Calvin: If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I’ll bet they’d live a lot differently.

Hobbes: How so?

Calvin: Well, when you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day.

-Bill Watterson

It’s important to understand that the meaning of life has nothing to do with your grades or your job or how much money you make and the brands you own. Of course these things define us to some extent, but I don’t like to think of them as all that important in the long run.

I’m not one to stress over my grades anymore. I aim to do well and if I’ve done my best and get a C on a paper, so be it.

I want to be a therapist or a Catholic elementary school teacher someday. Yes, doctors and lawyers are where the money’s at, but I know how much I’d dread medicine and divorce papers. I’d enjoy helping people and listening to their problems. Everyday, I’d look forward to listening to little kids ramble on about all their creative ideas to save the world like Superman and getting to teach them about Jesus and how loved they are.

‘What is the meaning of life’ is a philosophical question that seems to get tossed around the older you get to be. Personally, at the ripe age of 19, I think I’ve already figured it out.

Be good. As Abe Lincoln put it, "Whatever you are, be a good one." Find a career path that you can thrive in because of all the passion you have for it. Surround yourself with people who give off positive energy and lift you higher; people who only wish to see you succeed. Be there for one another. More than anything else, love everyone and be the best person you can be.

So much life happens in one day. A little baby has just been born. A guy’s at a bar right now, falling in love with the woman that he’s going to marry. Someone’s the first to graduate college in their family. A 15 year old’s getting her first kiss. A man just won the lottery.

In the grand scheme of things, our problems are rather miniscule and I think that’s important to realize.

“Oh my God, what if you wake up someday, and you’re 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel writer; or you didn’t go swimming in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It’s going to break your heart. Don’t let this happen.” -Anne Lamott