Something learned through living moments of wet, bloodshot eyes and clogged throats, tissues snatched hastily from the box and times the tissue got handed to others, is that there are days when you’re the hammer, and days when you’re the nail.

Days leading up to this one, I’m the hammer. I drive the nail into the board. I like these days. In many ways, it’s easier when there are people I can be of use to. Life is messy and I understand messy.

I see people beating themselves up, putting themselves down, and I give them reasons they’re everything they think they’re not. I see people driven up against a wall, tired from fighting, so I try to give them motivation and hope. These people take my advice, my friendship, my jokes, my distractions, whatever I have to help and they find their place.

But I’m not that special. There are moments when I’m not needed, when I’m not the necessary tool needed to fix things, or to even start fixing anything at all. There are other hammers in the world. I take a step back, and I am left to my own troubles.

Then there are times when these people, my friends and those I care about are completely content, and I’m the one in utter turmoil. These are the days that I must acknowledge that I am the nail. I’m the one that needs fixing, the one that needs to be smacked into shape.

I’ve started to use others as distractions. After all, it’s easier to sympathize and understand something terrible than it is to live it, as cruel as that sounds. When I focus on others, it feels like I’m doing something good, something useful with my time because I have trouble acknowledging my own inadequacies and needs for improvement. I bask in the delusion that being the hammer and helping others will somehow make my own troubles better.

It doesn’t.

I give and I give and I never save enough of the “care” for myself. I spend time on others until I’m empty and tired and everyone else is fulfilled.

One thing I know is that it is purely okay to be a hammer every once in a while, to love others and do whatever it takes to see them thrive. But it is also okay to be selfish, to be the nail and find ways to make yourself thrive and progress.

Balance is a mental state in which I am sorely lacking.

I carry my fatal flaw in the back of my mind and in the yin and yang symbol I wear around my neck. The hammer and the nail, two dynamic and contrasting types of care, are interconnected and must coexist to make a human being.

The thing is, you can never stop being the hammer. Every facet in this world needs fixing, whether it be people, your own self, or the plant on the windowsill that needs water. And just as you cannot stop helping others, you cannot cease to spend some of that care and help on yourself. While it is needed to sit down with a person and listen to their troubles, it is also necessary to escape and have introspective towards your own life.

I am counting on this year’s spring break to help me find some balance in my life. Perhaps I will finally start to accept the fact that I am the nail more times than I like to admit, and perhaps I will take help and guidance more when it comes my way. College is a time to be selfish, to focus on becoming the best version of yourself that you can possibly be in an environment that has potential for so many lessons and experiences. This is the advice I give to others. Maybe it’s time I take it as my own.