Senior year, I finally was forced to have to make more time for myself. I had to really start thinking about what I wanted to do after graduation and make some critical decisions about going to grad school or applying for jobs. And so out of compulsion, I was taking time out to think about my future. And I realized how much better I felt with that little extra time.
And that helped me remember a quote that a friend of mine had told me during freshman year. She told me that there’s no such thing as saying no or uncommitting. It’s really like we all have a fixed number of marbles, and we can choose which bowls to put them in. So if you need to take time for yourself and make time for yourself, all you can do is take some marbles out from one bowl and put them in another.
And thinking about that really helped me be OK with saying no to people and saying, like, I’m sorry. This is a great opportunity, but I just don’t have the time to do it right now. And I started prioritizing and doing a couple of things every semester in rotation so that I could still do everything but not at the same time. And as a result, I was also able to take on more responsibility in individual clubs that I was a part of and seek out leadership roles in them, and the experiences became more fulfilling as well.