Spring is the time for unexpected birth announcements, obligatory religious sacraments, drama-filled proms, tying-the-knot marriages, satanic seasonal allergies, and of course, “welcome-to-the-adult-world” graduations. Being the youngest sibling to a graduating soon-to-be 24 year old brother and a graduating soon-to-be married 27 year old sister, I’ve learned a few important life lessons while finishing up my junior year at college. Truth be told, I have so much more to learn.

When I first entered high school, the alumni always assured me the following four years would be the best time of my life. Over the course of those four years, I fell in and out of what I perceived to be a strange movie-like Hollywood version of love more than once, transformed my entire friend group about three or four times, confronted my first identity crisis by discovering every potential alter ego and struggled with the ensuing love-hate relationship with myself that sent my self-esteem spiraling, and I promise there was nothing enjoyable about that.

Now there were some great moments from high school, but I didn’t start creating what I deemed as a better version of myself until I entered my freshman year at college at which point I was able to ultimately decide amongst the high school paradoxical egos and mixed friend groups which aspects were assets and which ones were hindrances. As I’m ending my junior year of college, I’ve come to the inevitable conclusion that college has been only a slight variation of high school. While the cliques and drama I encountered in college weren’t surrounded by scandalous scheming or paparazzi seeking the elite as seen in the television series "Gossip Girl," I confess my friend group once again transformed another two or three times, I had another few identity crises, and even switched my career path about six or seven times.

So what was the explicit disparity between high school and college besides my freedom (besides not relying on a guidance counselor to form another poorly constructed schedule)? The high school curriculum focused on theories of the “real world” while my personal college curriculum is a vague modification of applying these theories of the “real world.” The major parallel between college and high school is that these are not the best four years of your life, but rather the best is yet to come, which was one of many personal favorite lessons, one learned outside the classroom, one that education can’t put a price tag on, and the one that now allows me to pass on to other individuals.

Sure, I paid thousands of dollars to re-learn Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis theory and memorize approximately fifty to one hundred enzymes and chemical reactions over the six semesters, but it was every 7-10 minute break walking in between classes that provoked the idea that there is so much more to life than the honors chemistry final I bombed my first semester freshman year of college. It seems both redundant and ironic to say grades are only a single portion of life (since two years ago I was devastated at the thought of that one particular chemistry class being the first of several that ruined a prospective 4.0 gpa), yet it is a clichéd statement that most individuals often forget when they need to remember it most. So what’s more enriching than the grades that put us on track to our career path?

It’s not the people you met at the college parties you vaguely remember and it’s not even the impactful programs held by the hard working resident assistants because while those moments and individuals might have significantly improved your college experience, it’s after college, a.k.a. the rest of your life, that are the best years. Whether you choose, in no particular order, to enrich your education, get married, have kids, move across the country and meet new people, or turn your passion into a career, remember your current situation is always temporary, for time is the only element we know to be both a constant and a variable. The best years of your life are the ones where you wake up every day breathing, healthy and happy as you did the day before.

The best years of my life have already started but I can promise they won’t end upon graduation, as I had the pleasure of watching both my siblings and friends graduate this weekend and enjoyed co-hosting my sister’s bridal shower. My brother starts his new job on Monday and in a little over a month, my sister’s last name changes. As for me, I don’t just sit on the sidelines watching these moments, I have the pleasure of partaking in them and knowing that it will eventually be my turn. That doesn’t mean wait around for those moments, it means make each minute a moment, and make each moment your own.