Books Read in 2021

This is not a flex. I repeat: not a flex. Let me start by saying that I’m a terrible reader.

“Ahmm, sis… you’re an English teacher though.”

Yes, I get that all the time but let me explain.

I am a slow reader. I have always been. I was always awestruck when people would tell me they read an entire book in one day, one weekend or even one week! I could never! I’m always losing my train of thought, always falling asleep, always forgetting where I’m at, always just not finding the time or motivation to read anything. If I read 3 books in a year, I would be extremely proud of myself.

*All graphics designed by MoreDan Marketing

Somewhere, somehow, in the 2019–X pandemic, that changed. I started off the pandemic in a very shaky way. I was not coping mentally. Like many people, I had to look at the people who were thriving with all their newfound COVID time, COVID energy and COVID opportunities and just cut mi eye. (Translation: I just had to ignore them.)

I was not “bossing up” anything. I was not self-actualising. I was barely actualising myself out of bed. Some days, I wasn’t even eating. (Those were darker days.) And I had my first bout of suicidal thoughts. I had to console myself with platitudes about seasons and flowers blooming in their own time and boiled eggs and potatoes or whatever.

Anyway, somewhere in the midst of the pandemic, I started to find my rhythm. I made a couple conscious changes and one day, something just shifted and I started to be less anxious and less depressed. I started drinking water and eating with no external prodding, I started to write more AND I started to read. In fact, I think this year, I became a reader and it’s been thrilling.

I committed to reading at least 30 minutes each day and, for the most part, it worked. I managed not to get overwhelmed by doing a few simple things like:

• alternating longer books with shorter books

• alternating e-books with physical books

• alternating heavier books with lighter content

• trying out audiobooks for the first time

• reading multiple books simultaneously and

• simply refusing to force myself to finish a book if I wasn’t enjoying it

Shortly before the midway point of the year, I rearranged my book shelf, separating the books I had read from the books I had yet to read and watching, with accomplishment, as the unread shelf dwindled. I don’t know when or how I figured these tricks out but I did and it’s had tremendous results.

So here’s the list of books I read in 2021 in the order in which I finished reading them:

✓ All Over Again by A-dziko Simba Gegele

✓ Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (abridged version)

✓ The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (e-book)

✓ It’s Trevor Noah: Born A Crime by Trevor Noah

✓ The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

✓ Online Income Stream Ideas by Trevann Hamilton (e-book)

✓ To All The Boys I Loved Before by Jenny Han

✓ Margaret Atwood: On Writers and Writing by Margaret Atwood (e-book)

✓ New Voices: Selected by Lorna Goodison

✓ Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (abridged version)

✓ Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid

✓ The Confidence Code by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman (audiobook)

✓ Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki (audiobook)

✓ The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams (audiobook)

✓ Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy (audiobook)

✓ Becoming by Michelle Obama

✓ The Richest Man in Babylon by George Samuel Clason (audiobook)

✓ The Bible (Genesis to 2 Kings — that counts as 12 books, right?)

✓ Anansi by Alistair Campbell

✓ No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer

✓ For the Life of Laetitia by Merle Hodge

✓ Testaments by Margaret Atwood (e-book)

✓ The 5AM Club by Robin Sharma (e-book)

✓ The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

✓ The Otterbury Incident by C. Day-Lewis

What books have you read this year? What are your reading goals?

I’d love to hear from you. Share something about your experience with reading in the comments or message me on Instagram @misseducationja or at misseducationja@gmail.com.

Miseducation Reversal

Hello, my name is Khadijah and I’m miseducated.

Now, didn’t that feel great? So you’ve admitted you have a problem. Now what?

I tell my students all the time: once you’re done with this school thing, make sure you go get yourself an education.

Here are 10 ways you can go from miseducation to re-education on your own time:

1. YouTube: Yes, the YouNiversity of choice—the holy grail of modern learning needs no introduction or explanation. Eat your heart out.

