It’s December (or May). You’re scrambling to complete all your papers, projects, and book chapter notes, only to have finals thrown onto your plate that’s already overflowing. You find yourself avoiding doing anything related to studying, only to realize that the procrastination approach is making it a lot worse. Your worries snowball into one big mess. You either can’t sleep or you sleep too much to escape it all.

You know what I’m talking about. Anxiety.

Every college student will experience stress and anxiety at some point during the semester. It may be comforting to know that you're not alone, but something that's even better is that you don’t have to let anxiety color your entire future. There’s a way out.

I think sometimes we need to take a step back and realize that grades are not everything. It's not that grades don't matter; they certainly do. The issue is that instead of taking care of ourselves, we try to quantify our success through something called a GPA. While we go through the semester, our first thoughts may not be, "What am I learning and how can I apply it outside of the classroom?" Instead, the first thing we ever think about is, "How will my grades in this class affect my GPA?" Sometimes we consider even dropping a class just to save our GPA. That's how much priority a single digit number takes over raw learning. It's one of many reasons why we may not even enjoy learning anymore.

Even if you didn’t make stellar grades over the course of the semester, that’s alright. If you flunked out of college, it’s not the be-all-end-all; failure is never a step backward, but always a step forward. Take this opportunity to look critically at your life decisions. I happen to believe that everything happens for a reason; perhaps chance, karma, or a higher power put us in the right place at the right time. Either way, don’t let school define you. You define your life. Your well-being should come before anything else.

If your anxiety is telling you not to believe me, that’s the point of this article. Anxiety is never rational and will tell you white lies. Don’t give in. Power through no matter what anxiety tells you and you’ll see the light at the end of the tunnel. If you feel like a lost cause, you aren’t; you’ll find your way again.

Dear Anxiety: I’ve defeated you. And every time you come around, I have a strong conviction that you won’t get the best of me even if I can’t make myself believe it. I know that I’m going to be okay in the end. You had your field day with me and now I’m shoving you back into the attic of my mind, shelved and temporarily forgotten. Another battle won.