The following are choices of how you can live your life. Choose one.

A) Live for yourself and make your own rules.

B) Put on a mask to cover up who you really are so that maybe people will like you.

C) Follow God and find friends that do the same.

D) Be a good person but don’t follow God because it’s too much work.

I am lucky enough to have met some of my best friends in college. I came in on the first day, just searching for my place. I already knew who I was and who I was going to be, and that hasn’t changed, but I am so thankful for the friends who haven’t let me fall into something I am not.

At the beginning of my freshman year of college, I had a few toxic friendships that I didn’t recognize until almost the end of the first semester. My best friends and I learned how to cope with letting go of toxic friends and learned how to fight with each other and get through it.

So my advice to you, incoming college freshman, is that life is not multiple choice.

You are writing your story every day.

I firmly believe that God directs our steps, but I also believe that you have to decide who you will be and where you will go.

“In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” Proverbs 16:9

You will have many options as you decide where you will be attending college. You will have to decide if you want to be known as the girl who hides behind her own insecurities by hurting others. You have to decide who you will be and how far you will let yourself go.

When you move all your stuff in your dorm, make up your new bed, and go to lie down for the first time, there is no guide sitting on your bed.

Life is not multiple choice; it is an essay question that never ends. Every day, you wake up and you get to decide who you want to be. You get to decide if you will love people today. You will decide if you will be rude to the girl no one likes. You get to decide if you will keep those toxic friends around. You get to decide if you will hide behind your insecurities. You get to decide how you treat other people. You get to decide if you stay and work on a relationship.

It’s up to you; you have the rest of your life to write, so stop flipping through the days looking for the multiple choice section. Write your story, and decide who you are going to be.