I am not a 4.0 student. In fact, I’m not even close. I don’t have a perfect GPA, I never have, and that’s okay.

It’s crazy that in our lifetime we let numbers and labels define us. Marks on scales, numbers on phones, and the total in our bank accounts; do these really define us? Our seemingly open-ended lives with boundless possibilities are defined by the simple number on our phone screen stating our so-called intellect.

My destiny is not to spend my life worried about numbers and the effect they will have on my future wealth and success. My life will be spent in harmony with myself, knowing that the numbers on my PowerSchool app are not the key to my lifelong happiness. School is a means to give yourself a life that will (hopefully) give you every opportunity that you require to go wherever you want with your life. But, the pressure to be perfect students and to ‘succeed’ in school is to be perfect, not to get the grades you need to get where you need to go. When I go to school, I study and do as much work as I need to get the results required.

Now, I am not saying to not try in school or to give up. What I am saying is to not exhaust yourself over your schoolwork — it is not everything, and every student should have a life besides books. If you are enjoying your time in high school absorbing all of the knowledge you can, and are jubilant with the ceaseless work you have every day, then go you; I would highly encourage you to go to Harvard and live out your days as a neurosurgeon. But, that type of student tends  to be an exception in most schools, not the rule. If you don’t plan on going to an Ivy League, and school causes more stress than it’s worth, then tone it down. School is meant to help and improve you, not be a death sentence.

Enjoy your life outside of school, and don’t live for the weekends because the only time you are truly alive is now, right now, not later. Your future is undetermined, and the past is over, but now, in this moment, you are alive– more alive than your memories, and more alive than the ‘I will’ or the ‘I wants’ of the future. Take your life moment by moment, and if you are on verge of a breakdown – or having one – take a break and consider how much that math homework really means to you.