Skipping meals to get our homework assignments in on time, having to decline an invitation for a night out with friends because the work on your desk is piled so high that is may soon become a new famous skyscraper, and the lack of time for family because of your test tomorrow morning. This is the best four years of our lives. And the best four years of our lives are spent with horrible eating habits, depressed, stressed and with terrible social lives. We are losing our youth because of the suffocating pressure that we won't amount to anything. We are afraid to be reckless because of social media and what that means for job opportunities. We are hesitant to go out and have a good time because then our GPA is put in jeopardy. If our GPA is anything lower than what we’re pulling now the amount of colleges we’re qualified for drastically diminishes, then our job opportunities become smaller, and our future salaries become a number that is enough to sustain one person in a small one room apartment. Society has us defined by a number (in more ways than one) but for the purpose of this article, we are defined by a grade point average. We are a prisoner to the books. We trade our youth for the rest of our lives. We start the rest of our adult life before we even have the chance to take a breath and allow it to begin.

As kids we are asked what we want to be when we grow up. Then we are told to make those dreams more realistic. Then in college, we are told to be practical. We are forced to be practical. We are only allowed to pursue what our pockets allow us to. Then we are pushed out into the world aimlessly wandering and wondering what we just spent the last four years of our lives working towards. Our whole lives revolve around the idea of becoming something and being someone. We are so concerned with the ends, that we forget about the means that get us there. It’s not our fault, we aren’t given the chance to enjoy it. If we stop, if we falter, then we are deemed lost. We are looked at as a failure, as someone who has fallen behind the rest.

We have the rest of our lives to sit at a desk behind a computer screen, taking orders from someone in an overpriced suit. (Hoping that we are actually the person in the expensive suit.) But we have the rest of our lives to stress over interviews, meetings, deadlines, and overwhelming pressures to be better. However, we are forced to start now. We need to do well in every class, ace all our tests, deal with crappy professors, and ridiculous amounts of homework in an unimaginable amount of time. Just when you think you have finally completed all your work, we are thrown more. Free time has become a stranger.

We are programmed to put a career before anything else. We are set up to crash. Side note. I’m not one to belittle anyone’s accomplishments. I think it’s essential for us to lift one another up. It is one of my biggest pet peeves when someone says that what you’re doing is less important than what they are doing because they got their faster, stayed their longer, got a 100 instead of 95, and went to a school with a prestigious name. I don’t have the words to describe how irritating and utterly obnoxious that is. You get there when you get there. We all experience life at a different pace. Give yourself permission to be human. Don’t allow your youth to be obliterated by the pressures of society.

Take a mental health day. If you wake up completely unprepared to face the world (not because you're unmotivated, or lazy) but because you need a day to breath and regroup, take a day to do it. Take care of yourself.

Buy yourself a gift. Yeah, we’re students on a budget, and 5 shirts from that cute store online cost like 400 dollars. But buy a new mascara for 12 dollars or a new top for 20. Treat yourself to a pair of new badass shoes. You deserve it after the week you’ve had.

Change your mind. “If you’re not obsessed with your life then change it.”

Speak up. Don’t get the material in class? Talk to your professor, ask for extra help. Don’t like how your friends are treating you? Tell them. Aren’t happy in your two-year relationship, and are afraid of throwing it all away? My. God. Just leave. You’ve tried; owe it to yourself to move on. Like that new guy down the hall? Say something. Smile.

“If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave.” ― Mo Willems.

Watch that show on Netflix. Give yourself a break. Watch an episode or four of the show you’ve been dying to watch all day.

Eat Junk. Had a rough day? Cheat a little. No one wants to eat a handful of apple slices after a rough day. I want to lay in bed and eat a whole bag of tortilla chips by myself, and maybe pour myself a damn drink.

Take a trip home. Go see your family. Spend time with mom, and dad. Sprawl out on the floor with your dog.

Buy yourself flowers. “She bought herself flowers for no darned good reason- except that they were beautiful and she deserved more beauty in her life.”

Allow yourself to freakin’ be human. Make some terrible decisions. Drink some really crappy whiskey (If you’re over 21 of course.) Allow yourself to be sad. It’s OKAY to not feel whole all the time. If you want to stay in bed, stay in bed. If you want to go out and take on the world, do it. Because you can. But it’s okay to not do what everyone else is doing. You’re not the girl who raises her hand in class every day, no you don't know everything, and you’re not the guy who thinks he’s the biggest shit in the entire world, you’re not a robot, you’re a person. A human being with the capacity to feel the whole damn world and nothing all at once. We have emotions, a heart, a brain, and it’s a constant battle of balance. You’re human and you don’t need to apologize for it. You’re doing okay, you’re okay.