As the semester comes to a close, books are returned, finals are studied for, tears are cried and the stress of the first half of the school year is replaced with stress about the second half.

And as the season of “New year, new me”
Instagram captions slowly creeps towards us, let me share something with all of you that I have learned this year, and that I hope you can learn and carry with you into 2018.

You are good enough.

I’m not crazy. I know that I could type that a million times into this article, I could personally find each and every one of you and tell you once an hour every day for the rest of our lives, and you still wouldn’t believe me.

But you are.

I see you, Point Park. As a self-proclaimed fly on the wall, I often enjoy sitting back and watching the world move around me. I’ve seen you struggle, I’ve seen your highs and your lows, I’ve seen you singing with your friends in the elevator and crying in the lobby after weeks of sleepless nights and a failed exam. I’ve seen you sitting by yourself because you’re too scared to talk and make new friends, and I’ve seen you surround yourself with people and still feel alone.

And I’ve seen you be hard on yourselves. I’ve seen you, great students and young people and activists, beat yourselves into the ground. Some of you are my friends, my classmates and even if you’re not, it hurts to see you think so little of your accomplishments and your work.

You are good enough.

You’re good enough to apply for that job. You’re good enough to go for something you thought was unattainable, you’re good enough to tell that friend you’ve had a crush on for weeks that you like them even though it might get a little weird. You’re good enough to do anything you put your mind to.

I know me chanting these words at you over and over won’t solve your anxiety, it won’t cure your depression or the chemical imbalances in your brain. But it’s something I want you to know and say to yourself when you’re feeling like nothing you do is right, like you’re a loser and a failure.

That’s not to say that you’re not allowed to fail or be a loser. That’s a key part of being human, and I’d like to think that none of you are robots, but after seeing all those videos on Twitter of Sophia, the first robot to be granted citizenship, I can’t be too careful.

This also isn’t a message to halt your growth. This isn’t me telling you that you’re “as good as you’re going to get.” At this ripe age of roughly 17-to-24 years old, you should aim to grow far beyond your own comprehension, and you will.

And, hey, I’m not saying that I’m perfect, that I don’t do all these things, that I’m not hard on myself. I spent 21 years of my life feeling like I had never been enough, let alone good enough. There are still days when I feel that way.

I don’t want to anymore, and I don’t want any of you to feel that way, either.

It’s not easy. It’s not an easy thought to have or to convince yourself of.

But you are really, truly, honest-to-God good enough. And 2018 better be ready for all of you.