“Workism” is defined as the ‘belief that work is not only necessary to economic production, but also the centerpiece of one’s identity and life’s purpose; and the belief that any policy to promote human welfare must always encourage more work.’ I’ve certainly been the victim of this crippling phenomenon.

For most of my life, my job has been school. Unfortunately, I seem to let the pressures and stresses of my classes and exams get the best of me. Whether it’s skipping out on being with friends and family to study or cutting time out of my passions and hobbies, I’ve always tended to put school first. While this isn’t inherently bad, what you do professionally/academically should never be the cornerstone of your personality, no matter how passionate you are about it.

The same goes for when I would do internships. When I had my first research experience the summer after my junior year, I enjoyed learning new concepts and the freedom to explore my interests in CS. At the same time, though, I ended up committing most of that summer to work and nearly ruined my friendship with one of the closest people in my life in the process.

This way of thinking is hard to unravel because I’m passionate about my work and study. At the same time, though, life is filled with more than just numbers and lines of code, and I’m learning to realize that slowly but surely. Moreover, I have many interests outside of what I commit most of the time to, and I shouldn’t let a minor problem set or pull request (always) get in the way of exploring them.

If anything, I used to think that my friends and family would always view me through the lens of an overachiever; now, I’m learning that they’ll love me no matter the work that I do.

Could this introspection feel a bit contradicting? Yes — this is undoubtedly a time when you can genuinely only connect the dots looking backward. In fact, as a big believer in the butterfly effect, I can’t guarantee that my life would be where it is if I didn’t study as hard as I did during certain circumstances. Regardless, it’s impossible to change the past; you can only change the present. And in the future, being around people I care about and doing activities I seemingly had little time for reminds me that I could be finding a bit more balance.