If you don’t have a Netflix account (or a kind friend with one…), people will be quick to question your humanity. “Are you even human?!” “How do you do it?!” “What do you do when you have nothing else to do?” Binging “your show” has become a way of life for thousands of Americans. I always feel terribly awkward when a dinner conversation turns towards a show that seemingly everyone, except for me, has watched to some extent. I just sit there in an uneasy silence and wait for the storm to pass, feeling like a hermit amidst 21st century city folks. We all know that hermit feeling. But lately, I’ve started to question the merit of my hermit lifestyle and what I should really be doing in my spare time.

I’m finding that the way most of us spend our free time, whether it’s watching television, streaming shows, surfing the web and social media or enjoying our favorite phone games, can be relaxing, but is much less often restful. Does it do us any true good to hang out in front of our television and computer screens for hours on end? Perhaps, but in a much more limited capacity than we’d like to realize.

As a college student who works around 35 hours a week and takes 15 hours of classes, I understand what it means to be overstimulated. Sometimes, my mind needs a break from absolutely everything. I often spend Sundays napping, watching football and scrolling through Cyanide and Happiness comics. We all occasionally need that. But if you’re anything like me, you find yourself still complaining that all you ever do is work, study, eat and sleep. You dread the next deadline. And you’re afraid you’re going to be stuck in a similar routine when you get out of college.

The best way I’ve found to avoid getting stuck in routine, the constant stress and anxiety of being young and seemingly having the world on your shoulders, and the always pending existential crisis is to be productive with my leisure time. I am no psychologist, but I am a college student who hasn’t had a complete mental breakdown — and that counts for something right? I play music, I volunteer (and so does this actual psychologist), I write, I call up a friend back home and see how they’re doing, I read for pleasure and I’m even starting to play a little golf. Nothing feels better than actively participating in something I enjoy doing. I feel better, like I can go back to the daily grind, after I hit a few golf balls or play some angry rock music. My mind may be engaged, but it’s also being refreshed.

The hobbies and interests we form at this stage in our lives are priceless companions we’ll take with us into the rest of our adult lives. Stress follows us closely from here on, and it’s taking hold of America. But remember: You’re more than a job; you’re more than your major; you’re more than what society expects you to be. You’re an individual, meaning absolutely no one in the world is like you. But watching hours upon hours of Netflix amidst a busy schedule probably won’t help you discover that. Build and grow your personality. If you were a character in a book, would you interest the reader? Would you be like a protagonist in a Steinbeck novel that fails, gets back up again, learns, and has a genuineness so thick that it’s almost palpable? Or are you just another plot-mover?

I challenge you to go pick up an instrument, play a sport, read a book, do some painting —challenge yourself somehow this week, but rest doing it. All it takes is a few hours a week. You don’t have to delete your Netflix or Facebook accounts! Just spend more time doing something you truly enjoy doing. Be yourself. I’m not asking you to do anything incredibly difficult or radical. If you have any leisure time at all, it’s a miracle. It doesn’t belong to someone else, and neither do you. So go do something fun!