The sun inched towards the horizon as the open-topped Jeep carried me and other tourists across Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve.

I booked this safari, hoping fresh air and bucket-list-checking would do me good. As director of an international office at an American-style university in Cairo, I was working at what I thought would be the ultimate dream job, the next rung in my career ladder that I worked so hard to climb. 

But the dream job turned out to be a 70-hours-per-week, occupational nightmare I couldn’t escape, even in Kenya. Instead of lapping up a rare moment of rest and marveling at wildlife, my dream since watching The Lion King as a little girl, all I could think about were my never-ending emails. 

And the pyramid-sized pile of unsigned partnerships. 

And the yet-to-be approved job descriptions needed for three vacant positions among a team of six. 

Moreover, I had finally taken myself to get a biopsy for a highly suspicious thyroid nodule that later proved to be aggressive cancer.

When Guilt Takes Over

Perhaps facing an existential crisis like this would cause worry and exhaustion, reasonable reactions, but I no longer felt human. Within six months, I transformed into a hollow, whirring robot devoid of emotions. The only recognizable human trait left was guilt, this gnawing feeling that I was doing something wrong. 

Despite knowing how daunting my job was, I was feeling beaten not by the volume of the work, but by the stress that I wasn’t doing enough. That I owed the remaining staff my remaining energy. That I should do more, even amid a cancer diagnosis.  

“What more could you possibly do?” my partner pleaded, looking panicked when I came home frail, shell-shocked, and catatonic as if returning from the front line. 

Guilt Works Like a Tracking Device

I didn’t know how to answer, but his concerns propelled me to maximize six days off during a holiday by flying to Kenya. Perhaps distance and new scenery might turn me back into a human. 

But as our Jeep rolled over the mounds of earth and our group spotted its first pack of wildebeest grazing idly, my guilt worked like a tracking device, homing in and locating me in the middle of the plains. 

Instinctively, I checked to see if I had a cell signal. 

No luck.

“You’re missing it,” my partner nudged, looking at me with pity.

My guilt inadvertently expanded, stiffening my shoulders, clenching my jaw, and shortening my breath. Merely 20 minutes into our drive, I felt useless for being incommunicado while feeling crummy for cheating myself out of a once-in-a-lifetime experience because of my work fixation. This guilt felt like playing football where both endzones belong to the opposing team. I couldn’t win.

The Healing Properties of Nature's Splendor

Frustrated and defeated, I continued searching for a cell signal. 

Breaking my concentration, our guide announced, “And now, if you turn to our left, you’ll see our long-necked friend.” 

Sighing and looking up from my phone, I peered out the window. 

Towering above a canopy of acacia trees, a golden giraffe stood alert, staring into our Jeep. Her brown eyes glistened as she chewed on leaf shoots, her lower jaw revolving in a circular motion, and her long tail swishing at random. 

Watching this beautiful creature stand tall and elegant in her natural domain, in a land that provided everything she needed, softened me. 

My breathing steadied. My shoulders relaxed. I could hear the native birds chirping. A door had opened inside me, ushering in a flurry of emotions. First, gratitude that I could witness such an exquisite creature in her own home, that my childhood dream had come true. Second, tender worry that if I didn’t prioritize my health soon, I wouldn’t live to experience more of these magical moments. 

Absolving Ourselves of Guilt: A Recalibration

Any lingering specs of guilt morphed into crystal clarity out there on the savannah. I realized guilt carries purpose. It cues us to make amends when we’ve done something wrong, calibrating our moral compass and pointing us to our true north. When our compass is broken, as mine surely was, workaholism bred from misattributed guilt drags us down paths that contradict our values (mine are family, community, travel, and creativity). We become hollow and disembodied, unable to identify our basic needs that we cannot take for granted (like rest and movement). 

Experiencing the splendors of nature in the Masai Mara gifted me a powerful recalibration of my compass because I was invited  to slow down and disconnect from technology. 

Once I could regulate, recalibrate, and as the poet David Whyte writes, “ease into the conversation” with the stunning beauty around me, I could admit that climbing this high in my career no longer mattered. No dream job would ever include the slow, debilitating erosion of my heart, body, and soul. 

Turning Towards Nature

Thanks to those quiet three days in the Masai Mara, I followed my newly recalibrated compass, which led me to my current dream job at Iowa. 

While I’ll probably never see a giraffe again in the wild, I learned that whenever stress creeps in, my remedy lies in nature. Whether I’m admiring a flock of Canadian geese streaking across the sky in a perfect “v” or rambling along a trail to be near a body of water, my cortisol levels drop. My body relaxes. Even in winter, I bathe in five minutes of outdoor sunlight, and I pay special homage to my collection of house plants. By turning to nature, no matter how small or ordinary, we turn towards ourselves, which makes nature truly extraordinary.