Your calendar is already marked up with due dates and exams, while deadlines are fast approaching. You’re not quite sure if you can handle the daunting course work, but you sure as heck need to take this class and can’t have that W weighing down your transcript. What little free time you have is dwindling, yet you still want to make it out for Thirsty Thursday. You’re away from home, one out of 200 students in your lecture hall, and don’t have a parent’s shoulder to cry on. You’re alone.

Correction, you feel alone. You’re overwhelmed, exhausted and stressed out. But you are certainly not alone. To all those college students questioning if they can make it through that three-hour chem recitation, you can. To all those college students thinking they can’t finish that ten-page bibliography on time, you can. To all those college students feeling like they can’t miss a Friday night out to stay in and rest, you can.

But if you don’t make it through that recitation, turn in that paper on time, or take a night off for yourself- that is okay too. Despite the pressure you may feel from your parents, the standards of society, or your peers- it is okay to leave some tasks unfinished. It does not mean you failed and threw away that perfect future you envisioned for yourself. It does not mean that you can’t eventually come back and finish that task when you’re ready. It means that you did what was best for you, and that’s the best thing you could ever do.

Some people don’t declare a major until their senior year. Some people don’t realize what they actually want to do until after they graduate. Some people graduate in four years, others graduate in six years. Some people go to college in their teens, some people go to college in their forties. Does it change their degree or make it any less valuable? No.

Everything happens for a reason and you are strong enough to make it through any task thrown your way. Failure is inevitable. But is a failure really a failure if you can look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and be okay with who you are and what you’re capable of?

When looking up quotes about positivity for this article I came across a quote by a man named Kute Blackson that read, “When shit happens, turn it into fertilizer," funny, but fitting right?!! So let that shit sink in and make some lemonade out of your lemons, even if they may be sour.

You may be a little fish in a big sea, but at least you're still swimming.