Seven awesome things about youth

Now that I am not shackled by school or its associated boundaries, I have the freedom to truly appreciate youth for what it's worth. Of course, I still go to work, but I work at places that I cannot get away with working at once I obtain a degree because I'd be expected to hold a better paying and less frivolous job. This unbridled freedom to do what I want to regardless of practical concerns has led me to appreciate youth for what it has to offer. Here are seven reasons why I think youth is awesome.

1. Getting away with inane topics
Now that I'm still young, it seems okay to swop fun facts about each other like how many partners we've had or how much our current job pays. It's also ok to poke fun at gay people. It makes for much more interesting conversation than small talk about the immediate surroundings or the economic climate, I would think. However, such questions don't seem to be appropriate in a more adult context. I wonder when is the exact transition when it would be inappropriate to ask about one's salary.

2. Looking good comes easily
Billions are not spent on the weight loss and aesthetic industry for nothing. Celebrities try to pursue youth by Botoxing their faces, self-conscious women diet to achieve a prepubescent figure, while youths like me don't have to do much to look like the fresh-faced ingenues that we are. Men of all ages like sweet young things. It is sad, though, that a woman's sell-by date approaches very quickly. By then, men their age would be distracted by girls a decade younger.

3. Quick reflexes
I cannot appreciate this more than I currently do. Maybe it's the soccer training in my fast-twitch muscles, but I find myself a lot less susceptible to accidents now. I can quickly right myself when I skid on a slippery spot, and I can walk at a decent pace without getting tired. My body is highly attuned to any environmental stimuli and can adapt itself readily.

4. Learning
Similarly, information is absorbed rapidly and I find myself "getting it" rather quickly too. Everything is just on high alert, and well, it's awesome.

5.Healing
Due to aforementioned good reflexes, scrapes hardly occur but whatever injuries that I do sustain recover quickly. For example, my Lasik procedure went by smoothly, and so did my impacted wisdom tooth surgery. No complications, no nothing. It's not just physical healing as well. Emotionally, youths heal better too, though that might be disputed.

6. Intensity of emotions felt
While any setbacks that youths experience might feel a hundred times worse than it is, its emotional intensity is offset by the rapidity of recovery. And really, while feeling strongly for everything may make life feel like a rollercoaster, it is undoubtedly thrilling. I think getting older will definitely be numbing, and life wouldn't be half as fun if you didn't feel as much.

7. Excitement by change and the future
Many youths' lives are in a state of flux. They are climbing whatever ladders they set themselves out to climb, they have less responsibility than an adult but more freedom than a child, everything is going for them, and if things aren't, they still think that they can do what they want to because they are naively hopeful. Now that I'm working, I get to interact with a slice of society that I normally wouldn't get a chance to interact with. I feel a great sense of sorrow when I hear my peers say that they have neither hobbies nor long term goals. In JC, everyone is very driven, since an 'A' Level certificate is a means to end. JC students all want to get somewhere, which is a spirit that sadly, not all youths have. Some youths are, well, bums. Where's the drive in their life that's characteristic of youth?

I'm not gloating about being young, because I know that some day I'll have to wither and age too, but if you're an older person reading this, there's no need to get huffily indignant at an arrogant young sprout like me, because you've had your chance too.