Survival.

You aren’t a failure if all you’re currently doing is what it takes to survive.

You woke up today? Good! Happy you’re still here.

How are you feeling today? If it’s anything other than “good,” let’s fix that.

Whether or not you believe in a God, believe in yourself and respect the fact that you impact the world. You are the only thing you have total control over—whether consciously or not—so we’re going to harness the control you do have and do a little check-in.

Have you showered?

Have you brushed your teeth?

Are your clothes clean?

Do you have clean sheets?

Have you eaten today, or drunk enough water?

Have you taken your daily medications?

Is there an aspect of your health you’d like to change?

When was the last time you went to a doctor, dentist, psychiatrist, or eye doctor? Why don’t you make those appointments you’ve been putting off?

Have you kept up with school or work?

Have you asked for help when you needed it?

Was that scary?

How many of those things could you say “yes” to?

If you couldn’t say yes to any of them, you now have a good place to start.

Start With the Basics

Both hygiene and health affect us inside and out. They affect our confidence, our comfort in our own skin (I personally don’t want to feel like a toad), and our ability to live to our full potential. Sometimes something as simple as glasses or dental care can make an enormous difference in how we experience the world.

Our physical health and our mental health aren't separate little departments operating independently. They're constantly talking to each other.

Poor oral health, for example, is associated with cardiovascular disease and a number of other health conditions, although an association doesn't necessarily mean one directly causes the other.

Your medication also can't do much for you if you don't take it consistently. And if you've been taking something as prescribed and it still isn't working, that's information worth bringing to your doctor—not a reason to give up.

Not eating or drinking enough affects your entire body. It can affect your energy, concentration, mood, and all sorts of other bodily functions.

You are a giant plant made of stardust.

Water yourself more.

All of this isn't to cause a guilt trip. Sometimes neglecting our basic needs can start to look a lot like self-harm, even when we never intended to hurt ourselves. And sometimes we aren't choosing to neglect ourselves at all—we're depressed, overwhelmed, exhausted, disabled, grieving, broke, busy, or simply doing the best we can with the resources we have.

You deserve to take care of yourself.

Even though we live in a demanding world with unrealistic expectations, everyone deserves wellness, safety, and self-compassion.

It’s also easy to feel unworthy of those things when we check our privilege. Not everyone has access to a shower, insurance, doctors who listen, a dentist they can afford, reliable transportation, or a clean and safe space.

There are so many things we can argue about when it comes to what we “deserve,” or whether or not we’ve earned it.

Personally, I don't think basic human needs should have to be earned.

BEANS

I struggle to always put my BEANS, or my Basic Everyday Average Need System, at the forefront of my day-to-day life.

Between a full-time job, school part-time, domestic life, and taking care of two furry babies, it’s super easy to scatter my BEANS to the wind.

Next thing you know, I have a cavity, or I haven’t showered in four days.

However, I’m able to recognize the difference that mental and physical wellness play in how I feel and perform.

If you have to be a machine, at least be a well-oiled one. 💁🏻‍♀️

And that brings me to the next point:

Your basic needs come first.

Not because you should spend your entire life optimizing yourself.

Because you need a foundation before you can build anything on top of it.

There is a difference between surviving, maintaining, and growing.

Sometimes survival looks like getting out of bed.

Sometimes stability looks like showering, eating a real meal, taking your medication, doing your laundry, making the doctor's appointment, or asking someone for help.

And sometimes, once those things are relatively stable, you finally have enough bandwidth to ask:

What do I actually want?

That's where goals come in.

That's where the “boss babe” short- and long-term goals come in.

Growth Is Uncomfortable

Allow me to self-inject:

I just started my journey back into academia like, YESTERDAY.

This was the ONLY thing I wanted eight years ago. I told myself that once I could go back and finish school, I would be happy.

Guess what?

I'm thrilled about it.

But it didn't solve all my problems overnight.

In fact, I'm currently bracing myself for any and all potential problems that may pop up as a result of the crushing responsibility of schoolwork.

Apparently, getting what you want doesn't magically transform you into a person who no longer has problems.

Rude.

However, I wouldn't even have been able to start this journey if I hadn't worked through the pandemic and qualified for free tuition.

The stars aligned, but they aligned at the cost of struggle.

This was a long-term goal of mine, so the stakes were at the highest they've ever been.

To unlock this, I had to get uncomfortable.

Change didn't just HAPPEN.

I had to make choices.

The domino effect of becoming a manager, surviving the layoffs, finding a higher-paying job AMIDST THE PLAGUE (now understanding my worth for serving the public during the apocalypse), and showing up every day to work eventually resulted in that “free” tuition payout.

None of those individual moments felt like the path toward school.

But they were.

Growth is sacrificing what you know.

This is survival.

Staying at my job when I was a manager, even though I was miserable, helped us buy a house.

Getting into a car accident in 2016 where our car was totaled eventually led to us being debt-free with a more reliable vehicle.

I don't think those difficult things happened because they were secretly good for me.

I think we have the ability to find meaning in what happens to us.

Look at your current circumstances and ask:

“What’s the best that can happen?”

Just as often as you consider the worst.

Most importantly, remember to relish in the moments that you once prayed for.

Otherwise, you're disrespecting the fates, and they deserve better than that.

Time passes regardless.

Stop wasting time being afraid of changing.

We've been given this strange, impossible gift of being alive.

We don't have to prove that we deserve it.

We get to decide what we do with it.

Failure means that you tried.

And trying means that something changed.

Homework

Reflect on the past five years.

What’s something you wanted that you now take for granted?

What’s a long-term goal you want to finally move forward with?

What can you change today to improve the likelihood of future success?

What does success mean to you?

What is one thing you HAVE to experience or achieve before you die?

Do you equate happiness and success? Why or why not?

And finally:

What does survival look like for you right now—and what would it look like to move from surviving to living?