For years, my daily schedule consisted of a 6 a.m. wake-up, joining meetings on Zoom, writing multiple articles, cooking almost all of my own plant-based meals, and getting straight A’s on all of my assignments. At the end of the day, I would either use my last shreds of motivation to mindlessly scroll on social media while feeling guilty or I would call friends just so that we could sit in silence and “co-work” on our extra credit assignments together.  

While I  may have appeared to be incredibly well put together, I was actually a teen that was constantly filled with anxiety. Being “productive” wasn’t fulfilling, it was distracting and complacent. I was using my filled schedule to ignore the fact that I needed to find actually healthy coping mechanisms instead of searching for academic and employment validation. 

Unfortunately, this grind and girlboss lifestyle is encouraged from a very young age. We are all told that our academic output will be what guarantees our success later in life. This “success” is defined as one’s ability to get a good-paying job that they will go to every weekday from 9-5 until they are old and (maybe) are finally able to retire from the workforce. 

People are worth more than what they are able to produce. You are not failing because you don’t go to the gym at 5 a.m. or you procrastinate on your homework. We have aestheticized and accepted this incredibly capitalistic concept of productivity to the point that we feel guilty if we don’t achieve above and beyond what is expected of us.

The entire academic system is built around incentivizing students to work hard, turn in assignments and get good grades. Your ability to do well within the confines of this system is reduced to a number because progress is equated to grades instead of growth. 

It is an act of resistance to rest. You deserve to take care of yourself and prioritize your own health and growth. If we convince ourselves that burnout is success, the only people we are supporting are our bosses. 

I have decided that instead of continuing to make assignments, meetings, and emails my priority, I am going to prioritize taking care of myself. So I don’t care if I miss an assignment or turn something in late anymore because making sure that I am okay will always be worth more than class.