This week I do not really have a definite thought that I want to go on, so I am going to write about a couple of things that I have been thinking about lately.
This week was Thanksgiving. The main things that people think of when someone says Thanksgiving are: long weekend, turkey, feast, giving thanks, football, etc. Of course everyone is excited for a long weekend, who doesn’t love to sleep in and relax rather than working or going to school? And at Thanksgiving we always have turkey and a big feast, it is almost the biggest thing that Thanksgiving is about, although it probably shouldn’t be, and neither should football. Everybody says at Thanksgiving “I am so thankful for everything I have.” Well, truth be told, most people are thankful for everything they have, or at least most of what they have. So whoever says that they are thankful for everything they have is a good person, because they are really grateful at least in that moment, but it does not seem like their thoughts are really on being thankful for the whole time. They go and watch football or do something else like that. I don’t see anything wrong with this; weekends are meant for having a lot of fun. I am pretty sure though, that while they are watching football they are probably not thinking about how blessed they are. I think that all of us, me included, should try during the next Thanksgiving season and the rest of the year to stop every ten minutes or so and name one thing that we are glad we have. This may be easier said than done, but I hope that we can at least try.
One other thing I have been thinking about is something I have never really realized before, but is sort of interesting if you ponder it for a while. There are people out there that I have never met before that may become my best friend, might teach me something that I will remember forever, might save my life even. I don’t know who they are, but I will meet them someday. I realized that when I was four years old I didn’t know most of my friends that I have now. There were little four year olds running around living their own little lives that would someday become my friends, they were out there and I didn’t even know it. They had their own lives, challenges, and they had good times and bad times just like I did. They didn’t know I existed, I didn’t know they existed, but now we are friends. I know this sounds stupid but I just haven’t realized before that there are people whose lives will cross with mine somehow, either I will move to a new area or they will or I will meet them at a party or something and my life might be different from that point on because I met them. Probably not, but I know that my life would be enormously different had I not moved to Layton seven years ago and met all my current friends. Would my friend’s lives be dramatically different if I hadn’t moved here? What I am saying doesn’t make any sense now that I read over it, but it is just such a weird thing if you do understand it!
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Politeness
What would happen if everybody went out of their way to be polite? What about helpful? Everybody would be so much happier, the givers AND the receivers. It might inspire the receivers to give more, thus making a cycle of charity. What if everybody didn’t go out of their way to help others, but at least did a good deed when they saw the need of one? Society would still be a much happier, crime free place, because the people that were helped would not need to break the law or starve in order to survive. What if only a few people did good deeds and hardly any went out of their way to help others? Then nation would be a corrupt nation, in my opinion. Luckily, in this rare case, I am not talking about the United States.
I once read an article in a magazine or some other source that had done a politeness test in many cities around the globe. They tested in a few different ways. They did all of their tests outside Starbucks coffee shops, and did three tests. The one I am telling about happened in New York. The first test was to have a reporter come in with a handful of items and order a cup of coffee. Then the reporter would stumble his or her way to the door. The test was to see if a person would hold the door for them. I don’t remember the exact results, but I think that they said that 45% of the people tested held the door for the reporter. The second test was to have the reporter carrying a faulty briefcase and then have it suddenly pop open, strewing papers everywhere. This time the test was to see who would help to pick up the papers. The results were that 30% of the people would stoop to the ground to help them pick up the paper. I do not remember what the third test was, but it had a similar outcome. These were really good results, higher than the rest of the averages of other countries, aside from the fact that apparently people are more likely to help a woman than a man. There were nations above us in politeness, and below us.
I did not just write down the results of a whole experiment for nothing, I wrote them to show how good our nation does in politeness, and how much we could improve. In seminary recently, we watched a video about a man who left almost complete strangers his few meager belongings when he died. Every one of them had hardly ever met him, but through small acts of kindness they greatly influenced his life. It amazed me that I may have influenced someone out there and that they are eternally grateful to me, or hate me because of something I had done many years ago. After I thought about it for a while, I also realized that there were people who would never remember me, yet they had either helped me or hurt me without even knowing that I would remember it to this day. This has made me a little more conscious to what I do to people every day. If we were all more polite, then nobody would have to have bad memories and we may have found the one way to be truly happy, which is through charity.
I once read an article in a magazine or some other source that had done a politeness test in many cities around the globe. They tested in a few different ways. They did all of their tests outside Starbucks coffee shops, and did three tests. The one I am telling about happened in New York. The first test was to have a reporter come in with a handful of items and order a cup of coffee. Then the reporter would stumble his or her way to the door. The test was to see if a person would hold the door for them. I don’t remember the exact results, but I think that they said that 45% of the people tested held the door for the reporter. The second test was to have the reporter carrying a faulty briefcase and then have it suddenly pop open, strewing papers everywhere. This time the test was to see who would help to pick up the papers. The results were that 30% of the people would stoop to the ground to help them pick up the paper. I do not remember what the third test was, but it had a similar outcome. These were really good results, higher than the rest of the averages of other countries, aside from the fact that apparently people are more likely to help a woman than a man. There were nations above us in politeness, and below us.
