The hazards of texting

I am going to say this on behalf of my own and probably 75% of the girls in this school: I love texting. I text everyday, and just like every other girl, I am pretty much glued to my phone. Of course, every now and then (aka probably every two days, depends on how mad my mom is), my mom decides to take my phone away for a couple days so I won't get addicted. And to be perfectly honest, no matter how annoying it can get, my mom is doing the right thing and protecting me from doing harm to myself.


Very recently, maybe a month ago or something, there was an LA train wreck. A driver who was carrying 222 passengers on the train didn't see the red light and crashed head on to a freight train. 24 people were killed, and 80 were injured. The sad thing is, this would not have happened because the driver was TEXTING his friends. Because he was texting, he got distracted and didn't look on the tracks, and he killed 24 people, including himself.


A couple of years ago, A teenage boy named Patrick Sims killed a 63-year old cyclist because he was texting on the highway. He looked down for a couple of seconds, but it was enough for him to see that he couldn't get out of the way. As a result, he has no cell phone, his liscense was taken away from him, and he was sentenced to 300 hours of community service.


Texting is a very serious business and a huge distraction. We get so on task on what we were initially doing, but the moment we hear that buzz or ring, we stop what we do and we start texting our friends. Believe me, I know how much of a distraction it can be. Sometimes I do my homework and my friend texts me, I start texting them. Because of this, I stay up to 12 doing my homework because I wasn't as productive as I would have been if I didn't have my phone.


I'm not saying to stop texting altogether, because that would be very hypocritical of me, and I can't do that. I'm saying to not let texting be your life. I'm also saying this now especially to the sophomores or juniors who just got their license, because they don't know how much texting can do to them, or how badly they can get hurt by just looking at their phone for a couple of mere seconds. If you get a text while you're driving, wait until you're off the road, because if you don't, you are putting yourself in a life-threatening situation. And seriously, you don't need to answer that text at the moment, no matter how urgent the situation is. Do you want your car looking like this?

Love

According to this, love is defined as "a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person". There's like, 27 other definitions, but this is pretty much the gist of what love actually is. The other day I was watching an episode of One Tree Hill, and I don't remember what season it was, but it was during the scene where Brooke is talking to Lucas during their post-break up session. It was after a ball, where Lucas's basketball coach was saying how he loved his wife so much and something related to basketball. After that Brooke asks Lucas, "Do you think love like that exists anymore?" And it really made me think, because nowadays, I hardly see anyone feel that strongly for something they "love" very much.

Marraige is supposed to be a celebration where a man and a woman bond until their death. Yet, according to divorce rate statistics, almost 50% of all marraiges end up in divorces. Thats HALF of the families. Plus, there's also the couples who don't want to get a divorce for other reasons, yet they don't love their spouse. This is so confusing, because the people are supposed to LOVE each other, yet they treat their serious bond as if its nothing.

Isn't love supposed to be passionate? When you love someone, aren't you supposed to love them, and see yourself in their future and no one else's? Take the book Twlight, for example. The love portrayed in there is so strong that it almost sounds unrealistic. That's an example of what love is really supposed to be. We use the term "love" so loosely now that it's real meaning has faded away.

I'm not trying to be pessimistic and say that love like this doesn't exist anymore. I'm just saying that we don't use love in a way that it's supposed to be used, and we use it very loosely now. It doesn't really make that much of a difference now, because we are high school students and we pretty much use every term loosely, but in the future, we can't just use love as something light. Love is something serious, and it can change your life, either in a good way or bad way.

*update* I'm using Twilight as a reference, and I don't really like the series.