Things have been put in perspective for me recently. With a year left in my college career, it's incredibly overwhelming to think about where I will be in a year. As a college student, you always have people giving you contradictory advice. Hell, the reason we go to college is to create a future for ourselves. However, when you get into college, people always tell you "live in the moment, man."

What the hell does this mean? Live in the moment? It's kind of impossible not to. I'm kidding of course, but when people say live in the moment this usually insinuates that you shouldn't be obsessed with the little things that plague your free time. Things like stressing about finding an internship, worrying about your test grades, and the various other habits of students are probably things that these "live in the moment" people are talking about.

This is fine and dandy. I completely agree now, in hindsight, that the stress I've caused myself worrying about a grade that does not reflect my capability as a student was not worth it. But far too often, these "live in the moment" people mistake meticulousness for being absent-minded in the present. Concerning yourself with your future can bring you down two roads (bear with me here).

There is the first road, the road that those "live in the moment" people warn you about. For example, skipping on going out with friends because you're worried that giving up two hours of your time is going to ruin your grades. The way those in-the-moment people see it, if you actually prepared for the future like you say you do, you would already be prepared for the test instead of studying last minute.

These people are right — if you remove yourself from the moment because you are constantly stressing out and scrambling to get your shit together, sorry, you're not a futuristic thinker.

Then there's the second road, the holy grail of now and then. Planning every move that you do now to be worth your time, whether that's an investment in yourself now or in the future. To counteract those "live in the moment" people, no, every minute of our time doesn't have to be absent from the moment. Living with your future in mind means shifting your perspective from an "Oh man I'm just living day-to-day and taking life as it comes, bro" to "every single day I wake up is an opportunity to make the "me" 10 years from now a very happy person."

I feel that a lot of college students are where I am right now, struggling with a year left in this little bubble that we have immersed ourselves in to find our sense of identity in the real world. College sucks in that way, especially where I am because it is so far removed from the ebb and flow of the real world. It's hard to plan for your future and invest in yourself when the other 99% of people are studying and working for the weekend.

You get to this point, hopefully, where you realize you should NEVER base what you are going to do for the day based around what your friends are doing. If you plan to even have a future, you must realize that your friends in the moment are not going to create that future for you. So, why plan your every move around what THEY are doing? Changing your mindset with this in mind is living for the future.

It's 2018 and the world is constantly changing; this not a cliche, this is the truth. If your moves aren't strategic, get ready to fall behind.