2. Short courses: Many are free online but there’s no harm in paying for a good course, whether online or in your area, that will contribute to your personal or professional development. It’s an investment. Just make sure the course and the offerer of the course are high-quality and legitimate.

Here in Jamaica, you can find short courses that can lead you to a career at the Real Estate Training Institute, the Face Place, Heart Trust NTA and the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority, just to name a few.

Other institutions include the UWI Open Campus, UTech, Edna Manley College, UCC, MIND and the Media Training Institute. Udemy, Google Digital Garage and FutureLearn are some reputable online sites. iTunesU is pretty limited but you can still find have meaningful learning experiences with one of their recorded courses where you can learn at your own pace from some of the best lecturers in the world.

3. Online talks, lectures, conferences and webinars: Recordings from TED, Talks at Google, SouthBySouthWest (SXSW) and any other conferences or webinars available live or recorded in your area are great learning opportunities. Clubhouse talks are my latest go-to for dynamic live online learning. I tried MasterClass recently too and it’s been life-changing.

4. Networking opportunities: People are a great source of education. Some of the greatest gems I have collected in life have been from having fun chats, business meetings and even soul-searching conversations with people in my personal network.

So put yourself out there and expand your circle. Listen twice as much as you speak. And really really listen.

Anything that comes out of your mouth is something you already know. Anything that goes into your ears is an opportunity to grow.

5. Get a mentor / become an intern or apprentice: It’s easier said than done. Not everyone is willing to offer their time and expertise freely. But maybe it doesn’t have to be free. You could offer yourself as an intern or apprentice so that your mentor feels that they are benefitting as well and you learn even more that way.

You could even find a mentor online whom you may not even know personally. Just by watching, reading and listening to their content, you could learn a lot. Be sure to get mentors for different aspects of your life. For more on this, read my article on the value of interning and apprenticeships here.

6. Volunteering: Meaningful volunteering opportunities that truly promote growth and development are not always easy to find. While serving food to the poor, volunteering at a children’s home or helping out at an infirmary are valuable opportunities to build empathy and learn useful life lessons, they are not readily available options in a world that has shifted online.

Moreover, sometimes, we want volunteer opportunities that will help move us in the direction of our career goals, expand our networks or teach us new skills.

For that, one site I have discovered recently is Catchafire. It’s a global virtual service that matches volunteers with people and companies who need their services. Why not give it a try?

While you’re at it, enter “Volunteer Opportunities Online” in a search bar to see what other options are available in your area. Almost any business you could think of would accept your voluntary services so locate one you’re interested in and then just ask.

7. Travelling: Yes, it sounds luxurious and maybe out of your reach but you’d be surprised to find that it’s not. You might be able to travel on a scholarship or win trips by entering competitions. If you’re working, you can save towards it.

You can have memorable travel experiences even in your own country. The benefits of travel for personal mental and emotional growth are underrated. For information on how to have great travel experiences on a budget, check out Goody on a Budget and Adventures from Elle.

8. Journalling: You’d be surprised at how much you can learn from your own mind. I journalled every day of my life on my phone for a year and a half and it both changed and saved my life. Sometimes, by just seeing your thoughts concretely in front of you, you find insights you would not have been able to grasp when the thoughts were just swirling around in your head.

9. Seeing a therapist: I think everyone should see a trained therapist at least once in their life. We can never truly see the world as it is; we only see the world as we are. The more we raise our levels of intra-personal intelligence is the more we increase the clarity with which we can see the outside world.

It might be a little costly but if you’re doing it just once, plan for it and view it as an investment in yourself.

There may also be opportunities for free therapy in your area, especially if you’re in college or high school. Ask around.

10. Reading: Well, this isn’t new. Books are a traditional but still effective way to learn more about the world and even about yourself.

My advice: don’t let anyone tell you when, what or how to read. Set your own reading goals. Read what you like, whether it’s business books, children’s books, poetry, self-help, travel books, anything you enjoy.

And by the way, never let a book hold you hostage. If you’re not liking it, you have no obligation to finish it.

