It’s a dog-eat-dog world out here. Boyfriends cheat, parents get divorced, friends grow apart, bosses are assholes, and people lie. There are mass killings every two weeks as well as other horrible events constantly being broadcast on T.V.

Generally, people suck.

But we don’t have to. Being a good person costs zero dollars and takes minimal effort. And I’m not talking about Mother Theresa, drop out of college to join the Peace Corps, or adopt thirty kids from Africa kind of good person (but if that’s the kind of person you are, props to you).

Because here’s a secret: You can be a good person and still love tequila and not be religious and sometimes fight with your sister. Being a good person is simply about being the best version of yourself so that you can offer the world your full potential. If everyone lived their lives as the best versions of themselves, maybe boyfriends wouldn’t cheat and people wouldn’t lie and kids wouldn’t bully other kids and no one would shoot up movie theaters.

There is no reason why each of us should not be striving every day to better ourselves. It’s quite simple. Care about things that matter and dare to be the kind of person who can change the world…

Care about people, about your education, about yourself.

Care about people. Care about your loved ones and the people most important to you, of course. Life is nothing without friends and family. But even further, care about all people. The kinds of people who only take up a tiny fraction of the story that is your life, maybe only a chapter or a paragraph or even a sentence. Be kind to the waiter who messed up your order and the cashier who won’t stop talking to you when all you’re trying to do is buy your damn Ben & Jerry’s and the mom whose baby has been shrieking for the entire duration of the movie and even the jackass who cut you off on the highway. You should care about those people, too. I urge you to contemplate how each of these individuals has their own lives, problems, quirks, habits, and strengths. Give these people who appear in your life and then disappear just as quickly the benefit of the doubt. Because the jackass on the highway might very well be an extraordinarily compassionate person who loves chocolate chip pancakes and shares your same taste in music and was simply running late for work. Maybe next week you’ll see them at IHOP eating pancakes or at the concert of your favorite band, and you two will become best friends or fall in love. Care about all people because you just never know.

Care about your education. Truly, genuinely give a shit about learning, getting smarter, and becoming a more intelligent person. Being smart is cool. Smart people are cool. People who care about their grades are cool. Spending the night in the library to study for an important test is cool. Education is cool, and intelligence is sexy. Never pretend to not know the answer. If you know that x equals the square root of negative two thirds (or at least you’re pretty sure), put your hand in the air even if you’re in a 300-person lecture hall. And if you’re wrong, hell, who cares. It is so important for our generation to be educated, because before we know it, we will be the ones running the country. With that realization, we should be thankful for those people who know (or at least are pretty sure) that x equals the square root of negative two thirds. More importantly, we should want to be those people. Education isn’t just about books and grades and snobby professors with thick accents. Seek knowledge every day, even in the oddest of places. You can learn something everywhere you go and from everyone you meet.

Care about yourself. This means eating an entire gallon of cookie dough ice cream when you’re going through a breakup but it also means running five miles the next day, because you only get one body in your lifetime and you need to treat it properly. Buy the Free People sweater even if it costs way more than some vintage yarn strung together ever should because it’s cute and you deserve it, but don’t buy five of the same sweater in different colors. Save your money, you will thank yourself later. Be selfish if you want something, as long as you’re not stepping on other people to get it. Don’t let other people step on you. Don’t surround yourself with toxic people. Care enough to not associate anyone who doesn’t make you a better person. If your girlfriend has turned you into the man you swore you’d never be, break up with her. If you can’t make it through the day without getting high, get help. If it’s weighing you down, break the habit. Put down the bottle. Put down your tenth Big Mac of the week and pick up an apple. If you haven’t eaten anything all day but almonds and celery, pick up a damn cheeseburger. Pick up a book. Pick up a pen and write a letter to your grandma; she’ll probably hang it on the fridge and read it every day for the next month. Pick up your keys and drive to absolutely nowhere with the windows all the way down, even if it’s negative 10 degrees. Care about yourself because if you do, you can change the world.

