When Aaliah and Eliza approached me about writing this editorial, I was excited by the chance to share my thoughts on an issue that I care about with the rest of campus, and wanted to make sure I did a good job with this piece. I had no shortage of ideas for topics, and spent several weeks mentally going over this list.

But while I was weighing these options, I had to stay on top of school work, edit a page of this paper, serve as the stage manager for “Hansel and Gretel,” the theater department’s fall mainstage production, sing in Vox Profundi, and work multiple campus jobs. According to my Google Calendar, in the week that this is published, I will spend 32.4 hours — the equivalent of a full-time job — on work and extracurriculars alone, not taking classes and homework into account.

As the weeks went on and my commitments and school work took up more and more of my day, my motivation started to drop. I sat at my laptop, not taking in any of the reading I was trying to get through. The length of time that I could focus grew shorter. Instead of making rehearsal reports, writing reflections or researching for papers, I sat staring at the wall or the window with a blank mind. And, most of all, I felt incredibly tired all the time.

In short, I was burning myself out.

Throughout the production process of “Hansel and Gretel”, I have encouraged my fellow students on the production team to take breaks. “If you burn yourself out,” I told them, “you aren’t going to be any help to anyone.” My guiding philosophy was that it’s better to take breaks and keep the quality of your work up instead of pushing yourself to the point where you are not capable of working at all.

I grudgingly admitted that I needed to listen to my own advice. Ironically, taking breaks has never been easy for me, but I thought that I should practice what I preach.

I decided to go home for an evening to reset. My family luckily lives 15 minutes away from campus, so going home for the night was not that big of an undertaking. I spent the evening catching up with my parents, sister and brother and tried to not think about any of the stressors that had been piling up over the past few weeks. If I was going to take a break, I decided, I wouldn’t allow myself  to work on anything and instead focus on recharging my batteries.

By and large, it worked. Since then I have been more productive. But even more importantly, I realized that it’s okay to slow down for a moment in order to get to where you eventually want to go. It’s like stopping for gas on a road trip. It might feel like you’re making the trip take longer, but if you don’t, you’ll never reach your destination.

Now, as we approach the home stretch of the semester, I hope that you, my fellow students, are able to pace yourselves as well. I want to be clear; I am not advocating for ignoring academics or other commitments. We all have to keep our grades up and stay accountable to  ourselves and others. But, as much as you can, take time for yourself whatever that looks like for you. You deserve it. And your future self will thank you.