A Diet Coke & A Dose of Self-Awareness
Womanhood is cracking open a Diet Coke at 9:16 p.m. because your day is only just starting.
I don’t know if I’ve ever considered myself a fully formed, mature human—until now. Smack in the middle of a global pandemic.
Did I just bust open a Diet Coke on a weeknight? Absolutely. Do I regret it? Absolutely not. I’m clearly channeling the kid who says, “Pepsi bottle and a Coca-Cola glass…” as he pours one into the other—because I, too, do not give a damn.
Of course, knowing full well that this particular Diet Coke had flown from the backseat to the front in its respective Target grocery bag the day before, I still cracked it open, fully aware it had been shaken within an inch of its life. Naturally, it exploded, giving me yet another fire to put out tonight.
Needless to say, I welcomed the chaos. I embraced my bad habit, my (legal) drug, my fix—not just for the sake of caffeination, but because it felt like some strange form of resilience. Sure, I was normalizing my stress by actively dehydrating myself while attempting to stay awake, but I was also proving to myself that I could keep taking on more, pushing my limits, somehow still holding it all together.
I joke as if Diet Coke were some kind of weapon—perhaps it is—but really, this moment just highlights the quick decision to guzzle down my non-alcoholic nightcap and keep going. Pressure, adversity, fear, reality, and anxiety have a funny way of forcing us out of our comfort zones, leading us to either do something impressive or completely insubordinate. Tonight, the pressure of my recently revealed deadline led me to do both: create something worthwhile while simultaneously wrecking my sleep schedule in the name of productivity.
Diet Coke by Alicia Gibson
Every self-help book out there tells us to erase bad habits, uproot flaws, and refine ourselves—but if I’m being brutally honest, I don’t think we should erase them at all. Not every habit needs fixing, and sometimes, the things that seem like “bad habits” are just coping mechanisms that help us get through the chaos. A Diet Coke at 9:16 p.m. isn’t the downfall of civilization, and staying up too late to finish something meaningful isn’t always reckless—it’s part of how we challenge ourselves. Moderation is key, and the real issue isn’t the habit itself—it’s whether we’re aware enough to understand when to rein it in.
That’s when I realized something. There’s only one real difference between adulthood and childhood—and, surprisingly, it isn’t paying bills. What separates a girl from a woman and a boy from a man is simple: awareness.
Awareness of bad habits. Awareness of mistakes. Awareness of flaws. Awareness of limitations. Awareness of reality. Awareness of success. Awareness of failures.
To have even one of these is to step closer to the ultimate realization: self-awareness.
It’s not just an office buzzword; it’s a defining truth. It shapes how we view the world—and how the world looks back at us.
At the end of the day, self-awareness isn’t just about recognizing our flaws or limitations—it’s about understanding why we do what we do, how we respond to the world around us, and where we have the power to improve. It’s the difference between operating on autopilot and actually choosing how we move through life.
And the best part? It’s an ever-evolving skill. The more we pay attention, the more we learn—not just about ourselves, but about how we interact with others, how we show up in different spaces, and how we shape the experiences around us.
Self-awareness doesn’t mean having all the answers—it just means knowing which questions to ask.
Just know your flaws and accept them.
