School is out (or nearly out) and it’s time to enjoy your summer away from classes and exams, preferably while somewhere warm and full of attractive women. Summer vacation is a blessing, and one that we won’t always have. The work world sucks, guys, and you don’t get several months to dick around once you cross that stage. You have to make the best of the time you’ve got. No excuses can be made, no bad decisions should be withheld — you should make every attempt to get the best memories possible out of your summer. Milk it for all the booze and hazy memories that it’s worth. How and why, you ask?
Rage
Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers came to this land in search of a good time. Much like our forefathers, it is your God-given purpose as an American to make sure no table goes unflipped, no pong ball goes unsunk and no beer goes unshotgunned. You must rage against the dying of the light (beer) and ensure that your summer is the epitome of everything good and just in American excess. The world is an oyster, so get out there and treat it like one of those nice all you can eat raw bars. Just watch out for food poisoning, which would probably be alcohol poisoning here. Nothing interrupts rage festivities like completing the “puke around the world” in your vacation condo. Nobody wants to clean vomit out of a bathtub, so pace yourself in your summer rampage. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Relax
Everyone will tell you that you should spend your whole summer, every summer, working or getting an internship. Everyone is wrong. Like “I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul” wrong. While work experience is important for finding a job after graduation, you shouldn’t sacrifice all of your summers to productivity, especially when that’s all you’ll be doing in the real world. Do not, for the love of god, spend it in a soul-sucking office in the middle of fucking nowhere while you live at home. Success is all about great experiences, so take some time to enjoy a few while you learn about the world first-hand. It’s better than sitting in an internship meeting with a balding 40-something named Jeff as he drones on about your responsibilities for the summer. Jeff hates his life. Don’t be like Jeff. Be like the cool alter ego Jeff had in college. Go to the beach, lay out in the sun and get into some trouble. You’re 40-year-old self will one day thank you for the memories, and it’ll help you stay awesome while everyone else manages to mentally decay into a grumpy octogenarian before middle age.
Roam
Metallica once said, “Wherever I may roam, where I lay my head is home.” This philosophy is great for summer vacations. The song? Eh, jury is still out. Personally I think Metallica really lost it around that album, but I’m a bit of a purist. Getting back to my point, if you have a summer to spend, spend it seeing things you won’t have time to see again for ages. Go somewhere just for the Hell of it. Road trips are better than normal vacations that way, because your whole trip is the adventure, not just the destination. Some of your best stories will come from summer road trips, like the time me and my buddies had to hide all of our “fun supplies” during a traffic stop because no one in the car was 21 and we were in the middle of nowhere headed to Ocean City. Take a few summers to get out and see the country or the world. Bone your way through France, visit Southeast Asia and try not to eat things we consider pets, then post up on a beach somewhere and get the kind of tan lines that can easily be viewed from space… you get the idea.
Reflect
Shockingly, you can learn things when you take a summer to do what you want. Learn about yourself, the world and the things that motivate you. I’m not saying certain 4/20 friendly countries might be best for these journeys of enlightenment, but it can’t hurt. We get so caught up in achieving our goals sometimes that we forget why we’re even pursuing them in the first place. Not reflecting on your experiences and motivations is how you burn out and become a jaded meth addict before 30. For your sake, and the sake of the Facebook friends that would have to read your posts about aliens and FEMA camps, take some time to really figure out what you want to do and why over the summers. This is more productive than anything you could ever do sitting in a cubicle at a major corporation, and it’s a Hell of a lot more fun to boot. Nobody ever said you couldn’t do this process while having fun and making some amazing memories, after all.
Life isn’t a game where you get a high score, and you aren’t your fucking job, so don’t define your life with it. While you can, make summer your sacred refuge to recharge, rebuild and enjoy what you’ve achieved so far. Take your summers to have a blast and work on making yourself happy. You’ll thank yourself in the long run.