Latest Writings

What Happened After I Took a Sick Day Being sick wasn’t the uncomfortable part. The email I received after was. Not too long ago, it was flu season. In November, I caught a cold. I had a stuffy nose and felt lethargic. I definitely needed at least two days to recover, so I took a sick day from work. This significantly made a difference for me. I felt a lot more energetic and focused the next day when I showed up to work. One thing that I wasn’t expecting was to receive an ema

Why Leaving Work at 5 pm Felt Like an Identity Shift As someone who has identified as a “hard worker” and “high achiever,” it was a complete identity shift to focus on solely meeting the expectations of the job. I was only giving 100% of my energy and time instead of 150%. It felt like an identity shift to just close my laptop at the end of the day at 5 pm, which was the contractual obligation of the job. Some of you may know this as quiet quitting, closing the laptop or leav

How would it feel to create the openness in your calendar to live out your passion for travel to Europe? Like sitting in the park of the Champ de Mars while marvelling at the sparkling lights of the Eiffel Tower in Paris while enjoying a fresh baguette with delicious French cheese. It might feel like you can never have that if part of you is thinking, “I guess it’s a little ‘the grass is greener’ on the other side.” I’ve been there too. The Story We're Told About Trusting Log

Do You Ever Wonder If It’s Possible to Live Out Your Travel Passion? Do you ever wonder if it’s possible to live out your passion for traveling while soaking up the Mediterranean sun with your partner? Well, it may feel challenging to live out that passion of travelling to the Mediterranean when you hear your phone buzz and receive a text message from a loved one asking you whether this is the right time to book this trip. Ask me how I know. My Experience A few years ago, I h

My Experience with Burnout and Feeling Guilty for Taking a Sick Day A story that I want to share today is an experience I had over a year ago. I remember it was the end of a work week in my 9 to 5 job. I was feeling exhausted. Not only was I doing my work, but I was also doing the work of another person on PTO. Near Friday I could sense that I was coming down with a cold. I woke up Friday morning stuffy and congested. I felt terrible because I also knew how much work needed t

Back when I was in university, I was a different version of who I am today. It was a different chapter of my life back then. I used to joke with my friends that “sleep was for the weak.” I remember back in university I would get around 6 to 7 hours of sleep. I would be working at my laptop until 12 o’clock at night, and sometimes even later. I would often drink coffee or energy drinks just to stay up that late and keep working. Not only did I do that, but I also would do wor

The Seven Day Challenge That Helped Me Recovery from Burnout One simple seven day challenge played a key role in my recovery from emotional burnout. That challenge was to prioritize ease every day . So each day, I would ask myself at least once what would pleasure have me do? What This Looked Like in Practice Some of the things I would end up doing were: Closing my eyes and singing to a song I emotionally resonated with. Dancing to a song. Lying on a blanket in my apartment w

A familiar Saturday morning Sometimes, I would notice myself waking up on a Saturday morning around 10 a.m. I would get out of bed, make a cup of coffee, and notice my mind thinking about all the chores I needed to get done as I sipped my coffee while sitting in my apartment. Before I even knew it, my mind had already created a never-ending list of chores that I could barely keep track of and had so little interest in doing. This list kept me in a cycle of staying busy eve

Following My Passions For the longest time, I had a desire to travel to Europe. When I was a teenager, I remember watching YouTube videos of people travelling across Europe, and I wanted to do the same. As I got older and entered my early twenties, when I started working full time and saving money, I finally came across the opportunity to actualize this desire. I wanted to travel to Italy with my partner. My inner world felt lit up by this possibility, and I felt like a stron

The Version of Me Back Then When I was back in university, I was definitely a different version of myself than the one who shows up today. In second year, I remember getting only about six hours of sleep . Personally, I don’t know how I did it back then. On average, I would: Go to bed at 2 a.m. Awake around 8 a.m. And what was I even doing with my time if I was only getting around six hours of sleep? Studying. Working on assignments. Preparing for exams. I remember that regul

When I first started working at my 9–5 job in the field of business and technology, I remember being on a project that was quite demanding at the time. During the busiest periods of the project, many people were asked to: Stay late on weekdays Work extended hours Even work on weekends I dreaded the idea of having to work on weekends. They were the only two days of the week I had off from work, and I didn’t want to spend that time doing my day job. I remember being asked by on

Something that I learned many seasons ago was how to set boundaries with myself at work . I work a corporate job, and as a result, I am very much entrenched in hustle culture, a culture fixated on over-productivity, output, and performance . In the past, and even now, I often see colleagues in the 9–5 world working well beyond expected hours, sometimes until 9 p.m. or even 11 p.m. The Moment I knew Something Had to Change When I first started working this corporate 9-5 job I