Lessons Only Time Can Teach: Sometimes Less is More
Looking back on the past 10 years, Eva Kalajian B.S. ’22 M.S. ’24 Ph.D. ’26 has a conversation with her younger self. She addresses her personal accomplishments and lessons she has learned in her journey through college and graduate study.
2016 — Dear Future Self,
I wish I was cool.
I don’t think I’ll ever be popular. Sometimes I wish I weren’t so book smart. I wish I wasn’t a choir kid. Maybe then the girls with perfect hair and effortless confidence would talk to me. Maybe if my braces were off. If I were prettier. Funnier. More outgoing. More athletic. Maybe if I had Instagram and Snapchat.
I want to be good at everything.
If I fail — if I don’t stand out — I feel like I’ve lost. But I’m also scared that if I work too hard, people will think I’m obsessive. Vain. Too much. It feels like a lose-lose situation.
I’m afraid of being fat. I’m afraid of getting a B. I’m afraid of not getting the lead in the spring musical. I’m afraid of being average.
So I count every calorie. No sweets. Ever.
I study until I physically cannot stay awake.
I read the textbooks cover to cover — I know my classmates aren’t doing that.
I take voice lessons every Wednesday.
After track practice, I run more on the treadmill.
If I am not stressed, uncomfortable, and depleted, I am not doing enough.
College is next. I enjoy my biology and psychology classes. My parents admire Ben Carson; he’s a neurosurgeon. Maybe neuroscience would blend my love for biology with my interest in abnormal psychology? “She majored in neuroscience” sounds ... impressive. So, I guess I’ll do that.
I have no idea what college will be like. I’ve never partied in my life, so I hope I can make friends.
I hope by 2026 you’ve won.
2026 – Dear Younger Self,
Winning has a whole new meaning than it did 10 years ago. It’s not a tangible award.
You’ve won because you’ve learned your worth and achieved peace.
Your first year at the College of William and Mary, you forced yourself into a relationship that wasn’t right from the start. You stayed for four years, clinging to it because independence felt scarier than unhappiness. Letting go hurt — not because love was gone, but because you had never learned to stand on your own.
You gained weight ... in the best way possible. You dabbled in CrossFit and Olympic weightlifting and even competed in a national competition. You built muscle and filled out your once fragile frame.
Though you looked much healthier than before, the mindset hadn’t yet changed.
You pushed through overuse injuries. You trained through pain. You still believed stress was proof of success. Athletic achievement became the priority, even when your mental health quietly eroded. You lost yourself in sport. Found yourself. Lost yourself again. Clean-and-jerking 200 pounds felt thrilling — briefly — but your body ached constantly. If you didn’t sleep enough or eat enough protein, you spiraled.
You majored in neuroscience at the College. You quickly realized that neuroscience and psychology are not the same. You learned what neuroscience is at the most fundamental level: genes, ion channels, and electrical properties of neurons, and how this gives rise to rudimentary behaviors like breathing and walking. ... a true awakening.
You graduated in 2022 and re-enrolled for a doctorate with absolutely no idea what that meant.
You cried. A LOT. You would get to campus before sunrise, spend hours in a windowless lab, and skip lunch because your experiments needed to be attended to. No peers. Minimal guidance. A lot of solitude. You cried over failed patch-clamp recordings. Many days you left the lab with no data and felt like the day was wasted.
You were extremely uncertain about what you were doing, but continued to show up every day anyways.
You still believed discomfort was a sign of success.
Until 2025.
In 2025, you finally stepped back and looked at your endeavors from a much broader perspective. A shift in mindset saved you from hitting rock bottom.
More is not better. Better is better.
Burnout is not a badge of honor.
Injury is not proof of discipline.
Anxiety is not ambition.
Peace is not laziness.
Appreciate the process.
When you stopped tying your identity to output, everything shifted. You still trained — but to be strong and healthy, not to punish yourself. You still did research — but to learn, not to prove. You became intentional.
Most progress is made when no one is watching.
The squats, the strict presses, the accessory exercises. The troubleshooting, the quiet persistence in an empty lab.
The discipline remained. The obsession softened. And ironically, that’s when the work flourished.
You earned grants. You spoke at conferences. You discovered your love for scientific storytelling and found your voice beyond the bench.
The next chapter of your life is about to begin. It’s scary. But this time, you feel ready.
You nurtured friendships. Traveled. Rested. Laughed. You met your forever partner.
You continued showing up for yourself, and now you are one month away from earning your doctorate.
You may not spend as much time in the gym or the lab as you used to, but you’ve achieved a balance that leaves you feeling fulfilled.
You didn’t win in the way you imagined at 16.
You did something better.
You became whole.
The challenges you faced — obsession, frustration, solitude, questioning — prepared you to handle whatever life throws at you next.