Happy. Fricken. Summer.

I’m not sure about you, but I am so happy to finally be done with school for the year (ignoring the one summer class I have to take), mostly because this means I am freeing up some major time to focus more on self-improvement and progression. Not that school isn’t a major form of self-improvement itself since we are preparing ourselves for our future careers (hopefully), but there often isn’t too much choice in class requirements within our majors if say we were a business student interested in creative writing. It’s always very important even in our very busy school semesters to make time for ourselves and in our own interests in self-improvement, but there’s nothing better than a nice, warm and sunny summer to motivate some change.

For everyone who’s taking a full load of classes this summer or a full-time internship, I’m sorry to say I don’t actually know how much you’ll be able to take from this although I think the weather motivation is always a plus; however, for the rest of you, you have no excuse. I’m not going to deter you from your raging day parties, because a nice darty is never frowned upon, nor your ability to consume large amounts of alcohol and not gain a pound because I’m pretty sure you don’t even care anyway, but I would like to say to every college student, no matter how frat-y nor un-frat-y you are, that that is not an excuse to do absolutely nothing.

Last summer I worked a part-time job as much as possible and took off for about a month to visit an out-of-state friend. With a shrug, I never thought there was much else I could during my first summer of college but that. I am very disappointed in myself to say I was so wrong. You’re probably thinking the hell could she have been doing?

The little things. All the little things.

First off, I generally wasn’t in a happy place last summer.

At the moment, I would always think I was, but then I was always stressed and feeling completely not in control of my surroundings. Now, there is a healthy not-in-control state, and there’s an unhealthy one. When it’s making you feel stressed, it’s the unhealthy one. Instead of addressing it, I instead ignored it thinking it’d eventually go away, leading to an even more stressful summer. If there’s anything I learned from last summer, it is that don’t ignore the importance of happiness in your own life.

Second, internships.

I thought I knew what I was doing, and truthfully last summer was a bit early for internships to be available for this summer; however, nothing was stopping me except for myself from doing some extra research into how to go about finding an internship and such. I could have taken just a single day out of my summer last year to do some research and maybe I would have an internship for this summer. But no. I did not.

Third, physical health.

I was running every day and doing several no equipment workouts, which maybe is more than other students were doing last summer that I do not know; however, I wanted to be doing more at an actual gym that I never ended up signing up for. The general question here is, “why didn’t you sign up for one?” The answer is very simple: I just continued to push it off until it was “too late.” From this, there are two things to learn that we all pretend to already know but never actually follow (yes, I am targeting you).

One, we will lounge around all day putting off a single phone call to turn on our gas and electric for next summer because “I just can’t find the time today”, only to have to push it off multiple days because by the time we have the time to do so the office is closed.

Two, it’s never too late. I don’t care if you have one week left before school starts. You could’ve paid the minimal amount for that last week.

All you are continuing to do is make excuses for things that yes, you will someday finally complete and yes, will still provide the same results but results that you could have had sooner. I took a year longer to get my license than I could’ve. Same result. Still got the license. But! I could’ve done more sooner if I’d had my license earlier.

Just stop with the excuses, because if you feel you have to give me one odds are you’re trying to convince yourself more than me that it’s valid.

Last but most certainly not least, working towards/doing something that you can feel the progression throughout. Essentially everything I said above was just that: working towards better mental health, physical health, and my career. This is the all-encompassing statement of what you should be doing with the extra time of yours. Newness and novelty. It is what drives ambition. What continues to keep the ball rolling is the momentum it has collected.

Maybe it’s as simple as trying out a new video game instead of the one you’ve been playing for years (I am very guilty of this) or going out of your way to meet a new friend (literally just be friendly to strangers) or go on a first date (highly recommend Bumble). If you think about the cause and effects experienced, you’d be amazed with how actions as simple as these can impact your outlook and drive in your entire life. So listen to Shia LeBeouf for once and just fricken do it.