Growth isn’t meditating, journaling, or silently building success. I always thought that I could get through anything by just working harder, pouring into myself and my future as deeply as I could. Focusing on myself, becoming more disciplined, training my mind. It made me indestructible for years.
I’d be lying if I said it didn’t pay off in many ways. For me, hard work was a promise: the more you work, the more options you have. The more options you have, the more freedom you have. With that mindset in place, I saw any setback as an indication to work harder and grow as aggressively as possible.
But what I’ve discovered this year is that it’s simply not sustainable.
I truly believe that you should make the most of whatever you’re offered, and that you must eventually pick yourself up and grasp your future between your own two hands and build it. Playing victim, lying in bed, and overthinking will only leave you trapped in the same cycle.
I’ve experienced building my life from the ground up firsthand. In a way, it helped me build a portfolio of proof, a reminder of my capability and strength. I’ve experienced things that — in the rare occasions I voice to others — earn me horrified looks. And despite all that, I was able to grow into a happy, vibrant, woman with a future ahead of her. I thought my strength would carry me through anything. All my positive quotes, journaling, and achievement gave me a sense of capability.
But what happens when you’re too tired to do anything but face the pain without trying to make something productive out of it?
I claimed every setback would motivate me to enter the famed winter arc. Until one day, it wasn’t enough. By the beginning of this year, the unimaginable happened. I lost.
I lost not just my joy, but my strength, confidence, beauty, and health. I felt like a vessel for the expansive range of negative human emotions. The year prior came with a lot of life changes, and I simply could not keep up. This year was the aftermath.
It was shameful that the toll of the past year was so physically visible to my family and friends.
I lost more weight last year than I ever had in my life, and with it, I lost my physical beauty. My voice would shake when I would speak to a crowd. My self belief evaporated. So did my discipline. My nervous system was a wreck, I’d wake up with a racing heart most days. I considered dropping out of a college I’d worked so hard for, and almost failed a class. Comparison became a daily ritual, when a year ago I would have been too busy consumed in my life to notice anyone else’s.
The confidence that I’d carefully developed over years — the stubborn ability to find contentment in any situation — had disappeared rapidly.
So I turned to my external achievements to build me up. But of course, there was always someone better at my university. Every person’s success was proof of my lack. And frankly, I was too exhausted to start a business or do anything but scroll social media or lay in bed most days.
Looking back, this crash was bound to happen, because the way I was preserving myself and building my future wasn’t healthy long-term. I didn’t see it at the time, but for years I was actually operating constantly from a state of fight-or-flight. This lesson just happened to come at a bad time, in a competitive environment, when I’m at a critical point for building a future for myself and my family. Slowing down at this point means falling behind in the long-run. I couldn’t afford it, but I couldn’t keep moving.
I was stunted by comparison and inaction. And honestly, some days I still am.
Of course, social media never saw this. I would post reminders that I needed more than anyone else. I was adamant to cultivate a community centering growth and positivity. Social media has always been a place of authenticity for me, and I tried my best to show up as the Rana that had existed before, because I still wanted so desperately to be her.
But how could I show up as her, when I felt ashamed and resentful of her? With every passing day that I felt stuck in the same cycle, I would criticize my past self. If only she had been more mature, hardworking, took up less space, healed from things more thoroughly before she presented herself to the world. If only she had balanced the weight on her shoulders with more grace or been more composed.
Before this year, a winter arc seemed like the solution if it didn’t require more energy and productivity than I could muster when the past few years of my life were ruthlessly catching up with me. Journal, discover yourself, try new things. Build yourself silently, make something productive out of the pain. All great advice within the right context. I would have taken it last year.
It was easy, stoic logic: Your mind controls your reality. Your emotions do not. Logic trumps all. I ate it up for years, and became a master at navigating every situation through logic rather than emotion. I was taught to see emotions as a sign of naivety and clouding judgement.
