For the past few months, my state of mind has been overwhelmingly negative. I've felt stuck, bored, and as if there wasn't room for progress. I am a sophomore in college and I watch as people struggle to find what they want to do with their lives.

We are at an age where we are expected to know what we want to do. Last time I checked, the human brain isn't fully developed until the mid to late twenties. So why are we expected to pick a major and study something that we may end up not enjoying in five to ten years? It's not always an incredibly happy time.

I've felt very frustrated with what I'm doing. I am fortunate enough to know what I want to do with my life. I found my passion at a young age. However, for the longest time college made me feel unsuccessful. Why was I taking statistics or learning about the history of mining in Butte, Montana when I wasn't planning on quoting these facts ever again.

Why was I spending close to $30,000 a year to get a degree that the majority of people have stated you just need life experience to do well in the field?

It's honestly tiring to be in a state of frustration. The world is what you make it. If you start realizing that every experience is there to help you learn - every person, the good eggs and the bad, are there to make you stronger; every class you fail, every 8 am where you have to physically propel your body out of bed to go to (you know what I'm talking about), every dark day, every overnighter spent in your dorm room - it's all to help you later in life.

Some of it will help you in your real job, but the majority of it is to help you through the tough times of life. So you can think back to the time when you had to write an eight-page essay discussing the fantasy of the American Dream, you'll realize that if you can do that on four-hours of sleep, you can do anything.

If you look at the world in anger, frustration, and sadness, that's what life will give back to you. If you spend life in a stage of self-pity, you won't ever get anywhere. We've all been through struggles. Some worse than others, but it doesn't mean our feelings are invalid. We've all had to deal with difficult people who purposefully go out of their way to make our lives harder. We've all had those professors who make us want to pull our hair out.

Be the bigger person, choose to see these as learning experiences. Give yourself a day to sulk and then move on. Yes, a lot of terrible things have happened in our world. I'm not saying that you have to be happy all the time.

Just live with a positive mindset. If you want to change the world, you want to help others, you have to believe in yourself. It's hard to do that when you are overwhelmingly unhappy. Give yourself some credit, you've made it this far. Because the way to succeed is to believe in yourself, help those around you, and be a kind, determined, and responsible human being.

It's okay to be sad, but living in a place where you always find a reason to be unhappy, you aren't helping yourself. I promise if you look around, there is always something positive happening. The moment you decide to see something better about the world, it'll open up doors. The world is what you choose to see, so take in as much light as you do darkness.

The longer you spend in a state of self-pity, the more time you waste missing life.