Everyone at this point has heard the old cliché: "High school is the best four years of your life."

For many people out there, this may be true, but as for me, I don't know yet.

It is troubling to think that I have been on this earth for 17 years and the best experiences are already behind me. On top of that, there are many people who had a terrible time in high school and that is also a completely valid opinion. Who are we to tell these people that this is as good as it's going to get?

We all have our specific talents and perhaps that person will go on to study something they are passionate about and make a breakthrough in the future; perhaps that will be the best time of their life. A large majority of people will go on to get married and have kids, and maybe that will be when they have the best years of their life.

The high school environment is not for everyone and the reason we leave is that we need to grow out of it. Those who dwell on the past cannot go with their full mind and heart into the future and are probably missing out on what could be the best 20 years of their life because their "best four" are behind them.

This statement only makes people feel worse about aging, which, quite frankly, they shouldn't. As we get older, we are able to experience more things and become a more interesting person. We develop knowledge through experience, and the average high-schooler has not been alive long enough to know these things.

By limiting ourselves with thinking high school was the best four years of our lives, we also limit our future experiences.

We constantly think of the fun we had in the past rather than enjoying the present. We can also feel trapped by getting older, but it is a cycle that we literally cannot escape. By allowing ourselves to feel like the best is behind us, we give ourselves nothing to look forward to, when really EVERYTHING is ahead of us: college, jobs, significant others, family functions, and for some others, having children of their own.

We cannot make these big things seem less important than our teenage years because they are all vital to our happiness, and this is only amplified in those who did not have a good time in high school who will more than likely find their happiness later on.

We cannot tell when our best four years will be—at least not until the end of our lives—because the last four can always be the best, and we need to keep pushing to find out. It is easy to slip into feeling like "it's all downhill from here," but life is a roller coaster, and almost all ups are followed by downs, and, in turn, downs followed by ups.

We cannot judge our entire lives based how we were as kids.