I did not just write down the results of a whole experiment for nothing, I wrote them to show how good our nation does in politeness, and how much we could improve. In seminary recently, we watched a video about a man who left almost complete strangers his few meager belongings when he died. Every one of them had hardly ever met him, but through small acts of kindness they greatly influenced his life. It amazed me that I may have influenced someone out there and that they are eternally grateful to me, or hate me because of something I had done many years ago. After I thought about it for a while, I also realized that there were people who would never remember me, yet they had either helped me or hurt me without even knowing that I would remember it to this day. This has made me a little more conscious to what I do to people every day. If we were all more polite, then nobody would have to have bad memories and we may have found the one way to be truly happy, which is through charity.
Friday, November 10, 2006
The information age
The information age, that is what we live in, according to the historians anyway. Over the past few years technology has skyrocketed, there are new devices for researching the smallest particle inside and out or exploring the furthest reaches of our galaxy to the maximum. There are laboratories that research every topic we could barely think of, there are even devices that can extend the human life twenty years beyond what was thought to be our maximum life span a quarter of a century ago. But what has come with these spectacular new inventions and what has been left behind?
Everybody knows what an ipod is, it is a little box with a microchip inside capable of holding hundreds hours of music and entertainment. Who doesn’t want an ipod? Nobody. A color television; these three words seem so basic to us now compared to our super advanced computer language and flashy names for our new gadgets. But back only a quarter of a century ago color TV was just barely coming out, it was the most amazing thing in the world, to be able to see color on television! Wow! What will they think of next? How about the basic computer? It didn’t have color, or icons, or games or anything, it was a black screen with white type that could do basic computations, but it was absolutely stunning to people back then. What about Pong? Pong was the very first video game. You moved your control stick back and forth and watched a grainy white ball bounce across the screen to the other end, it was returned, and then you hit that little white, grainy ball back to the other end again. That was the game, the entire game. NOBODY would want to play that game now, with all of our new games with amazing graphics and tons of challenging levels, I know I would much rather play those that hit a grainy white ball back and forth across the screen, but back then, it was amazing! The idea that the movements of your hand on a stick could control where that ball went was totally new and wonderful! These are the good things that have come with the information age, longer lives, amazing entertainment, and much more “fulfilling” lives altogether. But every good thing has its bad things about it too.
I realize that playing Halo 2 is much more fun to play than Pong will ever be, but because Halo 2 has so many levels and is so intriguing to many people (boys) that the people who play it become so mesmerized by it that they may sit there for hours on end and do nothing besides stare at an illuminated screen shooting virtual people and running around in a virtual world. There are many reality TV shows about teenagers that captivate other people (mostly girls). This is probably the reason that we have so many overweight people in our country, without this technology, yes some of us would still sit around and do nothing, but many more of us would, say, go and do something productive! Thus the information age has its downsides.
The examples above send my message, but really what I want to say is that, though I love our new technology, as I’m sure many of us do, we have lost something through our technological breakthroughs. I watched “A Christmas Story” not to long ago, despite it not being near Christmas. It is based in the 50’s, an age without ipods, reality TV or Halo 2. Life seemed so simple back then, if you had some time on your hands you took a walk or went to the ice cream parlor. I am glad I live when I do, but some days I wish that life could be as it used to be, simple and steady.
Everybody knows what an ipod is, it is a little box with a microchip inside capable of holding hundreds hours of music and entertainment. Who doesn’t want an ipod? Nobody. A color television; these three words seem so basic to us now compared to our super advanced computer language and flashy names for our new gadgets. But back only a quarter of a century ago color TV was just barely coming out, it was the most amazing thing in the world, to be able to see color on television! Wow! What will they think of next? How about the basic computer? It didn’t have color, or icons, or games or anything, it was a black screen with white type that could do basic computations, but it was absolutely stunning to people back then. What about Pong? Pong was the very first video game. You moved your control stick back and forth and watched a grainy white ball bounce across the screen to the other end, it was returned, and then you hit that little white, grainy ball back to the other end again. That was the game, the entire game. NOBODY would want to play that game now, with all of our new games with amazing graphics and tons of challenging levels, I know I would much rather play those that hit a grainy white ball back and forth across the screen, but back then, it was amazing! The idea that the movements of your hand on a stick could control where that ball went was totally new and wonderful! These are the good things that have come with the information age, longer lives, amazing entertainment, and much more “fulfilling” lives altogether. But every good thing has its bad things about it too.
I realize that playing Halo 2 is much more fun to play than Pong will ever be, but because Halo 2 has so many levels and is so intriguing to many people (boys) that the people who play it become so mesmerized by it that they may sit there for hours on end and do nothing besides stare at an illuminated screen shooting virtual people and running around in a virtual world. There are many reality TV shows about teenagers that captivate other people (mostly girls). This is probably the reason that we have so many overweight people in our country, without this technology, yes some of us would still sit around and do nothing, but many more of us would, say, go and do something productive! Thus the information age has its downsides.