But some things aren’t logical. Certain situations require you to involve emotions, because it’s part of being human and connecting with others. I now realize that emotions deserve to hold weight in decision making. They are a compass to what you want, what you fear, and what feeds your soul. Neglecting that in favor of constant over analysis and criticism out of fear of misstep isn’t always beneficial.
I was desperate to prove my internal goodness (which I couldn’t even see in myself) through the external. Reading books, listening to podcasts, finding an impressive project to complete, tracking following counts, applying to jobs I was too tired to thoroughly pursue. Even wearing the hijab felt like a concealment of shame back then. I wanted to do everything out of a scarcity mindset, and would end up too anxious and doing nothing at all.
And worse, I saw my inaction as weakness rather than what it truly was: my mind and body begging for a break. I was tired of being a never-ending project, constantly being built up but never stopping to admire the progress. Even my rest had to feel productive, like I was learning through it or growing in some way.
Growing up, I saw vulnerability as weakness. Being affected by things felt like a personal failure. Now, I’m coming to learn that it’s one of the most beautiful parts of being a human. What differentiates us from machines is that sometimes we actually don’t keep going, sometimes we have to sit it out. And through that process, we are reminded that we are mortal and actually quite irrelevant.
It’s not about how well you can appeal to someone’s sense of aesthetics or build up social currency. It’s not about how positive or strong you act, and it’s not about how well you sell yourself the lie that you don’t care.
I do care, by the way. I always have. Deeply, voraciously, and oftentimes to the point of consumption. I make sure to never show it, but sometimes it overflows into my life in little ways: the 200 pages of letters I never send, the way I advise someone younger than me, and even in these essays. I care, and the most radical thing I can do with that is prove that I am a person and not an ideal.
No matter how much success, beauty, or good qualities you have. No matter how much you hustle or workout. No matter how many empires you build, it will never be enough to make you someone worth remembering. It will never make people want you, it will never make you worthy. There will always be people who are better, but there will also always be people who are worse. And funnily enough, both have people that care for them. Not because one is more deserving, but because human connection is not centered upon machine-like perfection. It’s centered around community and being terrifyingly exposed and open.
So why tether my self-actualization with my ability to be in constant upgrade for an invisible audience? Why should admiration feel more valuable when it’s earned rather than freely offered by the people who already love me?
Growth is not the external work: the money, the fame, the 6-AM hustle lifestyle. It is messy and confusing and oftentimes deeply painful. It’s being undisciplined without shame, and learning discipline out of love. It’s the cognitive dissonance, unlearning mindsets that are easier to maintain. Determining your values outside of your environment. It’s recognizing destructive behavior and resisting it. It’s writing things like this and leaving it out to the world. And most importantly, it’s letting yourself be absolutely nothing when you need to.
Sometimes, you have to let yourself reach your lowest and embrace that version of yourself so that you can clearly see what changes need to be made both externally and internally, and make them once you are ready to pick yourself up again. Not out of shame, but out of a desire for peace.
The truth is, I’m in the messy in-between. I still struggle sometimes, but I’m not the same girl I was at the beginning of this year. I’ve done my time (months upon months) of sulking and being gloriously irresponsible, and now starting again is energizing. Because yes, I still want more. But not always out of scarcity or a desire to compensate for anything.
It’s starting to become more about being open with the most important person in my life, the person who deserves proof of my care more than anyone else. That way, she can show up better for the people around her.
I do it for my younger self.
The same girl I shamed for so long. The girl who held me up for years, who shoved down her feelings to put in the work for the life I now have. The girl who survived things out of sheer belief that someday things would be different. The girl who couldn’t confront her limits without seeing it as proof of an intrinsic failure.
She may not have always had the leisure of discovering the healthiest version of herself, but she did the best with what she had so that a future version could have a life that lets her. She loved me fiercely, and I shunned her for so long. I owe her the happiest life I can possibly create.
It may not be a life they make films about, or a life that makes everyone stay, but it will be my own.
And it will be enough.
