By Dina Aldabbagh

I’m studying my Masters of Architecture right now, and this semester has asked more of me than ever before. Not just inside of school, but also balancing all of the responsibilities that come with being an adult. So at the same time of managing the most demanding semester of my school career, I’m also navigating work, health, relationships, passions, and religion. It’s a lot, and it’s easy to feel like you’re falling short in every category.

Through the navigation of more intricate waters, I found myself needing to prioritize things with higher decisiveness to stay sane. I began to organize my week around allowing myself the time for what actually matters to me. Yes, school matters — but so does meal prepping, exercising, spending time with people that make me feel at ease, investing in the job that I love, working on my art project, and going to church. With that being said, something at some time will have to give. There’s always a compromise to be made, each thing I say yes to is a tradeoff with another thing. And they all matter to me, so what to do?

I made a to-do list. I broke down every step I needed to get done to be on track for this architecture studio project, giving myself my Sunday free to spend my time doing other things. What I found interesting, though, was that I named the list, “To-Do to Feel Good.” And then the list consisted of what steps I needed to complete for class. After writing my list, I took a moment and looked at that title; I laughed. “To Feel Good” and then it’s just…homework. But there’s truth in that.

The common conception of “feeling good” usually consists of things that look glamorous. Getting a massage, driving a nice car, getting complimented, being admired, eating a chef-level meal…self-care. While sure, those feel good, they’re not the things that really make you feel good. They scratch the surface, but we are overwhelmingly affected by those which cut a bit deeper. When you have things you care about and aren’t tending to them, you’re going to feel that. It won’t matter how many “self-care” things you do, you will still feel inadequate. Even if you don’t admit it to yourself explicitly, you will feel that thing bugging you. It bugs, again and again, and becomes a dull hum of dissatisfaction with yourself and your life.

The truth is that we need to take care of the things that really matter to us in order to feel good. “Getting your life together” isn’t for some grander recognition outside of yourself, but it’s the thing that will make you feel at peace with yourself. When you do good, you feel good. Point blank. No deeper or more philosophical way to say it. When you feel like you’ve given what you had and taken care of that which matters to you, you feel good.

So you take care of the responsibilities. You workout as much feels good for you. You invest in your school project as much as you can reasonably give. You cook that healthy food for yourself. You give yourself a little time to invest in the other things that matter to you even though they aren’t particularly productive. When you do these things, you feel good.

Feeling good is commonly misinterpreted. Oftentimes people think it’s what makes you feel good in the moment. To be honest, I rarely say to myself, “I just want to sit down at my table and do 12 hours of homework today,” but I do it. Why? Because it feels good to get it done and know that I’ve given what I had to my future. And sure, I get into the flow state, start loving my project, and get excited to keep sitting and working on it. Sure, I do lose track of time when I’m working. But the offer of sitting and working on something for the amount of time that it needs to become good isn’t really an attractive offer from the jump.

If someone came up to me and said, “Do you want to work on this project for school? You’ll have to invest 70 hours on just this phase, everything you do right now will be revised and changed down the road, and you’ll probably still get a B because your teacher is a tough grader. So, you in?” I would think, “Wow…that exchange of work for reward there doesn’t really excite me.” Obviously, on a surface level, it doesn’t give me some immediate boost of enjoyment. There’s no high.

And yet…it still makes me feel good to do it. That’s because when you do what you know you should, even though it requires something from you, you feel very good about it. On the surface, it feels great to sit and eat a tub of ice cream. However, when your stomach is uncomfortable, when you feel insecure in your clothes, and when you still don’t have the energy you need to go through the day despite eating that many calories, you don’t feel good. That’s the trade-off. Eating the normal meal every day at home doesn’t look glamorous, but when you love your body, you feel glamorous. It’s a well-worth exchange.

My suggestion, if you’re ever in a place of life where you feel unhappy with the current state of things, is that you begin doing what makes you feel good. The things that will make us feel better are simple. We expect that if we feel unhappy, that the fix is something grand, but it never is. It’s always simple, little things. Where is the key to you feeling good? It’s in the foods you eat, the clothes you wear, the thoughts you think, the words you speak, the people you surround yourself with, the ways you move your body, the hours you invest into your future.

We will feel better when our choices work together to make us feel good. Sometimes that’s taking care of what you know you need to. Others, it’s carving out time for the things that you care about. But I don’t think there’s any way to enjoy life if the things that matter to you are being neglected. Think about it, if it brings you joy, and you neglect it…then you have less joy.

If it brings you joy to be a good student, but you neglect your schoolwork, you will have less joy. If it brings you joy to go to community events, but you never make it out, you will have less joy. If you don’t dedicate yourself to the things that matter to you, you will have less joy. Let yourself do the things that make you feel good. Even when they ask something of you, require a compromise, or when you have to say no to something else.

Wear nice clothes; it’ll make you feel good about yourself. You’ll walk a little taller if your shirt is ironed and elegant. Go lift; it’ll make you feel more confident in your skin. You’ll carry yourself differently in rooms. Be thoughtful about what you eat; it’ll free you from constant self-consciousness of how you feel in your body. Do it all not because you’re supposed to, but because it’ll make you feel good.