It's a World of Laughter

It's funny what people can achieve. It's also funny how we are all able to relate to everything. You might be thinking, "What?" Well I'll tell you what, if you'd just give me a second. I was looking at my old post, and I saw a comment made about the boutique Blossom, how a friend from my old ward was related to the girl who started up that boutique. And then I started thinking, well that's a really cool thing to do. Start up a boutique. And the owner is just a regular person. What other just regular people do I know? And then I thought, well, Brooke White was a regular person, and I knew her when she was in my old ward. Then she went on American Idol, and now she's not just a regular person. Cool, right? So I could start up a boutique or I could be on American Idol, I could do these things that seem like pretty big achievements. Ok so on to relateability. That's not a word. Whatever, you know what I mean. Ok so relateability is being able to find a way to connect yourself to another person in a relatively short amount of steps. Old people are especially good at this. Actually, adults are, because my parents constantly ask me who my friends' parents are so they can see if they know them. Most of the time they don't so this gets annoying. But anyway, I once heard that you can connect yourself to another person in 7 or less "links" or steps, no matter their obscurity. For example, say you need to write a report on cancer. No one that you immidiately know has cancer. But in a few steps you'll be able to find someone who does. Maybe you have a teacher whose sister has cancer. Ok so that was two steps. Easy. Maybe you want to brag about being connected to Brooke White. Well, my dad was a home teacher to the White family, and he taught them once a month. So my dad knows the Whites personally, including Brooke. So my dad knows Brooke White. That's two steps. And maybe you're thinking, alright you're using things that are fairly easy to access. Then how about I try to relate myself to..... Obama. Step 1: last year I sat next to a girl in Enviromental Science whose dad is in Congress. Step 2: He, since he works in the political scene, has met the President. Agh look there's two steps again. And given, for a lot of these things you might have to stretch, especially if you pick some random kid in Africa (one of my school clubs did a humanitarian project for some of the victims in some of the warring countries there. that's about 3 steps). It really is about knowing the things around you, being involved and interested in people's lives. If you can't connect something in 7 steps or less, that just means you haven't branched out enough. And once you do, you'll see that it really isn't such a small world after all. Maybe one day you'll be able to connect yourself to Paris Hilton in three steps or less. But then again, that's not something to really be proud of, now is it?

Back to Counting Sheep, America

I'm in AP psychology and this chapter we're studying right now is on "Sleeping, Dreams, and Drugs". We quite frequently watch movies, and a recent one on sleeping caught my attention. The educated narrator guy said that more and more often in this world there seems to be this pride people have in how many hours of sleep they DIDN'T get. How often do you hear people saying they "only got 4 hours of sleep last night," or that they pulled an "all-nighter"? It's like they have to have SOME reward for depriving their bodies of sleep. So they get the glory and recognition and "Oooo's" and "Ahhh's." Yeah well big whoop. The educated narrator said that as people start pulling away from normal and needed sleeping hours, the affects spread far beyond what we see. Our sleeplessness can cause accidents, cause increased irritability, cause us to become more forgetful, and cause us to become dependent on energy boosters (Coffee, Diet Cokes, and 5 Hour Energy shots) that are not healthy for our bodies. Sleep deprivation drecreases our ability to function properly and fight off viruses (swine flu, anyone??). In our world, we are continually asked to run faster, jump higher. And as we try to run faster and jump higher than we did the day before, we just need more time. So what gets cut out? Sleep, naturally. Or maybe, not so naturally. Studies are showing that as we start to become more dependent on technology, we bring it into our bedrooms, and when we bring it into our bedrooms, our psyche doesn't classify our bed as somewhere to solely rest and rejuvinate. It's a place to also text, watch T.V. or use our lap tops. Being in this mindset keeps us from falling into a restful sleep, even when we want to. Sleep is not so "natural" anymore. We move away from what our bodies naturally expect in a sleeping environment, into a virtual world where we can talk to someone in Thailand with a click of a mouse. It cannot be good, turning our rooms from dark quiet sanctuaries into unearthly blue-glowing technology labs. That's a little extreme, I know, but as we continue to not sleep, as a nation we will start to turn into zombies, the living dead. And no one will think anything of it until a few of us start to drop dead while walking down the street, eyes red, complextions pale. So let's all prioritize a little better, do our associates a favor, and find time to sleep. Maybe that and some Vitamin C will take the place of getting an H1N1 shot.