Running Against the Clock as a UN Ambassador and Law Student: The Moment I Realized that I Actually Have Time
Finding Freedom in Slowing Down: A Journey from Burnout to Balance
My name is Valerie Reynoso, and I am the United Nations Permanent Representative, UN Ambassador, and Executive Vice President–Legal Affairs of the Global Organization for Sustainable Development Goals, Inc., a New York-based nonprofit organization with special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). I am also a political analyst, visual artist, Columbia SIPA graduate, and a 3L law student pursuing a Juris Doctor degree at New York Law School. My passions for politics, diplomacy, and law have required me to adapt to a life in which multitasking is the norm—one that demands I keep pushing to achieve all that I have set out for myself and to bring those aspirations to fruition. Beyond all of these professional and academic titles, as impressive as they may seem, I am just a girl with a heart that beats and bleeds red.
The multitasking nature that my fast-paced life has ingrained in me turned every day into a full production. I had to schedule every fine detail of my day, even down to when I would eat and for how long before dashing to the next meeting or class. I started racing against the clock before its hands could reach the tower at the strike of midnight and reset for the next busy day with yet another convoluted schedule where I would, once again, try to stay afloat. I was fixated on timelines and constantly running against the clock as if my chances were grains of sand in an hourglass that would disappear before I could reach them.
Many people equate the “girl boss” image with someone who never rests, someone who believes they cannot say “no” or take breaks—even when burned out. I began to internalize this idea because I tried to plan my foreseeable future down to every minute detail, attempting to tailor it to perfection around the shifting goalposts of my life. That was until I realized that every time we try to conceptualize our lives under arbitrary time constraints, we inevitably encounter a different outcome—one that is often more aligned with our journeys than we had initially imagined.
I came to understand that resting is not a sign of laziness or incompetence; it is vital and essential to success. Trying again is not a sign of failure; it is part of becoming the best version of ourselves. Much like the law, which is inherently procedural and consistently requires reviews and appeals, we do the same with ourselves when we start again, revise, and renew aspects of our lives as needed.
I am in the process of mastering the art of slowing down in the midst of my objectively fast-paced career and lifestyle. When you slow down, you make time to absorb the substance of your experiences, your surroundings, and everything they entail. You begin to see your life more clearly and are finally able to digest its details in ways that rushing never allows. You cannot tell what plants and trees fill a forest if you never take the time to stop and look.
Time is far more malleable than the rat race leads us to believe—and you know what? Now, I realize that I actually do have plenty of time.