Of course, you don’t have to explore all these options and certainly, you won’t explore them all at once but dip your big toe in the pool of true education.

In many ways, our education system has failed us but the world is still ours for the taking. Gary Matalon once said very simply at a high school careers rap, “There’s learnings to get from everywhere.” Go get it.

My Journey into Teaching — A Late Introduction (PT. 3) || How It Started, How It’s Going

After a month, I knew I hated it. This career I had all hopes of retiring in. This career I had chosen above all others. I despised it. It frustrated me beyond reason. I felt empty and confused. I hated it.

Here are my main reasons:

1. It is way too much work — A teaching job is a hamster wheel in the truest sense.

2. Lots of unpaid labour — People always say, “They don’t pay me enough to do this.” They really don’t. If I were to calculate my hourly rate based on the number of hours I spend in the classroom per month, I make JMD$2,233.74 or USD$15.35 per hour which is not a bad wage. At least, it’s not a bad wage until you account for all the hours I’m not paid for (which is the majority). Time spent in the classroom is the least of my problems. Time spent planning lessons, planning and creating assignments, participating in meetings, liaising with parents and students — wholesale and one-on-one and grading at least 1,000 pieces of students’ work per term (not including exams) among other things! And because they only pay you for your timetabled contact hours, the hidden hours of unpaid labour can be as exorbitant as they want. They can make any demands of us in those unpaid non-contact hours because no one can really quantify them and they look different for each teacher. If I were to include those tasks in calculating my hourly rate, I would make about USD$7.21 per hour — a few cents below federal minimum wage in the United States. Seven dollars per hour to mould the minds of our nation’s future leaders. A sad state of affairs!

3. Not as rewarding as I thought it would be — By the end of the first month, besides experiencing the full force of the poor monetary compensation and the unrelenting day-to-day strain of being a teacher, I felt like I was just a linesman working the conveyor belt that is education. The whole system seemed pointless and irrelevant. Students were stressed and I felt like I was just a part of the problem. I didn’t feel like I was helping anyone or making anyone’s life better, like I thought I would, like they said I would. In fact, there were some days I felt that I was making students’ lives worse just by doing the job I was being paid to do. I know that may be hard for many to understand and maybe, in the grand scheme of things, that is next to impossible but those were my genuine feelings.

4. A lot of decisions from administration and local and regional bodies that just didn’t play out well on the ground — I’m sure this is true of anyone working in any organization. The “bigger heads” make decisions with nary a clue or a care about how these big decisions affect the day-to-day of the small man and the client. But when you’re working with children and when you can see how disadvantaged they are and how worn out you and your colleagues are, as the people to whose care they have been entrusted, it takes a different toll.

5. Teaching is boring and exhausting — You teach the same things, day in and day out. You bring the energy and you hope they reciprocate and I’ve been fortunate and strategic enough that my students generally do. It can really deplete your deepest energies. Sometimes, teaching the same things over and over can provide a sense of stability and make my work easier, for sure. But there’s no challenge. And there isn’t even much room to play around and teach what you actually want to teach and what they actually want to learn. Teaching the prescribed syllabus can suck all your time and energy. As a profession, there is also generally little to no room for growth and promotion is not the same thing as growth.

These are my main reasons. I won’t get started on the special brand of “mom guilt” you experience as an invested teacher, feeling that you are spread so think that you don’t even ever have enough to give these many little people who look up to you, those situations where you feel like you get all the blame and none of the credit for students’ performance, the fact that, as is true in most service industries, everybody wants something from you all the time and it can lead to profound burnout, the baskets we get to carry water, the immense pressure of having “the future of the world” in your hands, the late nights, the time it takes away from your own family, the disappointment of helping students to improve their lives while seeing little improvement in your own, the pressure of being accountable to everyone and their mother — I could go on for weeks.

