Another school year has come and gone, and with all the events that have passed there is one important thing I can take with me.

High school isn’t forever.

It’s easy to get consumed by the school work and activities and drama, but this is all just trivial. Of course it’s important to put in effort and succeed in school, but not doing great on a test isn’t going to drop your GPA ten points. And that friend drama that you thought would end your social life could be completely forgotten about in two months.

High school is like our own little society. Some people care so much about this hierarchy, constantly trying to climb the social ladder or be the best. But when you learn to stop caring about that, you can really allow yourself to be happy. It’s something that we don’t really talk about but everyone knows how it is.

I began freshman year last year still caught up in those “High School Musical” fantasies of what high school would be like. But that’s not how it is. We can’t just sing a song to make everybody get along, and that’s okay.

Like any other normal high school student, I endured a lot this year in school and out. And each time I felt like it couldn’t get any worse, each time I felt frustrated and hopeless, I remembered that I won’t feel this way forever. That there are others like me.

We all go through the same thing, and one day maybe we’ll be strangers. Talk to any adult today and they probably can’t name every kid in their eleventh grade English class. They probably forgot how embarrassed they were when they tripped walking up the stairs to class.

We don’t realize it, but everyone is so worried about their own stuff that they really aren’t focused on what happens outside of that. The things that seem like the biggest deal to us, no one else really notices.

This year went flying by and so will the others, that’s why it’s important for us to enjoy our time that we have. Think about the things you say and do, respect the people around you, make new friends, and cut yourself some slack once in awhile.

Just remember, all the things that get you down and stress you out, one day they will seem so small and so far away in your past. High school ends and there is a whole world out there waiting for you.