Clean Living, Finding True Love & Your Career: Things You Don't Need to Worry About in College

College is a time of self-discovery and exploration. However, with professors and parents constantly asking what you're going to do with your degree - especially a degree in something inexact like I don't know Creative Writing - things can get really stressful. Where are you going to go and what are you going to do with your life? These questions send a bolt of cold fear to your stomach and prickly sweat down your back. You've enough to worry about with deadlines and having to get up in time for lectures without them piling on a whole load of new life problems. They can cause that little stress ball in you stomach to expand and explode  leaving you a blubbering stressed out mess of emotions. You're in college. In the weird in-between phase from being a teenager to adulthood.  You don't need to freak yourself out about things that shouldn't matter to you until graduation: when you have permission for your life to descend into its natural quarter-life crisis.

1. Love & Relationships.

If it happens, it happens. You shouldn't force a relationship just because you want one. Especially in college. The drama can get in the way of having a good time and getting your assignments done. Sure, all the flicks tell you about how people fall in love in college and their lives are perfectly laid out for each other, but they are lies. Sure you might meet someone in college but plenty of people don't meet their partners until after college. No need to worry. True love may exist but it probably won't be found in the college bar after six jager bombs and a couple naggins. Have a good time with your friends and leave the true love chase to fiction and films. Enjoy the single college life and if you do meet someone, go for it. You're young, enjoy yourself.

2. Fitness.

You are still young enough that your metabolism is still working pretty well. Forgo public transport and walk and cycle to college instead. That counts as exercise. Leave the worrying about your figure until you have to pay full price gym fees.

3. Alcohol Intake.

To a degree. This is the time in your life where you discover which drinks work with you and which don't. It's the time of your life when you discover just how much alcohol you can take before you black out. When you discover how to cure hangovers and make the best memories, or at least, the most interesting memories.

4. Eating Healthy Food.

Have you checked the price of quinoa or kale lately? What super-foods are cheap exactly? In college you need food that will give you energy fast: like noodles, energy bars, and toast. Save the money you might have spent on healthy foods on nights out to make memories with your friends. As long as you eat fresh fruit or veg at least once a week, you probably won't get scurvy.

5. Money.

The lack of it to be precise. If you have enough money to purchase food, alcohol and the occasional new outfit, you're grand. You don't have a mortgage to worry about. Granted you might have rent or car things to pay for but you know what else you have? Student discounts on a whole lot of things.

6. Your Career.

You haven't even finished college yet. There is no point in fleshing out this worry. In college you have to opportunity to explore your options. You might get a part-time job in a coffee house and that will become your passion. You might volunteer in an animal shelter and you'll find your place there. Just let it happen and don't freak out about the endless possibilities. Apologies if the mention of endless possibilities freaked you out.

7. How well everyone else is doing.

You're classes are a lot more difficult than you anticipated, your housemate is coming up every week with new outfits and all the super-foods that you can't afford. They're off to the gym while you're off to the library. It's not a race, everyone goes at their own pace. You'll figure out your courses and maybe they'll let you borrow their clothes. Everyone goes at their own speed. There's no need to fixate on everyone else's lives, focus on your own instead.

8. Not having plans all the time.

So you're life isn't the one of a social butterfly. That's OK. Netflix is a perfectly good Friday night plan. If you've to work at your crappy part-time job in the morning or have an essay due that's killing you, haven't showered in two days and don't have the energy to go out, that's fine. Don't. Risk the F.O.M.O. and relax yourself. You're a student. Every night of the week is a potential night out. GO out next week when your assignments are done. Quit freaking out. F.O.M.O. (Fear of Missing Out) is a notion created by the alcohol companies to fool us into thinking we want to go to parties we actually don't. It leads to us spending loads of money getting so drunk that by the end of the night we forget that we aren't enjoying ourselves.

9. Spending all your time on Social Media.

You are networking. It's an important life skill, especially in this day and age. Do you know that companies hire people to just manage their social media accounts? After you've spent four+ hours stalking someone on Facebook and you're starting to feel guilty about it, just remind yourself that you could be training yourself for a job that's in your future. So really, you're being responsible.