Of course, I can’t say it has been all bad. I have been blessed with some talented, supportive and brilliant coworkers. I have some amazing students, some of who became dear friends. (I told many of my students I was getting married before I even told my coworkers.) Because of the nature of my subject, I get to engage young minds in some amazing conversations. I have job security and steady pay, which can be a double-edged sword. I have a relatively flexible work schedule because of the school I work at. I get a little paid vacation. (People think it’s a lot but take a look at my article, “The Myth of Holidays for Teachers” to read the truth.) I have a decent measure of autonomy and freedom. And as you can see, from reading this blog, I’ve experienced a lot of self-discovery and learned a lot about people and the world. I am grateful. I really am.

Do I regret the decisions that have led me here? That’s a complicated question.

Am I looking for new career opportunities? Most definitely!

Do I still love to teach? Yes. I always say I love to teach but I hate being a teacher. (Confusing, I know, but you kinda get it, right? Yeah? Yeah)

Will I ever get to the point where education plays no part in my life? I doubt it.

Where do I go from here? No clue. I’m playing it by ear, trying to cultivate contentment, trying to double down and put in the work towards my goals.

When I get to the flip side, I’ll let you know.

My Journey into Teaching — A Late Introduction (PT. 2) || Why I Decided to Teach

Why I Decided to Teach

Why I Decided to Teach

“So you’re telling me you had the chance to pursue any degree you wanted, to become anything you wanted in the world at no cost to you… and you chose to be a TEACHER? What!”

I get asked that question or variations of that question every time I tell someone the story of how I got into university. The full story of that is in a previous blog post but basically, I got a free ride, full scholarship, the works.

After the lady at the scholarship office was finished congratulating me, she asked, excitedly, “So what are you studying?”

“Teaching,” I said. “Education”

“You know this scholarship covers your tuition for anything you want to study at this university, right? Any degree at all.”

“Yes. I know.”

“And you still want to study teaching?”

I caught her drift.

“Yes,” I responded with solemnity so she would know I was serious.

She replied with a dismissive “OK” and proceeded to help me fill out the paper work.

I always tell that story a slightly different way because I don’t remember all the words but I do remember how I felt in the moment. I felt like I was fighting against all odds to pursue a passion that I truly felt was noble and that I felt was the best for my personality and for the life I wanted to lead. And I wasn’t going to let any person, any pressure or any stereotypes stop me.

So why did I choose to teach?

I had started studying law in high school and it was soul-sucking. I excelled at it, got one of the highest grades in the the country on the regional CSEC exams but I knew I couldn’t do it as a profession. At that point in my life, I was really focusing a lot on my mental health, which had deteriorated to a pulp. After beyond volleyed between different levels of depression for four years, I wanted a life that not only looked good but felt good. I wanted a simple life, not one that was complicated, not one that would take me away from the things that fed my spirit, the things that were truly important to me. By this time, I was tired of school and didn’t see the point of it so, medicine and law did not appeal to me because I couldn’t see myself spending another 5-7 years in school. In my final year of high school, I got into a special kind of ministry within my religion. I started learning Mandarin to volunteer to preach and teach the Bible’s message to the large Chinese population in my country. That really satisfied me. I knew I would have to work to support myself and help my family but I wanted a job that wouldn’t take me away from that ministry that I had grown to love. So I thought teaching from 8-3 each day would give me time after work to still sustain that part of my life.

At my high school, teaching wasn’t popular. Some people said they wanted to go into teaching, but only after they had made their career would they consider teaching, maybe as a lecturer or an extra lessons teacher making some side cash. Teaching was not the dream. Teaching was that thing you did at the end of your life after you had “made something of yourself” and for a while, I fell into that trap. I was good at teaching. I was good at making things simple for people to understand. But it was my end-of-life job too. So I spent my school years figuring out what my “real career” would be. And then, at the end of my high school life when none of those dream jobs seemed to fit, I thought, “Why wait? Why push teaching on the back burner? Why not become a teacher first and then see what happens with the rest of my life?”

I mentioned my decision to my teachers and even to my principal, who said that if I went and pursued teaching, I would be guaranteed a job at my alma mater. So I thought, “Great! I’ll have a stable job right out of university!”

Those are my reasons.