Dare to dream, to fail, to be happy.

Dare to dream. Our dreams are what give us something to live for. No one wakes up at 40 years old and makes an hour commute to an unrewarding job without spending the entire length of the highway thinking about the Mediterranean cruise he’s finally taking with his wife at the end of the month or her decision to sell her perfectly decent house in the Chicago suburbs for a tiny log cabin in the Rocky’s or how she’s planning on telling her husband that she wants a divorce and then moving to Europe with her high school sweetheart. Right now, we are teetering on the brink of adulthood; we have so much room for dreams and ambitions and desires. We have an entire blank slate in front of us and the power to write our stories exactly the way we want them. Dream about the person you’ve been hopelessly in love with since since the sixth grade. Dream about studying abroad next year or about being an archaeologist or scaling Mount Everest or opening a bakery or owning the world’s largest personal collection of books. Dream about getting married and having kids some day or dream about saying screw that and moving to Africa or touring with a band or joining a circus instead. Dream about living to see the first female president. Better yet, dream about being her. Hell, don’t merely dream, but do. You can have anything you want; do anything you want and be anything you want. Make it happen. It doesn’t matter what you dream. It just matters that you have them. Give yourself something to live for because, honey, there will be times when you’re going to want something to hold onto.

Dare to fail. As rewarding as success is, it doesn’t make half as good of a story as failing miserably. Nor will you ever learn from it half as much. No one cares if you tore up the slopes like a pro the first time you put on skis. Hell, they don’t care if you sucked, either, but I can promise that falling on your face and sliding all the way down the mountain on your ass is going to make a lot more people laugh at cocktail parties. Always say yes to karaoke. Even if you have the worst voice in the world (much to my dismay, I would fall into this category). Grab your best friend and a microphone and sing your heart out to "Livin’ on a Prayer" because it’s fun, and who cares if it doesn’t sound good because everyone’s probably drunk anyway? Failure is beautiful because it proves that we’re human. If everyone was exceptional and successful at absolutely everything, we would be robots and life would be excruciatingly boring. The world needs people who can’t cook if their lives depended on it (I would also fall into this category) so that we can appreciate those who can whip up delicious chicken casseroles with basil walnut pesto sauce and chocolate mousse pies. Dare to fail because even if you do, at least you’re taking risks. And maybe you’ll suffer and it will suck but that means you’re alive and simply experiencing a little thing they call life. Dare to fail because there’s always the chance that you won’t.

Dare to be happy. There will be days when the world closes in around you and the universe is out to get you and everything and everyone will seem to be raining on your damn parade. Your shitty boyfriend will forget your birthday and your best friend will cancel lunch plans when you’re already at the restaurant and your boss will chew you out for something that’s not your fault. But there’s a 50 percent chance that the very next day you will meet the love of your life and your best friend will ask you to be the godmother of her beautiful new baby and you’ll get a kickass promotion and you can tell your old boss where he can shove it. Live for this 50 percent chance. I think that the key to being happy is realizing that you won’t be happy 100 percent of the time. But know that you will be. Being 17, 18, 19… it’s hard. We’re trying to figure out who we are and what we want. Life is harsh, it’s pain, it’s drinking too much and fighting with your parents, and trying to get over it when someone does you wrong. It’s crying on the bathroom floor and making the same mistake over and over and over again. But10 years from now, you’re going to wake up next to the love of your life and take your dog on a walk or go for a morning swim in the ocean or drive to your dream job or simply drink expensive coffee out of your favorite mug on your front porch with a book in your hand. Let yourself be happy now, because even if your boyfriend forgets your birthday and your best friend cancels lunch plans and your boss is a jerk, there’s still so much to be happy about. Plus, you deserve it.

So, I challenge you this. Care. Dare. Strive to be your best self every single day, even if it feels impossible. You owe it to yourself, and you owe it to the world. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, but we don’t have to be dogs if we don’t choose to be.