The examples above send my message, but really what I want to say is that, though I love our new technology, as I’m sure many of us do, we have lost something through our technological breakthroughs. I watched “A Christmas Story” not to long ago, despite it not being near Christmas. It is based in the 50’s, an age without ipods, reality TV or Halo 2. Life seemed so simple back then, if you had some time on your hands you took a walk or went to the ice cream parlor. I am glad I live when I do, but some days I wish that life could be as it used to be, simple and steady.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Some people disgust me
Sometimes I look at someone and say, “Why don’t they try a little harder?” I realize, according to our counselors, that Utah has an excellent high school graduation rate, but every single day I think I could pick out a new person at our school alone who gets bad grades, and could get good ones if they tried even a tiny bit.
There is a myth at our school; at least it is a myth in my mind, that getting bad grades is “cool.” In my opinion, if you get bad grades because you didn’t try in class, you look like a lazy slug. If you get bad grades because you are happy to do work in class but homework is a no no, then you do no have my respect, but at least you are somewhat motivated. If you get bad grades on purpose however, then I have absolutely no respect for you or the person you are choosing to be. My only exception to having bad grades is if you really do give every assignment and test your very very best and still can’t get anything decent out of it, then in this case and only this case will I take your side of the bad grade issue.
Trust me, I think that every teacher and most of our peers would agree with me that if you try to get bad grades so you can improve your social image, your efforts are in vain. You don’t look cool by looking stupid, maybe to some of your “cool” friends, but they are getting just as bad of grades as you.
I know of many specific examples, but this is one of the really ridiculous ones. There is this boy in my science class, this certain kid manages to keep a C average, which is not bad but it is much less than he could do. He has more potential in him, I know because he was in my second grade class and was one of the kids that always raised his hand and got the answer right. These were his exact words after getting an A on a quiz a few weeks ago; “What!? I got an A? I didn’t even try! Now I look like a nerd!” I couldn’t believe it; he was disappointed that he got a good grade! He was so worried about his social image that he couldn’t stand to improve his grade that will count toward plans for the rest of his life! Chances were nobody, including his friends, would have even know about his good score unless he had shouted it out to the whole class. People like him make me scared for the future of our earth.
I am sure that every one of us in our honors English class at least has enough sense to realize how stupid people like him are. Hopefully it will be the people like us in our advanced classes and not people like him that will eventually run major companies and become president and things like that. Most likely they WILL be people like us, since people like him will be the ones working night and day to get enough money to go back to college and get a better life for themselves while the rest of us, will working at successful jobs because we decided early on that education does matter. Thank you, one and all who actually work at succeeding in life and not sitting on your butt waiting for something to come that never will, the day when stupid people like those who I have mentioned many times in the above paragraphs will no longer exist and everybody will work hard for what they really deserve in life.
There is a myth at our school; at least it is a myth in my mind, that getting bad grades is “cool.” In my opinion, if you get bad grades because you didn’t try in class, you look like a lazy slug. If you get bad grades because you are happy to do work in class but homework is a no no, then you do no have my respect, but at least you are somewhat motivated. If you get bad grades on purpose however, then I have absolutely no respect for you or the person you are choosing to be. My only exception to having bad grades is if you really do give every assignment and test your very very best and still can’t get anything decent out of it, then in this case and only this case will I take your side of the bad grade issue.
Trust me, I think that every teacher and most of our peers would agree with me that if you try to get bad grades so you can improve your social image, your efforts are in vain. You don’t look cool by looking stupid, maybe to some of your “cool” friends, but they are getting just as bad of grades as you.
I know of many specific examples, but this is one of the really ridiculous ones. There is this boy in my science class, this certain kid manages to keep a C average, which is not bad but it is much less than he could do. He has more potential in him, I know because he was in my second grade class and was one of the kids that always raised his hand and got the answer right. These were his exact words after getting an A on a quiz a few weeks ago; “What!? I got an A? I didn’t even try! Now I look like a nerd!” I couldn’t believe it; he was disappointed that he got a good grade! He was so worried about his social image that he couldn’t stand to improve his grade that will count toward plans for the rest of his life! Chances were nobody, including his friends, would have even know about his good score unless he had shouted it out to the whole class. People like him make me scared for the future of our earth.
I am sure that every one of us in our honors English class at least has enough sense to realize how stupid people like him are. Hopefully it will be the people like us in our advanced classes and not people like him that will eventually run major companies and become president and things like that. Most likely they WILL be people like us, since people like him will be the ones working night and day to get enough money to go back to college and get a better life for themselves while the rest of us, will working at successful jobs because we decided early on that education does matter. Thank you, one and all who actually work at succeeding in life and not sitting on your butt waiting for something to come that never will, the day when stupid people like those who I have mentioned many times in the above paragraphs will no longer exist and everybody will work hard for what they really deserve in life.
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