Is it what I thought it would be? No.

Do I love to teach? Yes.

Do I love being a teacher? No.

Am I looking for new opportunities? Definitely yes!

But do I regret my decision? No.

I made it with the right motivations. It has afforded me a stable career for my entire adult life. The money isn’t great but it pays the bills and it takes care of my needs.

And it was my decision, not anyone else’s.

I always say, “I chose the life I wanted, not the one that was set out for me” and I have never regretted that.

Check out the 3rd and final part of this series to learn why I love to teach but hate being a teacher.

My Journey into Teaching — A Late Introduction (PT. 1) || Getting Into College

The Journey to University

I knew I wasn’t going to be able to go to university without a scholarship. There was no other way for me.

Student loans didn’t feel right. I didn’t know much about loans. Nobody in my family had ever taken a loan because we were barely surviving and wouldn’t take anything from anyone that we weren’t sure we could pay back. Besides that, I had heard so many horror stories about how student loans tie people down. That just wasn’t my path.

But still, I had no reliable financial support to provide me with food, transportation, books and other supplies I would need to attend university, much less three years of university tuition! So I needed some source of significant financial support.

It was either that or I was going to become a mechanic. No, I’m not joking. The Jamaica-German Automotive School (JAGAS) was down the street from my house and I figured it would be my best shot at getting a career at a very low cost. I would also be close to home so I could come go home for lunch and save on transportation by walking to and from school. Win-win, right?

Anyway, I chose the more traditional option first; auto-mechanics was my back-up plan. So, at the end of sixth form, I was applying for all the scholarships I was eligible for. I waited a long time and got no calls. I went to one interview but they never called back and I was losing hope in my university dreams and packing my tool kit (mentally) for automotive school.

I ended up getting a call for another interview on the same day that I had a convention to attend. At the convention, I struck up a conversation with an older friend who asked me where I was in school and what my prospects were for university. I told her about all the scholarships I had applied for and how I had got very few call-backs. When I mentioned that I had applied for the University of the West Indies’ Open Scholarship, her face lit up. She said, “That’s the best one! That’s the one you want! That’s the one you’re going to get!” She related how much that scholarship had done for her — how it covers tuition for any degree you want to pursue plus good money for room and board, food, books and general maintenance and how she didn’t pay a cent to complete her law degree. Maintenance? Full tuition? I didn’t know such luxuries were possible. The truth is, I didn’t know what to expect when I got into this scholarship game. Scholarship websites don’t tend to be very forthcoming with dollar amounts or details of the scholarship package. So I was clueless. I was just throwing my net out there and seeing what I could get. But, at that moment, there was a fire in me. I decided that was the scholarship I wanted needed and it was going to be the UWI Open or nothing at all!

Still, I went to the interview I had scheduled for that day, but with my outlook completely renewed because I now knew what was possible. That interview went swimmingly and they got back to me in no time to let me know that I had been awarded the scholarship! Now it was time for decisions, decisions, decisions. What if I accepted this scholarship and then the scholarship of my dreams — the UWI Open Scholarship — came through for me afterwards and I was now ineligible because I had already accepted another scholarship? (That’s actually how some of these scholarships contracts work!) This was a tough call, harder than even deciding who to marry or picking out your next nail polish colour! Even though I had my heart set on the UWI Open, I decided not to be rash. I went into the discussion with the scholarship people and I asked all the questions.

Will I be bonded to Jamaica or to the institution awarding me the scholarship?

Will accepting this scholarship make me ineligible to accept other sources of financial aid?

How much is the scholarship offering?

They said the scholarship fund was offering $250,000 (about US$2,500 at the time). Now, neither I nor anyone in my family had ever seen $250,000 in one place at any time. This was a lot of money for someone who had nothing and had no prospects of having anything.

Excitedly (but trying not to show it), I asked my next question.

Do you mean $250,000 per year?

They said no. They were offering me $250,000 in total for the duration of my 3-year degree programme. (Awkward!)

