird sort of camaraderie during finals week; they’re open 24-hours, and there isn’t a single person in there who isn’t struggling.
At the end of each day, no matter what, I took time to take medicine, put on really comfy pajamas, and do an activity that I enjoyed before I went to sleep- whether it be reading, watching an episode of my favorite show, or, if I was lucky enough to have the time, watching a movie. I thought about all the other forms of love I had in my life, and just how lucky I was to be at Scripps. I ended up surviving, and passing all my finals. I think the biggest thing about self-care is admitting that it’s okay to need, and that needing it doesn’t make you any less strong or independent. This was something I had to do during finals week, as I abandoned my “Miranda Presley” attitude. As one of my favorite poets, Clementine Von Radics, put it, “No one else gets to tell you what your tough looks like.”