Every day, teenagers wake up, attend school, go to extracurricular activities, return home, study and finally go to bed. During this formulaic day, they must juggle all of their activities while hopefully maintaining a certain level of happiness.

What is true happiness and how do we get there? This question is philosophical and the answer seems unattainable.

I started thinking about this after my dad told me a story of a nice man in his office who abruptly quit his management job because the stress was unbearable. At first, I looked down upon the man; he quit his job on short notice, let down his coworkers and is now living unemployed while not providing for his family. But then, I started to think: Is he happier now?

What if he is? What if this reckless decision ultimately made him a happier person? Maybe the consequences were not as big as we originally thought. He gets a new job in a few months, and while his financial situation probably took a hit, maybe he is more at ease in his new job. It was worth it. Happiness, we sometimes forget, is the most important thing in the world. Asking ourselves whether or not we are happy is the most important question we can pose, yet we rarely do so.

That girl in your AP Biology class that aces every test and is choosing between Ivy League schools: Is she happy?

The prized athlete with a ton of friends: Where does he stand? If they are not happy, are their accomplishments still useful? I am not saying this to discredit their successes, but simply to raise a point that we very often fail to think about.

We live in a society where we go to school to earn good grades which will potentially allow us to get into a good college. The cycle continues: good grades in college lead us to (hopefully) getting a job where we may work ten-hour shifts for the rest of our lives. Will we be happy then? Will it all be worth it?

There is no simple answer. This question led me to think about what makes me happy. Immediately, I thought of the obvious: my family, friends,

basketball. The list was shorter than I originally thought. Most importantly, all three items on my list were things I sometimes lacked time for.

My mind flashed over the long afternoons cramming for tests, and perfecting my homework. I thought of all the afternoons when I didn’t have time to just sit back and enjoy myself, hang out with my mom or my best friend. If I didn’t study, I would get bad grades, then I’d get into a bad school and get a bad job and I wouldn’t earn a lot of money and then… I’d be unhappy? That had to be it.

But what if I wasn’t? What if, despite what we are taught at such a young age, school isn’t the most important thing in the world, and getting good grades doesn’t ensure a happy life?

I began to ponder something I had never thought of before. How do we measure success? I think the brutally short answer is good grades and, eventually, a high-paying job.

We are so worried about the future and being in the best position going into college that we sometimes forget that these are four vital years of our lives, a large chunk of our childhood. Are we really going to measure its success with a series of grades?

For example, if a student received all A’s in honor classes, would that year be considered a success? What if the student was unhappy, had no friends, or simply did not enjoy day to day life? In the long run, that is one year of his or her lifetime, wasted.

Success should be measured by your happiness. If you went through high school had a blast, and didn’t get the best grades, I truly believe that those four years were successful.

The point of me writing this article is not to say students should drop the textbooks, ditch school and clown around for four years. But they should find a balance between schoolwork and bliss, because sometimes we forget that the success of our life is not measured by how much money we earn or how many A’s are on our sophomore year report card.

I’ve met so many wealthy families who were so much less happy than my own. Those families were simply victims of a society that forces us into the trap of endless work. The businessman that works all day and barely has time for his kids is successful, but if he isn’t happy, what’s the point?

You shouldn’t drastically change your life after realizing that you may have been poorly measuring success, but if you get a C on your English paper, maybe you’ll realize that it’s not the end of the world. If you have a good time, go out with your friends, maybe spend time with your family, you’ll be successful in the most important way: you’ll be happy.