Lots of dating and relationships experts are trying to fill everyone’s heads with rules, tips and tricks and secrets to nab the perfect man in 5, 15, 30 or more days.  That is all well and good but remains a bit of a mystery to me. Rules, tips, tricks, secrets are usually not encouraging you to be you. The only person you can be and the one that will keep showing up in every relationship you have.

Plus, worrying yourself to bits about why they do this or that is usually a huge waste of time!  Most of the time you will never really figure it out and it has nothing to do with you anyway.

Instead, I encourage you to concentrate on the one thing you can control in life and relationships…you!  I have talked about this before and will talk about it again, guaranteed. Since I think it is the real message that I am trying to shout out and hope that the occasional person listens to.

I feel that college serves virtually one purpose. To have this amazing few years where you can just figure things out.  Where you are on your own to try things on and see if they fit. Whether that is through learning a possible future career in your classes or just figuring out who you are through experiences, friendships and relationships. This little gift has been given to you and I encourage you to live it to the fullest. To learn and love in every way possible and truly live deliberately in all that it is, because soon enough real world will come find you and it is overrated. Never again will you have this little slice of heaven that is college.

So, as you head back this semester I want you to have one purpose and one purpose only: to figure out what makes you happy. To make that a constant in your life. Yes, you still have to go to class, but I want you to see every day as a new day to explore. To find new people, ideas, experiences, music and more that will put you on the road to being you. The real and happy you.

Not until I was a senior did I have the opportunity to travel out of the country and it was life changing. It started a wanderlust in me that will never be filled. I kissed more than a few princes and frogs to realize what did and did not make me feel good and  to figure out how I wanted to be treated. I found friends from all walks of life that made me laugh and think differently in ways that I never learned in my small town growing up. All of these college experiences helped make me the pretty awesome woman that I am today.

So take a step back today and think about what is and isn’t making you happy and what you can change. Remember you always have options and I am always here to help.