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"Being in high school sucks, you're stuck in a classroom all day, and things are boring and everyone smells bad and puberty's uncomfortable and boners all the time and this is the worst thing ever."

The Reality

If there is one thing I could tell myself at 14, it would be the title of this entry. Because it's true. At 14, you're not legally allowed to work in most states, school is a pointless breeze and you have nothing to be stressed about because you're not paying bills or fighting in a war and no one depends on you for anything. You just have boundless energy, and a stupid amount of free time and no accountability whatsoever. Please don't waste it sleeping in class or dicking around because, in a few years, you won't have time, and a few years after that you'll have even less time, and a few years after that you'll have no time, no energy, and almost everything will hurt in uniquely humiliating ways. You'll stop thinking "Do I feel like doing this fun, stupid thing," and you'll start thinking "I want to do this fun, stupid thing, but I'm also worried about what kind of impact staying up so late is going to have on my delicate sleep schedule."

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I don't mean this to be one of those whiny, "Youth is wasted on the young" articles. Don't get me wrong- growing up is the best. Last Tuesday at midnight, I drove to a grocery store and purchased and ate an entire family-sized bag of those Twizzler Bites that I like because I fucking dare you to stop me. No one's arguing that life, in general, gets more awesome the older you get, (and, while you have more time for fun at 14, you're certainly much better at fun when you're 24). I just feel like instead of trying to prepare our 14-year-olds for high school and college and life, we should feel obligated as humans to let them know they have a window in which to do ridiculously stupid things for a year, and that window will never reopen again. Teachers know that 14 is the last age of socially acceptable stupidity, so why are we even trying to give kids any kind of structure?