College students are planning for the future, but might be forgetting about the now.

Midterms, grades, internships and careers weigh heavily on college students’ minds. Under all of this stress, it’s easy to forget that we are in college, supposedly the best years of your life. Make these years count.

College students face an enormous amount of worry. We are spending a lot of time and money to get an education. Most of us work hard to keep our grades up.

However, we shouldn’t forget to have a good time. It won’t be long before we are working nine to five jobs or picking up our kids from soccer practice. These are the final years when we can truly be kids.

Ask yourself: Are you having a good time in college? Are you creating memories you’ll look back on years from now?

College is a great time to reinvent yourself or to find out who you are. You might find out that you’re a secret genius at sudoku or love art history.

College is all about balance. Keep up with your readings, but don’t forget to have fun. This is your life and there will always be things you have to do.

I once had a teacher tell me, “Your to-do list only gets longer the older you get.”

With every year, I find this more and more true. Life never stops.

Are you living or are you alive? There’s a difference.

Being alive is waking up every morning, doing what you have to do, going to bed and then starting all over again.

Stephen Chbosky is a best-selling novelist famous for his book, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower (TPOBAW).

“Sometimes people use thought to not participate in life,” Chbosky wrote in TPOBAW.

Living is you actively participating in life. Be active in life, instead of being passive.

Do what you want to do. If you want to get drunk on a Wednesday night and show up to class the next day still drunk, then do it. If you want to join an ultimate frisbee team, then do it. If you want to ask that cute girl in your history class on a date, then do it.

Life is short. We all have an expiration date. Some expiration dates are sooner than we know. Don’t live your life with your only regret being that you have no regrets.

Brooke Martin can be reached at [email protected] or @bmartin471 on Twitter.