Last year I graduated high school, and it’s weird to think about how drastically my life has changed since leaving high school. There has been good, bad, and nothing. I finished my first year of college, got myself a job, I got an internship, and I met a ton of important people.

It’s been a year of change, but it’s also been a year of questions. In high school I was around my parents and other students going through the same schedule as I was: School, work, extracurriculars.

Thinking back to my days as a high school graduate, I remember having a ton of worries in a laundry basket under my bed. I couldn’t fold them and put them away. They just hid there. I was dating a guy who wasn’t so good for me, I had two jobs, and my mom had taken my car because I forgot to pay insurance. As all of this was happening as I was also worried about going to school, getting involved, and making the “right” friends. Every time I would go somewhere, I would get asked the same questions, “What are you majoring in” or “What do you want to do for the rest of your life?” After graduating, I made a dream board for college which had four corners of different parts of me I wanted to chase: Health, Travel, Happiness, and School.

Yes I knew what major I was in, still am in, but that could change. It definitely changed for a few of my friends over the past year. Yet, I didn’t learn that until experiencing it for myself in college, and watching other people go through the same confusion of where they wanted to go. I thought going to school, I had to know where exactly I wanted to go, and where exactly I wanted to fit in. It was a lot of pressure.

So the question, “What do you want to do for the rest of your life?” That’s an irrelevant question.

Your life changes every moment you walk outside. Every time you meet someone new, you’re touched by someone else’s soul and their walk of life. “The rest of your life,” well you’re living that life right now. At this moment, you are experiencing life and you are walking through life.

I spent so much time over the past year wanting to get good grades and studying until 3 a.m. because I was focused on making sure the rest of my life will be successful. That’s the problem. It wasn’t until recently, or the end of this past semester until I started realizing life is happening beneath me, and tomorrow I could wake up and decide to be an astronaut or drop out of school.

At any moment I could fall in love. At any moment I could get hit by bus.

Now I’m at an internship, have a great group of friends who I wouldn’t trade for the world, and I just feel at peace with where I am internally. My dream board is still in my room, because the concept of it is still the same, but the details not so much. Of course, not every day is perfect, but I’ve learned to cope with the straddles. For example, I got my first parking ticket the other day. Of course I was pissed, but after a few moments after it happened, I breathed and decided it'll make a good story one day.

So my advice to any high school graduate, is to just slow down and look beneath your feet. For the rest of your college life you will be asked, “What do you want to do,” and my best answer to that question is, “I’m breathing, and I’m existing, and I’m stressed, but I’m living my life.”

A lot of older people I have come across have regretted not doing what they wished they had done, or wishing they could have traveled when they’re young. There’s so much regret in this world, but a lot of people don’t understand that it is their life, and while there is so much worry about having a job that pays enough or making sure you’re not in debt, they are forgetting that their life is passing by which is when regret steps in.

Don’t let it pass by. Don’t step on regrets. It’s scary, I mean the biggest hurdle I had to get over in college was eating by myself in the cafeteria (especially since I disliked the food).

So I’m begging any high school graduates, or anyone who resonates with this advice, to live your life. Soak up the sun. While you’re studying for a test, just remember that the test you’re studying for is also knowledge you will be taking with you every day. Don’t fret over a failing grade or yell at a teacher for giving you an B+, which you know really should have been an A-. Just move on, and look up into the sky and be thankful for the life beneath you.

In ten years you could be working for an ice-cream business, but in twenty you could be a high school teacher.

Things change, people change. You don’t need to know what you’re going to do with the rest of your life, because this is your life and you’re living it right now.