8 Questions I Ask Myself Daily
How I identify and nurture my needs every day in a noisy world
We spend our hours surrounded by voices and narratives. They tell us what we should want, what fulfillment looks like, and what milestones we should hit before we dare to slow down. They push us to strive for constant growth, to crave fame, to create this, to travel there. And, somehow, these voices and narratives drown out our own. Even when we are asked about our choices, we know there’s a playbook to go by. The pressure is on to stick to the trend, to fit in, to do something well or not at all.
Paying attention to my intuition and emotions saved my life in no uncertain terms. Living with an illness that requires self-advocacy for survival, I am my own best ally in health, work, and love. My quality of life depends on the quality of my choices. With an exhausting condition that affects the whole body and mind the way endometriosis does, every decision I make requires a constant negotiation of energy — a careful tango between pushing and pacing, resilience and recovery.
Yet, in every season, I feel the weight of our ableist reality: do more, be better, grow faster. I felt this weight growing up as the daughter and granddaughter of immigrants who began their life from scratch and fought so hard to belong. I felt it as a young PhD graduate at the brink of a promising career. I feel it now, as an entrepreneur and a writer in a world where suddenly everyone has a brand and a story to tell.
