The juice is worth the squeeze
OPTIMIZATION, EASE, EFFORT, AND REWARD
(Written last week/last YEAR. A bit all over the place. Now it’s 2025. Happy New YEAARRRRRR)
The summer after my freshman year of college, I started seeing a therapist—Shaina—for the first time.
I’ll spare you my fangirling, but she changed my life. I hope she comes to my wedding one day.
At 18 years old, pre-therapy, I didn’t yet have the vocabulary to describe many of my experiences. I also, understandably, hadn’t yet realized the terrifying but empowering truth that I do, in fact, have somewhat of a say in how my life unfolds.
Returning to college that fall after many tearful, insightful, warm and giggly sessions with Shaina, I felt stronger, more resilient, and curious about myself and the world around me.
For the first time, I felt empowered in choosing what might come next for me.
Fast-forward to today, and a whole lotta choosing later, and it’s the end of another year. I’m visiting my childhood home from New York, where I chose to go and live this year, and I’m reflecting on the last 12 months.
A few days ago Kristin sent me this text:
I started thinking about the origin story of this considered ratio that for the last 7 years has nudged my decision-making more than any other idiom, principle or lasting piece of advice.
And you know who I have to credit for my frequent dropping in conversation of “is the juice worth the squeeze”? Shaina.
Here’s how I thought about juice vs. squeeze in 2024.
(In case it wasn’t clear: Squeeze = effort/energy/compromise, Juice = outcome/reward/good stuff)
Optimization
Over the last few months, I’ve been reflecting on the pressure to optimize what feels like every area of my life.
It’s no secret we have for some time been living in a world where self-improvement has been co-opted, capitalized on, and spun into a slickly marketed machine to increase all of our consumption.
It’s not just about being “better”, but also about being “more”: more efficient, more productive, and more impressive.
The internet’s fast pace, the astounding volume of information that we can quickly and accessibly digest each day, and our cultural fixture on self-improvement, continues to leave me feeling increasingly drained. I’ve frequently asked myself: what is the end goal here?
When I scroll through TikTok, browse the shelves at a bookstore, or open up a podcast app, I am always inundated with advice on how to optimize my diet, closet, friendships, health, spirituality, and career.
I know I don’t have to go far to find a morning routine that promises to change my life or a list of the 32 most popular $500+ items the “cool girls” are buying from SSENSE.
The goalposts are always moving, and the landscape can feel too noisy for me to tune into myself. No, this is not novel. Yes, I’ve noticed it has definitely worn me down over time.
In previous, more monotonous years of my life, I’ve usually felt compelled by a lot of the messaging around self-improvement. I prioritized wanting to be the best version of myself: the most ambitious, the most adventurous, the most fashionable, etc. If someone had a better way to optimize the many areas of my life, I sure as hell wanted in.
In 2024, however, I realized that if I wanted to lean into the imperfect experience of moving to and building a new life in a new city, I had to confront the limits of the mindset that I’d prioritized for so long.
I felt pretty early on after arriving, that New York, which is far messier, more chaotic, and unpredictable than LA, didn’t care nearly as much about my attempts to optimize my own life or to “get it right.” I also just am caring way more about prioritizing fun.
I think I had to quickly learn that with the endless choices available to me in New York as a newcomer, it might serve me more to ask not “What should I optimize?” but “What do I actually want?”
Ease
Sometimes, the answer was simply: nothing at all.
Moving to New York in May was exhausting. After just one month, Anna and I got bedbugs for the second time in three years of living together. Buying and lugging furniture without an elevator didn’t help the fact that I was missing my support system.
I was depleted from adjusting and I felt I’d been squeezing myself through so many changes—some self-inflicted—without much juice in return.
I knew I had to give myself a rest from saying yes to everything all the time. I started sleeping more when I needed to, took breaks when I needed them, tried to give myself grace when building new relationships, and sought connections that bring ease and laughter (@Jenna). At work, I really just didn’t have enough in me to try so hard.
This season showed me that exponential self-optimization isn’t sustainable. In the adventurous, intuitive life I am seeking and want to continue to seek, challenges are going to be inevitable, and sometimes, it’s enough to simply get through the day.
I can now see that I don’t have to constantly be at my edge in challenging seasons, and I’d actually prefer to choose not to be. Choosing ease isn’t the opposite of self-improvement or regressing to a lesser version of myself. It means knowing when to breathe.
As I embraced ease moving into the fall of this year, I felt more grounded, and I began to reassess where my energy could best be spent.
Effort
I knew feeling settled the way I felt in LA would (shockingly) take time in New York.
If my squeeze was the scary decision to move to this big, expensive-ass city where I don’t have my whole family and support system, I wanted my juice to eventually be an intentional and joyful life that continued to bring me elements of ease (hello, going to the farm on the weekends).
If my squeeze was pushing myself to socialize more and in spaces I wanted to be a part of, I wanted my juice to be new friendships that I felt I could be myself in!
I continue, everyday, to get a feel for where I am willing to put in more squeeze to get the juice I want, and where I am willing to put in less (I realize I actually never want to do a workout that makes me want to throw up again).
Talking to Nicole recently reminded me that putting ourselves out there in unfamiliar situations or with new people can be scary and take effort, but more often than not, feels so rewarding after.
This is true, and is how I’ve kept momentum as I’ve been trying to build my new community in a new place, which though at times has felt challenging, is one of my biggest personal goals that is slowly coming to fruition.
The life I want to keep building will likely always take energy, effort and require me to do scary things. I’ve learned this year that balancing my energy with effort where I see worth, while taking breaks, can actually and often be more rewarding than exhausting.
Reward
So as this year comes to an end, I’m starting to see these new seeds I’ve planted in my new city start to grow, and the rewards from my efforts slowly becoming realities. I have places I frequent, people I’m excited to go back to in the new year, and an apartment that is starting to feel more like home.
This transitional year of big squeezes has tested me, but I have faith it’s going to be worth it. No, it will not be easy, nor perfect, yet it’s what I really do love and feel is right for me right now. I’m once again feeling energized about continuing to build my life in New York—a life I chose because I wanted to feel invigorated, challenged, and excited.
Returning to LA for the holidays has also reminded me of the juice from many past squeezes I don’t always take the time to recognize. A lot of what I’ve felt moving to New York—loneliness, hope, the challenge of starting fresh—I realize I also felt when I first moved to LA after college.
I was laughing in the car with Olivia this week, who is a friend I made after we both moved to Los Angeles in 2021, and I was reminded that she too was once a new person in my life that I was nervous to go and meet for a coffee when I was trying to build out my community here. Through many more coffees, walks, and shared moments, she’s become a person I simply cannot imagine my life without. I call her in New York when I miss home.
The sweetness of that moment, among others I’ve felt being home this month, reminds me that while the squeeze of starting over can feel overwhelming, the juice it brings often reveals itself in time, or in unexpected ways. I am filled with gratitude thinking about this.
As we enter 2025, I am looking forward to what’s to come. As I get older, I feel that I’m getting better at discerning where to put my energy (thank GOD). I want to get more involved in sustainability, cook more for people I love, go to see my grandparents in Turkey, keep doing things I’m scared of, and generally spend more time with my family.
Maybe it’s the product of nostalgia that comes with reminiscing over what’s past, but I can’t wait to see the joy that will come from building new relationships, deepening the ones I already have, and finding more moments of ease and joy in the city I now call home.
I’m stepping into this year ready to squeeze, with intention of course, and knowing that the juice that will follow is usually worth the wait, and that there is so much more and love to be for us all.
That’s all. Thank you for reading. Happy 2025!
