If you’ve attended high school, I bet you’ve heard: “Enjoy it while it lasts,” “These are the glory days,” “These will be the best four years of your life.”

This is the notion that the four years of high school, or in my case three, will be the best years that you’re alive. The idea that you’ll constantly wish to return to those short years.

While high school is an important experience for all teenagers, most of the time they won’t be the best years of your life; you should hope that they won’t.

These are the years that your hormones are hysterical, life turns into a popularity contest and you’re constantly filled with insecurities. More than anything, you’re faced with the stress of learning who you are. It’s a great journey; but not the best.

I’m not saying that these years are substandard by any means, I just hope that they are far from the best. High school is such a small and early portion of life. If you peak in high school, it’s only downhill from there, and that’s not the outlook that I want to have.

I recently decided to graduate as a junior; not because I hate high school, but because it’s not necessarily for me. It doesn’t stimulate me the way that I believe college will. I crave an independent learning environment and I’m ready to take the next step with my education and life.

These three years have been a great experience, but I will have years of amazing experiences. I will cherish these memories, but I will not wish to return to these years.

While leaving high school is a big change, and can sometimes be scary. I’m incredibly excited to explore the world outside of these hallways with the freedom to explore and learn who I am in the real world.

I want to live my life trying to make every day better than the last. Bad days will happen, they always do; but I want to be able to love my life without having regrets. I don’t ever want to wish to return to high school.

I will keep these memories with me forever, and always remember the good times, but I won’t live in the past several years from now. I’m leaving high school willingly and I will find myself without it.

If you don’t leave willingly, you’ll constantly regret what you didn’t achieve in high school, and never be fully living in the moment.

These are not the best three years of my life, and I’m so excited for the many to come.