Barely mustering enough energy to roll out of bed every morning gets old fast. Eating mushy french fries with cold ketchup in a stale colored dining center gets old fast. Studying for hours on end for a D on your chemistry test gets old fast.

It sucks to be quite honest.

Laying on your dorm room floor with your best friends at 3am laughing until you have tears in your eyes. Belting out the lyrics to your favorite song and dancing until sunrise. Not having to empty the dishwasher every night.

Doesn’t suck so much.

Listen, I know it’s hard. Life is hard, and sometimes it’s not fair. But you need to stop focusing on that so much. And you need to start focusing on that feeling you get when your favorite song comes on the radio. The feeling of all the windows down, your hair blowing endlessly into the wind, screaming the lyrics so loud it comes out as a screech.

Because let me tell you something. We really don’t have it all that hard right now. Imagine 15 years from now when you’re going to have to be filing taxes, paying house insurance, making sure there are always meals on the table for dinner. Scary, I know. But it needs to be said so that you people understand that you need to get out there and live. I don’t care how cliche it sounds. You only live once. You are only young once. 15 years from now you aren’t going to be able to trudge downstairs and already have a meal premade for you. You aren’t going to be able to dance until 5am with your best friends.

So dance until the sun rises. Suck it up and eat the cafeteria food… there are worse things in life. If your friends want you to go out with them. Go.

50 years from now you aren’t going to sit back and remember that one night you got a really good sleep. You are going to remember the night you barely had enough money to make it home because you decided to buy that really good Chinese food that’s open 24 hours. You are going to remember that one time you paid for a parking meter with a $20 bill and got $17.50 back in quarters. You’re going to remember all of the stupid stuff you did.

But that’s really all we have in the end isn’t it? Memories. So start making them. Because when you’re a grandma and your grandchildren just want storytime, it’ll suddenly become your favorite time of the day. Because you get to reminisce on all of the years you spend having the time of your life.