With all the hustle and bustle of the holiday season coming around the corner and surrounding us, we all begin to do the same thing. We begin to stress and worry and panic. We stress over the right present to get someone and whether they will like it. We worry about getting everything done in time or we wait until the last minute to do everything.

We begin to panic about whether we will be home in time and if you're in college, you begin to panic about your exams. Like me, with everything needing to be done at once and it feels like it's all sneaking up behind you to bite you in the butt, you may start to freak out. It's okay to freak out, but there are some things you must remember.

If you are worrying and stressing over something that doesn't need to be, you need to stop. Whether it be a class or a boy or a present, you need to let it go. A wise woman once told me that "It all works out in the end. God has a plan." Also in the words of John Lennon, "Let it go." It's difficult to let go of things, especially those that you think you can control. It may be hard to imagine, but you can't really control anything.

Sure you can decide what you want to eat for lunch or what clothes you want to wear today, but beyond that you don't have much control. You can't control who talks to you or who you talk to. You can't control where the day might take you or who you may meet. The key to control is giving away your "power". You have to give it away to whatever you may believe, whether that be God or Mother Nature or other gods. I gave God power over my life and it was the most terrifying thing, even though I knew I never really had control in the first place.

What do you hope for? What do you want to happen right now? Are you wishing for a new car or money or love or safety? Whatever you may be wishing for this holiday season, you must carry hope. To hope for something is to believe that there is a possibility of it happening. When you have no hope and carry only doubt, you are giving into the evil that lives inside you. We all carry this evil, but what we do with it can determine how we view something.

If you are hoping for a certain gift this holiday season, then you believe that you might get it. If you don't believe that you will get it, then there is actually a small chance that you won't get it. A good quote about hope from Pinterest is "Trust the wait. Embrace the uncertainty. Enjoy the beauty of becoming. When nothing is certain, anything is possible." With all of the possibility around us and the mindset that we can do anything we want to, we must learn to wait.

When we were young, we would write lists to Santa Claus, telling him all about the toys we wanted and how good we were that year. We would mention to our parents what we wanted from them and my siblings and I would cut pictures out of magazines to give to them. The anticipation of what we would open that morning would fill us with agony.

Especially when your parents allowed you to walk downstairs, but told you that you couldn't look at the tree or the presents. We would obviously look at the tree and try and figure out what was in the boxes and bags and hope they were the gifts we had asked for. The first year that I didn't get everything I wanted, I had to learn that the gift itself wasn't the most important thing, it was the thought that mattered most. When I was given a curling iron instead of a book, I had to act like it was the greatest gift I had ever received.

The hustle and bustle can create an illusion that all things are supposed to happen immediately. Life doesn't just happen when we want it to and it certainly doesn't happen overnight. Waiting for something to happen is one of the most difficult things to do. We wait for grades and we wait for holidays and we wait for love and the list goes on and on.

I think that the meaning of life is to wait. The key to waiting, is waiting patiently. Being patient while you wait can drive you a little bit insane. I have about nine days left of my semester and the wait is terrible. I don't know how we do, but we, as humans, can wait for a very long time. Waiting goes back to God has a plan. We don't know the plan and never will, but slowly we start to understand as we go through life and its struggles.

So as you journey through this next month and after into the new year, remember these key things. To worry is pointless, you are using valuable space to think about things that will not happen. To stress is to cause yourself distress over things you cannot control. To hope is the greatest thing you can do because it means you believe that there is at least a chance for something to happen or come true. To wait is important, to wait patiently is crucial to surviving life and this holiday season. Happy Holidays!