This time of year is hard for everyone. August is a month full of changes for so many people. Everyone is going back to school and starting a new chapter in the story of them. For students, a year isn't from January to December. It's August to June. So as a student, I use August as a month for reflection and making my new year resolution. This is a particularly big year for me. I'm entering my freshman year of college. So naturally, a big change requires a big resolution and what's bigger than life itself?

It's easy to feel like life is always against you. Everything could be going amazing, every part of life could be perfect, and then BAM, that one thing happens and suddenly life goes from your best friend to your biggest hater.

Usually when life throws a curve ball at you, you break down and think the worst. That's it, I can't recover from this. That's what I used to do. But this year I realized something: it's perfectly okay for life to be your biggest hater. After all, who knows you better than you? If you can't keep your own self in check, then who can?

It's been said time and time again but I'm going to say it again: life isn't perfect. It's not perfect for anyone. Even for the people who seem like they have everything they've ever wanted.

The way that I see it is that life can't be perfect. If your life was perfect, you would have nothing to strive for and people need things to strive for. That's what makes us the best version of ourselves.

I don't think enough people acknowledge the fact that life is not perfect for anyone. Everyone glamorizes the idea of having the perfect life and don't stop to think about what happens when they finally achieve it. What do you do when you finally get what you've wanted? You find something else to want, and the cycle starts all over, and if you're able to find something else to aim for, then your life was never perfect to begin with.

Perfection is something that will never be achieved; you will always find something about yourself that you'd like to change. So I challenge you, instead of aiming for perfection, aim for a better version of your current self. Better yourself in achievable ways, not with unrealistic expectations.

So next time life hits you hard and ruins the idea of the perfect life you had in your head, think of the future and how this will affect you in the long run. I know that's the last thing you want to do at a time like that. To you it seems like the absolute last thing that could ever happen to you, but take the time to think about how this can make you a better version of yourself. Adding a bit of positivity to anything will help so much more in the long run.

Michelle Obama says it best in the quote, "When they go low, we go high." When life gets low, you have to go high. Life would never hit you with something you couldn't handle.