It happens to all of us; the semester begins to end and all the work just gets dumped on you, until you're ten feet deep in papers and study guides wondering if living out the rest of your days as a nomad in Canada would be better than doing all of this. Then you realize that you have virtually no survival skills at all, have no means to reliably get to Canada, and worst of all, there would be no internet out there in the middle of nowhere.

Okay, maybe that's just me on a majority of that, but the first part of that does hold up. There's always a point during school where everything just seems to pile up, and there's no end to it in sight. You get a paper to write in one class, an outline for another paper in the other, multiple stories to read for the next class, your earth science teacher wants you to go out and hug a tree...it just all seems endless and exhausting. And it can be; fail to prioritize everything and you'll be floating in a sea of failed papers and dropping grades, wondering where it all went wrong.

But, even if that doesn't happen, the very thought of it is still enough to make you break out in a sweat. What if my next paper doesn't turn out well? What if I fail this next test? What if I have so much on my plate, that I have a mental breakdown and get admitted to the psych ward of some hospital. What's worse, is that from that point on until the deadlines, you're stuck in that endless loop of thinking those negative thoughts, until now you're metaphorically floating in a sea of failed papers and dropping grades, and that's where it starts to get REALLY weird.

But...we should all take a step back and breath; we are the captain of our own ship, and we alone can sail it into the rocky outcrops of failure, or the harbor of passing. One way or another, we'll get to one of those destinations, but the only way to make sure we get to the correct one is to put the effort into getting there. Sure, during that time, just the very act of trying will seem exhausting; trying to navigate the murky waters that is school will be daunting and harrowing, but in the end, it will all pay out.

To stand on that harbor, knowing that even in the bleakest of times, where the howling winds foretold the arrival of that final hurricane, knowing that you kept going, and survived everything that was thrown at you, will be the greatest feeling you've ever felt in your life. To stand on that harbor and show the world that yes indeed, you can make, will be one of your proudest days.

Remember, even in the darkest of times where all hope seems to be lost...it will pass. At some point, you will make it. All you need to do is persevere until that time comes. And trust me, it will come sooner than you think.