2017: The year of self-care
No, self-care is not selfish. Self-care is the best gift you can give to the people around you.
© Alex Bertha/Unsplash
Of all the important decisions I made last year, one of the hardest was giving up freelancing. For four years, it gave me opportunities to pursue the projects I want, learn more things in different fields, and collaborate with awesome people. And yet the burnout was getting more frequent, days off from work less so. After much rumination, it was really about choosing all these over something more urgent – self-care.
Self-care is such a Tita buzzword, no? It’s uncool, unsexy, and means you’re doing less YOLO and getting more FOMO. But when you see the ones you love falling ill, deteriorating, suffering from pain, all the FOMO becomes irrelevant. You go through a laundry list of the food you shouldn’t be eating, the exercises you should be doing, and all the bad habits that your body will make you pay for later in life.
But even then, why is it so hard to take care of ourselves? Maybe we think we’re invincible, or there’s so much time left to be doing all those. Or are we just afraid of being seen as selfish, prioritizing our well-being over hanging out or having fun?
No, self-care is not selfish. Self-care is the best gift you can give to the people around you. When you’re healthy and happy, you spend more quality time with your loved ones, and you radiate positive vibes to the world.
For me, self-care also meant knowing when to stop working, staying creative, understanding my emotions, sustaining the energy to plow through, and finding joy in the everyday.
So here’s to another year of self-care! Here’s to hoping that when we see each other IRL, I’m not stressed or cranky and you get to enjoy my company. 😂
