It is the first day of freshmen year, and you are excited for the endless possibilities that these next four years will hold for you. You are looking forward to all the things you will be able to do throughout high school, like getting your driver’s license and going to your first homecoming and prom.

  Before you know it, it is the day before graduation, the day before your whole life changes. The years have flown by, and it feels like just yesterday you took your first steps into the school you would call your home for the next four years.

   It may seem like these days of your life are dragging on as you go through the same mundane motions on a daily basis, but I promise you, you will look back on your high school career and regret the times you wished time would move faster. As a senior, I look back on all the moments I have had throughout high school, and of course, there are things I would rather forget, but there are so many things I wish I could relive.

   I think of moments like eating lunch with my best friends in the cafeteria freshman year, moments like sophomore year career seminar where I figured out what I wanted to do with my life, moments like the day I was inducted into National Honor Society, and I wish I could have them back. I took them for granted at the time, and I regret it.

   If there is one thing I wish people would do in high school, it would be to just live in the moment. We all spend too much time focusing on tomorrow, yesterday, ten years from now- anything but the time we are in right now.

   We spend our whole lives focusing on the future, and we do not spend enough time thinking about what we can do right now to make ourselves happy and find fulfillment. If we spend our whole lives focusing on what is going to happen, we will not do anything with the time that is happening.

  I spent the majority of high school dreading waking up at 6 in the morning, dragging myself out of bed to go to a place that to be honest, I did not want to be. I know so many people who were or are in the same position that I was in, and it is so unfortunate.

   It was not until I decided what college I wanted to go that everything hit me all at once. We only get this one life to live, so we need to make every day count. It is incredibly cheesy, but it is also incredibly true.

   Even if going to high school is the last thing you want to do, do not spend your time here complaining and wishing for the days ahead. Enjoy the time you have now, the friends you have now and the life you have now.

  Graduation will come before you know it, and life will move on. Do not let the time your spend here be wasted.