The other morning, as I sat through one of my final 8 a.m. journalism classes, half listening to a group presentation while mindlessly scrolling through the “Everything” section of Pinterest, I stumbled upon a bit of unexpected wisdom.

The pin was a simple picture of a page in a book with a highlighted phrase. The book so happened to be “The Outsiders,” which, upon reading in my seventh grade reading class, I immediately dubbed the greatest piece of literature of all time.

I remember marveling over the book’s infinite wisdom at the impressionable age of 12, and it seems that over six years later, nothing has changed. Naturally, I repinned, but the specific passage that read, “You still have a lot of time to make yourself be what you want. There’s still lots of good in the world” stuck with me.

As the end of the semester draws to a close, as with any proper ending, I have begun to reflect on the past four months of my life. And the rapidly expanding sentimentalism of the holiday season is only adding to the type of introspection and deep thinking that ensues around the end of each year, leading to countless New Year’s Resolutions worldwide.

And as I began to think back on all my decisions in my first semester of college – the good, the bad, and the incredibly dumb – I started to wonder if I had wasted arguably some of the most critical months of my life simply going through the motions without purpose. Sure, I attended (nearly) all my classes, started writing this weekly column, and joined a Bible study and the Ultimate Frisbee team, but beyond this, there is so much more I still want to do, and the quote from “The Outsiders” was just the reminder I needed to tell me that I still have time.

Too often, we get caught up in the things we aren’t doing, rather than focusing on the good that we already do. And too often, we overemphasize the future and forget to enjoy the present. Sure, focus and drive are important, but there is also something to be said for patience.

I’ve always been the type of person who wants everything done right away so I can quickly check them off my mental list of “things to do” and move on to my next aspiration, but unfortunately for me, this isn’t the way life works. And I need to remember that I still have time. With only one of my eight semesters in college down, there is still so much time.

Time to try things I’ll like, time to try things I’ll hate, time to experiment, time to learn and, most importantly, time to become – become exactly who it is I want to be and then change my mind and become someone else entirely.

So, when the additional stresses of finals and the holidays begin to pile atop that nagging feeling that you’ve somehow missed something and have fallen behind, just remember that nothing is set in stone, everything is subject to change, and you still have so much time.

Tara Massouleh is a freshman majoring in journalism. Her column runs on Wednesday.