Putting myself first

My last article for this publication was all about how excited I was to finally be volunteering at the hospital as a translator. I had overcome my anxiety, finally, and was doing something I had wanted to do since I got to UNC. 

Now, a few weeks later, I am no longer volunteering at the hospital by choice. As I started volunteering, I began feeling full of anxiety and stress. 

When my day to volunteer started to approach, my stress levels were always heightened. I ended up calling out of a couple shifts because of stress and anxiety. 

Ultimately, I quit volunteering and I feel so much better. 

Was volunteering something I really wanted to do? 

Yes. 

Was I disappointed in myself to some extent for quitting?

Yes. 

But despite that, I’m okay with decision I made to quit. 

I’m choosing to see my decision not as a failure but as putting myself first. 

My dad—and pretty much all of society— always tells me that the only way I’ll overcome my social anxiety is if I put myself out there. “Baby steps,” he says. 

This year, I took several baby steps towards overcoming my anxiety and all of those baby steps included getting involved in different organizations and clubs on campus. 

My freshman year, I decided to focus on academics—partly because I wanted to do well, partly because of anxiety and fear—and this year I decided I wanted to get more involved. 

As I felt like my classes were easier this year, I signed up for four clubs to be a part of, all that would boost my resume and give me some experience in my career. 

I noticed that three out of the four clubs that I joined helped me grow and become more social. I felt good about the work I was doing, and I enjoyed that work. 

The last club I joined, the volunteering club, was the only one that I wasn’t excited or happy to go to. 

In college, there are so many factors that provide stress—papers, exams, grades, etc. Every week, there are new assignments to get done, exams to study for, and papers to write. The beauty of this is that once an assignment is done or a paper is written, the stress of that factor is gone. Every student can let out a sigh of relief that at least one daunting task has been accomplished. 

For me, volunteering was a never ending task—being a year-long commitment, it essentially was—that always caused stress. There was never a sigh of relief that I was done with it and didn’t have to think about it again. The other clubs I have joined, albeit all continuous, never gave me that feeling of stress and anxiety like this volunteering club did. 

I made the decision to quit volunteering because while it’s important to be involved, my mental health is even more important. 

Sure I felt disappointed that I wasn’t finishing something that I had been so excited to do, but I realized that it didn’t matter how passionate I am about something if it wasn’t making my life any better. 

I choose not to see it as letting my social anxiety win. Instead, I choose to see it as putting myself first.