“These are going to be the best four years of your life.”

Looking out of my dorm room window, watching my parents walk back to the car after dropping me off for the start of my freshman year, this phrase rang through my head and echoed into my future. Before move-in day, countless numbers of people had told me that the next four years of college would be the best four years of my life. While I knew these were meant to be words of encouragement and ease as I embarked on my next big journey in life, I was left feeling more uneasy and unsure than anything. Of course I wanted to enjoy my years in college, but did I want these next four years to be the icing on the cake of my entire life that I was just beginning to live?

I mean, think about that for a second. That’s a lot of pressure to put on those four years of college. What if they don’t live up to that expectation? Or worse—what if they do? Is that all I have to look forward to in my life? Four years of college, and that’s it? Have I truly lived the best four years of my life in my late teens and early twenties?

The entire phrase is dripping in sadness disguised by hope. Looking out the window over my campus, I decided to make a new vow to myself: that I wouldn’t let college be the best four years of my life. I didn’t want my peak moments to be jam-packed into four short years, leaving the rest of my life to always fall short of my past. Instead, I want to live my best moments every year. I want to live a life full of great moments, with memories spread across the years I have lived, am living, and will live, like one big, beautiful timeline of my life.

So here’s to making every year one for the books. Here’s to a life full of adventure, where discovery of oneself and the world around us becomes an everyday experience. Here’s to a life filled with passion burning our very hearts and pushing us to be achievers and not just dreamers. Here’s to a life of spreading love and kindness to one another and to ourselves like rays of sunshine reaching to the darkest parts of the Earth—the parts that need it the most. And most of all, here’s to a life bursting at the seams with happiness. May a smile grace your lips daily, and may each year be the best year of your life.