I never understood the importance of this saying until I was knee deep in homework and living on approximately three hours of sleep every night for two weeks, and I felt like I was going to crash. I, like so many college students in this country, am constantly overwhelmed with my life. From trying to balance classes, sleep, studying, partying, philanthropy events, and all the other wild things that go on and create the college experience, but at the end of the day, it becomes more stressful than anything else.

This year I hung a poster above my closet that reads, “do one thing every day that makes you happy,” and I didn’t realize the importance of this saying until I felt so overwhelmed that I fell to the floor crying. Sometimes, it feels as if you could collapse from the stress, and with the anxiety of trying to study for exams and organize your life you feel like there’s no time to do anything that makes you happy, but that’s where you’re completely wrong. I have followed this saying now for the last two weeks, and even if it is something small, doing one thing every day that genuinely makes me happy has put me in a better mood than any nap could.

Sometimes a ten minute Netflix break and a little bit of ice cream can be the pick-me-up you need to finish that last thirty minutes of homework. Or a coffee from your favorite random café, a face mask that can refresh your face, or lighting your favorite candle and eating your favorite candy. Five extra minutes of being asleep are nothing in comparison to the positive effects that doing something that makes you happy will have.

There are so many inexpensive, small ideas that can help change your attitude for the better. I know when I stress out, I light my favorite candle, eat a Twix bar and watch ten minutes of New Girl and it’s the refresh I need to keep working on my homework or even write another article. I’m always surrounded by my favorite candle scents when I do my homework or write an article and it’s a much more relaxing feeling than being surrounded by the smell of old, musty books at the library.

There is a reason we are here at college, of course, to get good grades to inevitably get a bomb job and all that jazz, but they say college is the best four years of your life, so we should really live these years to be that way. Not going to the library every night is okay when your day has become too overwhelming to handle. Staying in on a night that all your friends are going out can be the relaxing night alone that you needed all week and that’s okay too. The best part of college is that these four years can be all about you, they may be the best years, but they’re also the most selfish. After all, the saying does read; do one thing every day that makes YOU happy.