Slow Lessons I’ve Learned on Relationships and Personal Growth

I spent the weekend with highly attuned creatives who helped me recognize a few things about myself.

Leigh Victoria Phan, MS
6 min readAug 2, 2023
Illustration Courtesy of okalinichenko on Adobe Stock

I spent my weekend at the New York City Poetry Festival and had two dear friends come in from out of town table there with me. Another dear local friend joined us on Governors Island just between Brooklyn and Manhattan as well. While I could talk for a novella about this wonderful event, I want to talk more about these close relationships and some realizations I’ve made about my own health, productivity, and the kinds of people I look to have in my life.

I like to surround myself with people chasing something — in a healthy way.

I used to surround myself with hustlers swimming in a deep swamp of burnout. I have been that person for a very long time, but I’m trying to change. I like to spend time with people who have drive like I do, who have that desire to do something more than just watch Netflix every day. But while ambition is something I value, I’m really seeing the importance of chasing after something in a way that doesn’t sacrifice physical or mental health.

It’s really hard to build something in a way that could be called “healthy.” It’s a…

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Leigh Victoria Phan, MS

Brooklyn-based writer and poet. Designer in NYC. Drinks books and loves coffee. Has an MS from NYU in Integrated Design & Media. Working on an MFA in Fiction.