The relative shelter and security of high school is coming to an end. Whether you’ve spent your years strutting it in stilettos or stuffed into skinny jeans, you’ve probably had it pretty good. 

Most people argue the contrary, though, claiming that high school has been the absolute worst time of their lives, but does this have to be so? 

Can we not appreciate this time in our lives if not more, than just as much as any other? 

While the strict regimen of high school can feel unbearable at times, it’s not all that different from what most of us have in store. 

Substitute an eight hour school day with a 9 to 5 desk job, and you’ve pretty much got the same thing. Lunch break at 12, bathroom break every hour or so, a table-like setting filled with peers or colleagues and, always, someone to administer your work and dangle a report card above you. 

We aspire to be lawyers, doctors, accountants and more, but we never realize that they’re all virtually the same thing. They’re 9 to 5 jobs that keep our families happy and futures assured. Sound familiar? Doesn’t it sound like something you already have, but hate? 

Yet we grit our teeth and grind for it. We lace our shoes and race towards the prospect of something better than what we have. During this race we outrun everything we encounter: competition, distraction, reality, even values, friends, and family.

We get so exhausted that eventually we forget why we were running in the first place. All we remember is the finish line, the medal, the end of the race. There is no end, though. 

The trials of high school do not end with graduation and the tribulations of work do not end with retirement. Just like incoming sixth graders, we realized that the shortcomings of elementary school did not end with middle school.

The granted privileges of sixth grade did nothing to satisfy our yearning. The guaranteed freedoms of high school didn’t, either. Will college be the same? Adulthood? Are we doomed to ride this circuit until the day we die, never actually finding satisfaction?

Maybe, but only if you make it so.