In my head I was ready, willing and able to get up and get out. But my body wasn’t havin’ it. I was exhausted and I didn’t even realize it. My body was giving me an eye-rolling, finger-waving, neck-twisting tongue lashing that my mind chose to actively ignore. There was a full-on dancehall party going on in my head that the rest of my body apparently wasn’t invited to. Being an entrepreneur, I spend my days and nights working, vowing that I will give myself a “break” when I reach certain financial goal.
Because I could in no way will myself to get off of the couch and I couldn’t fall asleep, I spent the next few hours reading Shonda Rhimes’ Year of Yes. The musings of a socially-awkward, introverted and successful black woman is my idea of a good read. In the first few pages of the book, Rhimes made a statement that snatched my edges so violently you would have thought I was at a Beyoncé concert sitting front row center. One chapter into the book, she tells a story about being broke and having to choose between one of her favorite treats and a necessity — wine and toilet paper. In telling this story she made the realest statement I’ve heard in a while, “sometimes the toilet paper does not win.”
Laying on my sofa, so physically exhausted that my body was in hibernation mode, I realized I passed up many moments when the wine should have won.
In my quest for success, I failed to understand that sometimes your sanity means more than “the grind.”
I should have said yes to happy hour and yes to that movie or yes to dinner instead of constantly burning the midnight oil.
Being a creative, employee, mother, activist, or whatever combination of things you spend your days doing can be stressful. For entrepreneurs and professionals alike, it’s important to take a moment, an hour or even a day to do you. Our culture of the constant hustle and the notion that getting no sleep is a catalyst to success causes us to forget about the fragility of our mental health. It’s as if we’re in a competition to see who reaches the Jack Torrance-level of insanity first, sacrificing our mind, body and will to move just to be able to say we’ve achieved something.
Well, all work and no play makes Bukola a dull girl.
Yes, you should always remain focused and you should always be about your business no matter what that business is. But it’s always important to remember that, “sometimes the toilet paper does not win.”
