A Letter To Youth
Dear youth,
I am writing this letter on my free day and sitting on my desk simultaneously playing online chess titans on my computer, listening to music through my headsets on my phone, drinking lemonade because I don’t drink fizzy drinks, and attempting to surf the internet in research for a literary agent for my novel. I have just won three games against my computer and it seems like the forth round is not for me. The current playing song in my headsets is Word Crimes by Yankovic. And oops! My server just went off and my internet has paused.
It’s okay. I can handle it. I’m not a teenager anymore but I’m still young and vigorous. I’m a youth, and youth is what I am. Youth handles everything, right? Or not?
The thing is I do miss my teenage years, in especially when I first hit puberty. My mind wasn’t going to let me handle this multi-tasking then. It was like a person of its own – doing its own thinking separately while my heart did its own feeling aside – and my body was just being transited by hormones I didn’t even ask for. I felt like three people at once. Yet, the three people who couldn’t work together in a common ground. My mind, my body and my soul were all just working against each another and causing within me emotional mood swings; frustrations, bouts of the blues, and you can go.
Now, I’m stopping everything that I’m doing to memorise a bit about those years of my growing pains. My music is now turned off. My lemonade glass is on the desk next to my now hibernating computer.
In retrospect, I remember I was so excited before hitting puberty. Then I wasn’t so excited at the onset and the route of it. Then I was really excited afterwards. I was excited because like any child I anticipated being a grown up adult someday. Then I wasn’t so excited because I didn’t realize that the phase did not only affect my physical growth, but it also affected my thoughts and feelings. My ultimate excitement after passing through the phase was realizing that I did not fail myself – #YOLO – I did not make the biggest and stupid mistakes that most teenagers do about their lives during the phase.
Young people, in especially teenagers, often get the wrong perspectives about life in their teenage years. They are often easily manipulated by the media and their peers during that stage of life when they are more confused and are prone to gullibility. You must have seen those cringe laudable ads that promote life of YOLO. There are also hundreds of other movie series and TV programs that encourage life of immorality, violence, depressive speech, etc. Such influences are the kind that destitute young people of the right perspective about life.
As a young person, you have a purpose and you have dreams. You make goals and you want to plan for them. You have a vision of how your life should or will be in the next couple of years. And whatever you’re doing today either brings you a step closer to your vision or a step furtherer from it. Although life is not an execution platform, while you’re still young is the best stage in your life to learn to examine, appreciate and determine who you are, and to also decide for yourself that you’re here for the purpose – and that your existence is reason enough that you’re sole and therefore should take care of yourself.
Welcome Aboard
YoungWize is here to turn on the tap for what grows – for you. For it matter much, that you were called forth to fulfill the purpose – that you were meant to be your precious self.
There are thousands of other youth blogs and websites out there, but I’m certain that my blog differs from all of them in that its essential purpose is not to sermon and moralize on issues. YoungWize’s goal is not to conceal and mend, but to motivate you and inspire you to find the best there is within you to rise up to a challenge, any challenge be it may, and meet a moment head on. But most crucially, YoungWize is here to love and value you as a youth.
The sense of my optimism infused the first post I wrote for you, so given it’s the dawn of our time together. It is well researched with information that’s wholesome and that will urge you to seek new perspective in life. If you think you know the real meaning of the word impossible, then think again. There’s no Such a Thing as Impossible is the column that welcomes you into the real world of wise youth.
On random months, I will be posting a single column along with its blogger’s letter between the 20th and the last day of a month. Each column will have its unique theme, however the contents will relate as you shall notice with this month’s blogger’s letter, A Letter to Youth, and the column mentioned above. The theme of the following article and blogger’s letter will be posted in advance on Your Say page in the website, and also on YoungWize social media accounts, both Facebook and Twitter is @YoungWizeBlog.
YoungWize is not just a youth blog, but it’s a youth platform as well. And I am proud to let you know that Your Say page is exactly where you have your say. There is a form in the page where you can fill up your details and the suggestion of a topic you’d like me to write about.
I’m looking forward to receiving those suggestions. And until then, welcome to YoungWize, your youth motivational and inspirational blog by me,
Ah-Liang T E