Rest.

Lately, I keep coming back to this one chapter that was a part of the school curriculum- Albert Einstein at School.

In it, Einstein wanted a certain doctor to believe that he’s had a nervous breakdown so he could be excused from school. Being a bad liar, he didn’t know how make the doctor believe of his fake illness. Despite his fears and inability to lie, the doctor gave him the required certificate saying that the young boy wouldn’t have come to a doctor had he not been close to having a nervous breakdown.

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Pretending to be unwell is also a sign that you’re struggling in some aspect.

I remember as a kid I would pretend to have head/stomach aches so I didn’t have to go to school…Why? Because I didn’t feel like. I didn’t need a reason to not want to go to school every single day. But I still felt the need to lie about it, as if needing to rest wasn’t a valid reason for a child.

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At the end of each academic year, the school handed out awards to students who had done excellent that year. One of the categories was for students who had 100% attendance, who never missed school. And if you were one of the kids who got one of those, that’s great. If you still proudly display those trophies, good for you, you do you. But I remember hearing from people and reading an article or two about some kids winning those awards despite being sick. Legit sick. Not pretending-to-be-sick-so-they-don’t-have-to-go-to-school sick. Malaria/Dengue sick. And yet they went to school. And I remember feeling guilty for having missed school. Not because I didn’t win those awards, but because everyone seemed to think that these kids were persevering. And that’s a good trait, right? We applauded them for working hard despite being sick. We told them that that was okay.

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How pressured must they’ve felt to not take one sick day, when they were indeed sick? When did we learn to prioritise achievement over wellness? When did we learn to tie our worth to such achievement? And when did we teach these things to kids so young?