"High school is the best four years of your life."

"No way, college is the best four years of your life!"

"Working in the field has been the best years of my life."

We've all heard these sayings a million times before, right? And everyone you talk to has a different opinion on when the "best years of your life" should be, but no matter what they say I always walk away feeling like I'm slacking.

Don't fall victim to what I like to call, "The Best Years of Your Life Curse". I was so convinced in high school that those were supposed to be the best years of my life and do you know what I did for a majority of those four years? Hated it. I was convinced I was wasting what was supposed to be the most fun, exciting, free years I'd ever have and I began to hate myself for it. Then, when senior year rolled around and college starts to loom in the future, you start to hear that no, high school ISN'T the best years of your life, college is.

With this new found hope I believed that maybe I wouldn't miss out on my best years. But, then again, maybe I was wrong. Here I am in college, yes, enjoying myself, but also impatiently awaiting the day that I graduate and get the H-E- double hockey sticks out of here. So here I sit, yet again, hating myself for wondering if I'm missing out on the best years of my life. But who decides what "the best years of your life" entail anyway? Does there need to be some big, dramatic ah-ha, this-is-who-I'm-supposed-to-be moment? Are you supposed to do wildly crazy things and maybe even end up in jail once or twice? Or is it just supposed to be the time when you finally feel free and content with who you are and where you're at in this world?

I don't really know, looking back, if I've had the best years of my life yet. In retrospect, I think I had more fun and did crazier things than I gave myself credit for at the time, but I'm also nowhere near satisfied with who I am or where I'm at. I have so much left I want to do and so many things I want to see and why can't your entire life be the best years? Why can't we, as 90-year-old wrinkly ladies look back and say "I did it, I did all of that. And yes, there were some rough patches in-between but I grew and I learned and now I'm here. And those were the best years."

So here's what I say to those who believe there is a set "best years of your life"- it's all bull shit. You get to decide your happiness, you get to decide your fate, and you get to decide to make each and every year one of the best you'll ever have.