Learning to be selfish
By Elsa Caruso
We have a weird mentality in this industry. We feel the pain, dedication, drive and passion of an artist... but the guilt of a brain surgeon with shaky hands. We are always working to do better, be smarter, more creative, more witty and if, more often when, we don’t achieve this, we feel we have let ourselves, our team and our bosses down.
The funny thing is, this guilt and this pressure is the opposite of what makes us better at what we do for a living and whatever we chose to do with our time outside of our loosely defined working hours.
A month ago, I’d hit breaking point. The past year was tough on everyone. Personally, it was the long hours, the constant fear for the state of the world, worrying about family and friends, briefs, the US election and all the other ins and outs of suffering from pretty severe anxiety. I was burnt toast.
I thought to myself, do I push and suffer through the aftermath of this? Or do I be a grown up, not perpetuate the trope of mental illness being a weakness, and do something about it. Luckily, the agency I work for understands that for a brain and body to operate at its best, it needs a break every now and then. So I took a month off.
I won’t go into detail about the things I did while on that break. In short, there was a lot of nature, being with animals, thinking, relaxing, reflecting, leather work and many other wonderful activities that didn't require a screen. But, it wasn’t all happy go lucky holiday vibes. So, What I will tell you is an unpunctuated, completely honest stream of consciousness from this experience and the guilt that goes with it. Here we go:
Fuck fuck fuck What have I done Will I have a job to come back to Will they miss me at all Am I as good as I hope I am or will it all unravel I feel so bad for the people picking up my work load Will they be annoyed Are they feeling what I am feeling and if they are how come they don’t need time off Is it selfish of me to take this time away No it’s what I need to do to be the best I can be But god damn everyone else seems to cope with it Maybe they can hide it as well as I did Am I just being lazy I’ve never thought of myself as lazy but maybe that’s what I’ve become Has COVID and staying home all year made me lazy Yuck what a gross word I would rather be called anything else than lazy I’m not that I refuse to be I’m just tired You’re allowed to be tired that doesn’t make you any less of a hard worker Don’t compare yourself to other hard workers If you had an injury and needed surgery no one would blink an eye if you needed time to recover How is this any different Set a precedent Take the time you need to be healthy happy and productive it will benefit nobody if you aren’t performing at your best If I’m not working though what will I do There is too much time I should spend it with family and see friends I haven’t seen I should excercise and cook more Go for walks or start working on a new project ... But I’m tired I want to do nothing God maybe I actually am lazy Alright i’m going to make a plan So I don’t waste too much time on nothing Not that doing nothing is wasting time I'll spend a day resting and then jump into what I have wanted to do for months Ok Elsa Deal? Deal.
That was roughly my thought process every morning for the first week of my break. In retrospect, I view that time as me decompressing. I needed to experience those words of doubt and fear and insecurity and let my mind run with them, which let me observe them, acknowledge them and then move on from them – without judgement. With time, the negatives got a lot quieter and the positives grew.
The guilt subsided and confidence increased.
That’s not to say I was magically healed. I still struggle, I still need to remind myself that those words running through my head aren’t always true, that there are always going to be ups and downs, especially when working in a high-pressure industry.
Recently, I decided to move on from that job and see what else is out there. I will always be so grateful for the support they showed me and the experience I had there, but sometimes you just know it’s time to move on to something different, and give your brain a new set of challenges and experiences.
The point I’m trying to make by sharing my mad ramblings is, we should try to not feel guilty for looking after ourselves, and I say ‘try’ not ‘never’ because it takes time and practice to remove those habits. Health is mental, physical and emotional. I’m training myself to see those three things as a whole and slowly, slowly getting better at feeling a little less guilty and being a little more selfish.
