You can learn quite a lot of things vomiting from your couch, the way the garbage can liner doesn’t quite fit, the color of your carpet, and that it’s time for a lifestyle change. Hold on, let’s rewind for a second. No, I promise I wasn’t hungover, it was simply my sixth stress induced stomach flu in the last twelve months. Each time, I promise myself to take it a little easier, to relax next weekend, and to take less units next semester. However, I was once again back on the couch talking to the moth painting hanging in the living room about how something had to give. It took a mid-summer attack for me to realize this wasn’t about school or how many jobs I had, it was firmly a lifestyle.

In this day and age, the focus of our younger lives has always been how to be successful instead of how to be balanced. High school is all about how to get to college, college is all about how to get the best job, and the best job is all about how to move up and start making more money. Rarely is there a focus or even a mention of taking a breath and taking each season as it comes. Sadly, this concept didn’t hit me until midway through college. I started coaching high-schoolers and heard freshmen taking practice SAT’s and juniors losing sleep over perfecting their top ten college lists. Sixteen-year-olds are sleeping three hours a night and taking a 3.5 GPA as a failure.

I try to explain to them as fervently as I try to convince myself that the best moments of my college career have not included anything to do with academics or employment. As I stare at this moth painting I’m forced to realize: if work is truly the best part of my life then why am I this sick over it? Opportunity is not something that will suddenly end next week, it doesn’t magically disappear to never be found again; but, “Hey, do you want to go get ice-cream with me?” sure does. Job postings are a google search away, classes start again in August, but the moments you would actually remember end up as “Oh, we didn’t invite you because we assumed you’d be busy.”

As frustrated as I was for missing a day of work for being sick, laying on the couch talking to the moth made me realize I’ve missed out on a lot more important moments by being in a constant state of stress. Stress had seeped so deeply into my lifestyle that it was controlling my decisions, health, and general lifestyle. The highlight of the summer will never be the majority of it that I spent working, it will be the one day that I took a day trip to the beach with my roommates and spent an hour taking pictures and running from the waves. I just need to make the conscious choice to relax and love myself enough to enjoy those moments.

And so, long story short, I do believe the best angle to view a painting is not over the edge of a trashcan, but it’s a really honest angle at which to view your life.