At times, I look back at my four years at Cherry Hill East and wish I’d been more involved. Then I think about my current 24/7 schedule and realize that I quite literally lack the time to be in any more clubs.

As you grow older, your ability to do everything narrows. Responsibilities come up. Classes get more intense. The sands of time seem to just slip through your fingers.

No matter how hard you try, you cannot get to everything on your to-do list.

That’s not important.

What I have learned over my four years here is that it doesn’t matter what you’re missing out on, as long as you do something you love.

More importantly, it matters that you do something you love, with people you love.

Find your friends and I promise, you will never be in want of entertainment. Friends are the ones who know what you’re thinking as you think it. Friends are the ones who sit down and talk to you for hours about the books and movies and TV shows no one else even knows about. Friends are the ones who end up in all of your best stories.

Friends are the people in your life who make it lively. They drag you into adventures unexpected. You may get lost in front of the Lincoln memorial or spend hours playing nonsensical games. Friends make you grin until your face is sore from merriment.

Get your friends to join you in what you love, and you will never suffer from boredom. Give a little as well, do what they love in return. And enjoy each other’s company because that is what you will remember.

Not the eighty-minute lectures, not the SAT scores, not the gossip.

You remember your friends. Their smiles, their talents, their eccentricities and tics. That’s what you take away with you.

You won’t reach every item on your high school bucket list, and that’s okay. Because crossing off one thing with your friends is far more enjoyable than crossing off all of them alone.

My friends have always been the best of me.

I hope yours are too.