Delicate, Sensitive Flower Manifesto
- Anika Yuzak
- Feb 29, 2024
- 2 min read
When I left fashion school, my first internship was at a conglomerate Sportswear company in Vancouver. The company was in the swing of a corporate takeover. I'd never worked at any company big enough to have a song. "I got a feeling tonight is going to be a good night" by the Black-Eyed Peas was blasted through the warehouse daily. It still gives me shivers when I hear the song today. The job felt meaningless, as I was part of their custom bicycle jersey division. I would cry on the Skytrain there in the morning and on the way home, but I saw the contract through, and I never quit.
So when a friend sent me a meme this week, 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 and check. Sigh. Dragging myself to the finish line of this contract, I'm asking myself where I got the idea that enduring is a virtue.
Maybe it's because I can hold out for the dream? Or my artistic interest in melancholy? My dysfunctional family could have something to do with it. Wherever it came from, though, I'm getting tired. I'm questioning my innate talent for twisting myself into a people-pleasing pretzel with a weird honey mustard sauce that doesn't even taste good on top.
And now that this film job has rung me out like a dishrag, I'm wondering if I have finally learned my cosmic lesson. t's dawning on me that I don't have to grind myself down to a nub to be successful, worthy, and abundant. If that's the case, I don't have to keep deferring my creative expression or actual needs. This delicate, sensitive flower can be on hiatus for the foreseeable future, doing the next thing that feels good and then the next after that, and the next after that.