That wasn’t going to help me much because my tuition per year was $252,000. Comparing that to the faint possibility of having my full tuition paid for all three years, I decided to decline.

They were MAD! One of the older ladies on the panel especially — it was her family’s foundation that was funding the scholarship — went ballistic! She literally started to twitch as she made me pointedly aware of her generosity, how they had sifted through so many applicants, how they had deliberated, how they had chosen me — ME! — and how ungrateful I was being (not in all those words).

I was so intimidated. I apologized and explained profusely and mentally prepared myself to help put this woman into an ambulance… but I still wasn’t going to take her scholarship. One of the more level-headed panelists eventually defused the situation, said they respected my decision, thanked me for my time and explained that they would just award the scholarship to another suitable candidate. I thanked her and I bolted.

So I just turned down $250,000, the only financial aid I had been offered after months of filling out at least a dozen tedious applications and months of watching and waiting. What was next for me? I did not know.

I knew I was going to school in September. I also knew that the University of the West Indies doesn’t require students to pay the full tuition up front at the beginning of the year. You pay a small maintenance fee to get started and then you have at least until end of semester exams to finish paying up. So I knew I would start school. I just didn’t how it would be able to pay up the money I would need to finish.

Like a good Jamaican does, I called my aunt in Florida and ask her (sweetly) if she could front me the maintenance fee. She did. And I started school. I walked wherever I could to avoid paying for transportation. I got by eating whatever was most filling and most affordable.

A month and half into the semester, I started getting these calls from this strange number and I just knew it was them. It was them. But I kept missing the calls. For that whole month and a half, I had been visiting the scholarship office at least twice a week to ask if the scholarship had been awarded yet, satisfying my heart with hope each time they said no. I decided I would not miss any more calls and finally, I picked up at the right time, they told me, “Congratulations! You have been awarded the UWI Open Scholarship!”

My heart sank. And that was everything!

Overachievement and the Price We Pay Pt. 2 || Adult Achievement

I was thinking about fitness and trying to figure out why I am not exercising as much as I know I should. I thought, “When would I find the time?” And then I started to spiral into the shame and self-loathing of “never enough” pelting my mind with platitudes like “you have to make the time” and “the only person stopping you is you.” UGH!

Because I had just been watching Taylor Swift and Demi Lovato talk about body image issues, I cut off my negative self-talk about my body and I realized that even if I were going to start exercising now, I would not be doing it for the right reasons. I would be trying to achieve that perfect body and, as Swift said in one of her interviews, “There will always be some standard of beauty that you are not meeting.”

Anyway, springing from that, I’ve started thinking about achievement and overachieving in all spheres of life, how this ideal is thrust upon young people, especially students, and how it is damaging to us.

It is alluring to think we can do it all especially because social media makes it seem like there are people out there who have the same circumstances as you, the same 24-hours as you and they really do seem to be having it all and doing it all.

But I always try to remember that there is something missing in their life, there is something they are sacrificing, there is something that is suffering, there is something that you’re doing that is valuable to you that this person is not doing because they “have it all” and that same person you are looking at and loathing yourself is looking at someone else and doing the same thing. So when does it end? And why did it start in the first place?

Let’s get this straight! Having it all is not possible! It seems possible when you’re spiralling through it in your own brain and all that rhetoric that you’ve seen and heard are swirling through your mind.

But let’s really break it down and look at it objectively:

They say, “If you’re gonna get the exercise you need, you need to wake up at 5am and just get it in.”

They say, “You can’t get caught in the trap of eating out all the time. You have to prepare your meals at home. It might seem like you don’t have the time but if you just get up at 5am and pack that lunch bag, it will reap so many benefits.”

They say, “If you’re going to really start your business or write your book, the time is not going to just fall in your lap. You have to make the time. You have to wake up at 5am and just put in the work.”

They say, “If you’re going to start a family and have children, you’re barely going to get any sleep. Even if you do get some rest, you’ll be up again by 5am.”

I ask, “How many things am I supposed to be getting up at 5am to do?” Is there some magical 5am someone isn’t telling me about because my 5am turns to 6am in under 5 minutes?

