As the school year starts, you may find yourself being increasingly more stressed out that you don’t have your life together, and feel as though you may never have your life together completely.

It’s week one (or sooner) and you’ve already considered dropping out, you’re on the border of stress crying, and worrying how you’ll ever get all that work done while maintaining a resume and a social life. I know the feeling, because I'm in the same boat. But remember why you’re where you are. For me, its because I’ve finally gotten past the boring classes for gen eds, and finally have the chance to really love my major and what I want to do with my life after college. It’s because I'm ready to get out of the education system and use what it has given me to make me succeed.

I'm working on around 16 years being a part the education system, and the more time I spend in it, the more I learn that it’s a pretty broken system. Students don’t want to learn anymore, except to pass the class and move on. Teachers, apart from the select few who still love what they do, are finding it harder and harder to connect and make the classroom an accessible and welcoming place. Breakdowns and confusion and questioning everything you’ve ever done are becoming more prominent ways of life. School causes a lot of stress, and a lot of upheaval in our emotional states of being. School, and the act of just living your life can be pretty stressful to say the least. People, especially people my age, are under a lot of stress to be perfect, and to do everything right. Because of this stress, I want to be able to help people reign in their mental health to feel more manageable, and make it feel like less of a chore to be living the life they exist in.

Yes, you may be stressed now, trying to make it through these classes, finish the work and get the grades you want. You may feel like you aren’t getting anything out of it, but trust me you are. You may not know exactly where you want to go or what you want to do with your time as an adult when you finally break free of the chains of the education system. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that no matter what you do, whether you have intentions to or not, you’re going to make a difference in the world. For me, this means I get to help alleviate some stressors I may see in people like me down the road. I may get to wipe fear and sadness out of someone’s eyes even for a little while. And you are probably going to be doing the same thing at some point too. Whether you become an accountant or a doctor, or even if you become a parent, you’re going to make a difference in someone’s life, and find the hope that they may have lost when they were stuck in a repressed education system.

So hold on to that little bit of hope and motivation you may have left in you at this point. Hold on to the things-whatever it may be- that draws you back to learning everyday, or draws you back to your goals. You're going to do great things, and I promise there's so much more to life than a broken and challenging education system and a lot of stress.