Top Ten Reasons to Feel Good About Being Short

I suppose there are plenty of bad things to being short. 

For instance, I find myself lowering music stands and piano stools everywhere I go because I have to see. I can't reach the ground from most seats. I'm stuck with a 3/4 size cello and never will upgrade to a 4/4 size cello. I have to stretch to span an octave on the piano. Us shorties often get picked on. I haven't reached 5' yet as, at the age of 15, I'm sitting at a pretty dismal height of 4'10". This isn't going to be a cheesy, 'oh-isn't-it-great-to-be-short' thing. 

I'm not even going to mention the 'small spaces' topic. Ohhh no. I cannot stand that, when I complain about being short and some tall person says "Oh but you can fit into small spaces!" as if that's the most exciting thing in the world. I suppose it is for hide-and-seek but for the rest of life? It really isn't anything special.

But being short is. 

Vertically challenged, slightly lower to the ground, fun-sized, compact, shortbread. Whatever you call it. And here are my Top Ten Reasons to Feel Good about Being Short.

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1. The Discounts when we can pretend we are younger than we are. Usually is an insult, but can be used to our advantage. "Yes, Pizza Hut, I'm 15. Oh, discount for under 12s? Oh..oh..I didn't know! How old did I say I was? I said I was 12..so I'm eligible?! That's fantastic!" ;-)

2. Dynamite comes in small packages, right? People don't expect it. If I say I'm 15, people seem surprised, and say, "Oh, you're small for your age" as if I didn't already know! But eh well, they probably don't realise what a punch I could pack if I wanted to…

3. We are Better for the Environment. Yes, it is true. We have a much smaller carbon footprint than average/tall people of our age. This is a good one for all you knee-high green beans out there. When people complain that the youth of today are the reason for climate change (as they do) then we can just smile sweetly and say "but I'm better for the environment than you" :D

4. Shorter Person, Stronger Bones. A pretty weird but scientifically proven fact that shorter people tend to have thicker bones. This means we are less likely to break our bones, and therefore have an advantage in combat sports, paintball (yes, we do!), speed skating, football, rugby, field hockey, ice hockey..and life in general.

5. Speed depends on your fast/slow twitch muscle fibres, your muscular makeup as a whole and your fitness. But height is such a massive factor in it. Yes, you get short marathon runners, and tall sprinters..but in general, shorter people are faster runners. So if we combine No. 2 with this one, with the disadvantage of being picked on...we can punch them where it hurts, then sprint off before anyone else has the chance to think!

6. Being the Baby of the Group is sometimes diminishing but often fun. People want the opinion of the 'short one' and you can stand on a chair to talk to them without it being a health and safety hazard ;-)

7. We are Less Susceptible to Brain Damage. Alright. That's a lie. But what I mean by that is we can ignore those 'Mind your Head' signs. We don't have to duck at low doorways. We can just grin and walk straight through >:-)

8. Height Restriction? Nah, not me. The only thing I feel cancels out the problem of rides we're too short for, is places we are short enough for! Soft play centres for instance. The warm kiddie pools at swimming baths. Some caving expeditions which go into small caverns with very low ceilings that even we have to bend down for. And what's more, we can make our taller friends jealous as anything by doing this :P

9. We are Cheaper in the long run clothes-wise. Do you know why? Because statistically, people who are under the 5th percentile for their age grow much slower than people who are over the 50th percentile. This may seem depressing at first thought, but think about it in terms of clothes. How often are our taller friends complaining that they've grown out of their favourite sweater/jumper/t-shirt/shorts etc.? But we can stay in ours for longer. Our favourites might still be our favourites 4 years later (yes in my case!) and the same applies to shoes. So we buy less. So we cost less :o

and finally…

10. Let's Make it a Long Life and enjoy every minute because we have a longer life than our taller friends! Of course, this sadly doesn't account for terminal illness or accidents or other out-of-the-mist things but in general, we get longer lives. The chance to be better for longer. Trust me, that's a good thing! :-)

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Bye for now!

Liz △