Friday nights, Saturday mornings, afternoons and evenings and entire Sundays spent hunched over a desk. Colored events fitted edge to edge; scattered, deceivingly-empty white spaces spent flipping through flashcards in my car or frantically searching for my next caffeinated beverage.

I used my minutes like pocket change: digging through lint and old wrappers to pay the exact amount required, never wasting a precious cent. 

Using every second of your time isn’t sustainable. I love working hard and I hate being bored: the perfect recipe for an overcrowded schedule and overwhelming workload, which caused me, an overachieving student, to overwork herself. 

I have always had a clear vision of what I want my future to look like and I have always known that it would take many years of hard work and sacrifice to get there – and I am more than okay with that fact. However, in my efforts to give future-me her perfect life, I have often neglected present-me.

I now have a glass jar on a shelf in my room, formerly containing some kind of sauce, that holds my pocket change – I save every cent for myself. I use my collected minutes to read books for fun, immerse myself in one of my hobbies, like woodworking, learn a new skill or to just stop and do nothing.