Delicate, Sensitive Flower Manifesto
- Anika Yuzak
- Feb 29, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 29, 2025
On the edge of burnout, a delicate flower considers a forever hiatus.
When I left fashion school, my first internship was at a conglomerate sportswear company in Vancouver. The company was mid-corporate takeover. I’d never worked anywhere big enough to have a company song before—“I Gotta Feeling (Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night)” by the Black Eyed Peas blasted through the warehouse daily. I still get shivers when I hear it.
The job felt meaningless. I was part of the custom bicycle jersey division. I used to cry on the SkyTrain there in the morning, and again on the way home. But I saw the contract through. I never quit.
So when a friend sent me a meme this week, turns outthat burnout is an actual thing. It includes the following symptoms—a sense of failure and self-doubt, detachment, feeling alone, loss of motivation, cynical outlook, and decreased satisfaction. Check, check, check. Sigh.
Dragging myself to the finish line of this contract, I keep asking myself: where did I get the idea that endurance is a virtue?
Maybe it’s because I’m holding out for the dream. Maybe it’s my artistic fascination with melancholy. My dysfunctional family probably has something to do with it. Whatever the origin, I’m tired. And I’m starting to question my talent for twisting myself into a people-pleasing pretzel.
Now that this film job has rung me out like a dishrag, I wonder if I’ve finally learned my cosmic lesson.
It’s dawning on me that maybe I don’t have to grind myself down to a nub to be successful, worthy, or abundant.
Maybe I don’t have to keep deferring my creative expression or ignoring my actual needs.
Maybe this delicate, sensitive flower is going on hiatus—for the foreseeable future—doing the next thing that feels good. And then the next after that. And the next after that.