They say, “Going for a second or third degree becomes harder the older you get. You need to start now.”

They say, “Finding the love of your gets harder as you get older because the pool of eligible singles gets smaller and the older people get, the more they’re set in their ways. If you’re going to try to get married, you need to start now.”

They say, “Having children gets a lot harder the older you get and there’s a high risk that your child will have defects the longer you wait. If you’re going to start a family, you need to start now.”

They say, “Working out and keeping that fit body gets harder the older you get. You need to start now.”

They say, “The money you save on eating out and recreation could go towards buying a house. Your mortgage payments are significantly reduced the younger you are at the time of purchase. You need to buy a house now.”

You need to read as many books as you can now. Watch videos. Listen to podcasts. Attend webinars and networking events. Take in as much knowledge as you can now. Grow your network. Build up your skills now. Take short courses now. Write that book now. Work on yourself now. Start multiple income streams now. Enjoy your life now, You need to start now. Start now. Start now. Start now. Now. Now.

How many things am I supposed to start NOW?

I’m content that I am not exercising the way I should right now. I’m not reading as many books as I would like to read now. No, I’m not promoting laziness or poor health or self-limitation or procrastinating. I’m promoting reasonableness and balance and rest and self-determination. You don’t have to do all the things they say you have to do and you certainly don’t have to do them right now. It’s not even possible and it’s counterproductive and propelling a growing mental illness and burnout epidemic.

Right now, I am working on writing more, mostly because I’m a writer and I need to write and secondly, because I’m building a career in writing. I’m also reading more this year than I have in any years prior, mostly because it’s relaxing and fulfilling and secondly, because I need to read more to build my skills as a writer. I eat mostly plant-based, mostly home-cooked meals that I make myself and that takes a lot of work. I generally go outside once a day to water my 30+ plants with my husband and I get a little movement and fresh air in there. I work over 40 hours a week as a full-time teacher. I generally save about 15% of my income each month and I don’t have a habit of overspending. I spend a lot of time building my friendship with my husband and trying to keep in touch with the family and friends that matter to me. I take my faith and my spirituality very seriously and I spend several hours a week working on that aspect of my life. I get a relatively good amount of sleep.

I do a lot but until I just wrote all those things down, I didn’t realize how much I was doing or how well I was doing. If I let my mind run wild, I spend most of my time being discouraged about everything I’m not doing and how I’m not doing the best at leveraging the time and money and resources I have. I should be changing out my wardrobe month by month to make it more professional (but to do that, I’d have to save less or stop saving altogether.) I don’t drink enough water. I’m not getting an ideal or consistent amount sleep. I need to exercise more (but, to do that, I’d have to get less sleep.) I need to read more (but, to do that, I’d have to get less sleep or cut into the time I spend with my husband.) My house isn’t clean enough. I’m paying for cable every month but I’m barely watching TV. I’m not practising enough self-care, getting enough recreation and me-time. My skin is a mess. Why don’t I go see the dermatologist? When was the last time you did your nails or shaped your eyebrows? You look disgusting. Are you spending enough time with your family? You don’t call them enough. You don’t text your friends enough. What kind of friend are you? You’re not present enough on social media. You spend way too much time on your phone.

All of those thoughts make regular train rides in my head.

If you’re like me, you’re likely doing a lot but still feeling like it’s not enough, like you’re not enough. One day when you’re spiralling, make some time to do what I just did. Make a list of all the things you are doing. No matter how small they may seem, don’t self-edit, just write them down. Write all of it. You might be surprised that the problem is not that you’re lazy or unproductive or unambitious. It might be that the bar set for you was made for a giraffe, when you’re a cheetah. And if you speak openly with some other people about how you’re feeling you may also find that, while they’re criticising you, the cheetah, for not jumping high enough to reach the bar, they’re also criticising the giraffe for not getting there fast enough.

Re-educate your mind. Set your own bar. Run your own race. “Overachieving” is for losers.