If you go to school and also have a job, be it part time or full time, I truly commend you. Balancing two crazy schedules is hard and I just want anyone reading this article to know that you are doing a great job! You might be exhausted from back to back shifts and classes. Perhaps you wake up early in the wee morning hours to cut that check. Or maybe, you are slaving away all night and working hard in class all day. Whichever exhaustive schedule you expertly maintain, let me just say, well done.

Life is hard and just when you think you see the light at the end of the tunnel, it ends up being a train. That’s when you might get down on yourself, lose sight of the goals you had or spend time extensively wondering about the exact moment it all went to hell. But please don't let this temporary low spoil your positivity.

I was recently told by a wise professor that conflict is constant. There’s no neutral ground, just highs and lows. Essentially, we can’t expect things to be “normal” because everything in the universe is in a constant flux of change. The only thing you can expect from this unpredictable world is that conflict will be the only constant.

Understanding that I don’t have total control over everything has somehow made me calmer and severely reduced my neurotic desire to control every aspect of my life. I stopped expecting things to “go back to normal” and decided to get excited to hurdle over any challenges I face. Meeting difficulties with excessive amounts of positive vibes is the only way I’ve found to bring light into a dark world. You have to create your own positivity, as if out of thin air. If you’re not making life fun for yourself then you risk crippling your spirit.

When I started working two jobs on top of going to college full time, I found it difficult to motivate myself to wake up at 5 AM and work until 3 PM, at which point I would then go straight to school until 9. It was tiring to finish homework, study for work all while while juggling appointments and class around shifts. This year has been my busiest and most challenging thus far, academically. I know so many of you are going through the same struggles and I just want you to know how incredible you are for taking on so much.

It’s a dog-eat-dog world and when you have THIS MUCH going on you need a friend to remind you of how amazing you are. Despite the bumps in the road, you are crushing it and never forget that.