Good Reasons to Put Your Phone Down

Not so long ago, it was relatively rare for anyone to own a mobile phone. Everyone remembers those images of eighties' yuppies with giant brick-like contraptions in their hand. However, mobiles really caught on in the nineties as the size of handsets shrunk and their cost came down. During this time, most people looked at mobile phones as being useful in an emergency. If you had a breakdown on the motorway or some kind of accident, you could easily get in contact with someone. It didn't take long to realise the mobile could be used for other purposes, such as texting, though, so that you could now stay in contact with someone without the hassle of actually having to speak. The functionality of phones has continued to improve over the years, and they can do so much more.

Indeed, today's smartphones enable you to listen to music, chat in 'real time,' take pictures and video footage, play games and download an assortment of different programmes and applications. Thus, it isn't unusual to see people walking around in a zombified state, with their mobiles in their hand, texting or playing games. In some ways, this technological leap has been beneficial. After all, it is much easier to interact with other people and to stay in touch. It is easier to order goods and services on the move and to enjoy the entertainment that's on offer, such as music, films and games. Sometimes, it's good to escape during your lunchbreak or on your daily commute by messing around on your phone.

However, it could be said that even though smartphones and more basic kinds of phone enable individuals to stay in touch, people make less effort with people in real life as a result. It's easy to send a text to someone, but what about real-life interaction? At the end of the day, online interaction isn't quite as satisying as the real thing and if you come to rely too heavily on texting as your main form of communication, it may be tougher to adapt to real-life social situations, especially if you're shy to begin with. Owning a phone that does everything means you don't have to look up and if you're shy it may be easier to keep hiding behind your online persona.

You might actually miss out something, because you're so busy looking at your phone that you don't bother to pay attention to how you're feeling. Often, at live gigs, people end up spending their whole time fliming the event, instead of taking the time to appreciate the atmosphere and, ultimately, the images you see on screen are nothing compared to actually being there. It can also be dangerous, because there are people who use their phones when they're walking along or driving and if you're playing with your phone instead of concentrating on what you should be doing, you could walk into other people or walk into the road, and if you're in a car you could end up knocking someone over or off their bike.

Clearly, there are distinct advantages of having a phone that is multi-functional, but there is a real world out there, too. Phones can enhance your life, but if your whole life revolves around them, there is a problem. Whilst in the past, mobiles were for emergency purposes only, so you could contact someone if you were in desperate need; these days it is almost impossible to escape from other people and you're considered odd if you don't have a phone that does everything and choose not to text people every few hours. It isn't always a bad thing to swim against the tide, though!

Good Reasons to Avoid School Reunions

School reunions give you an opportunity to meet up with people you went to school with. However, isn't it the case that if you'd wanted to stay in touch with any of your school mates, you would have done so? People tend to go along to school reunions because enough time has passed for them to look back fondly on their school days. At the time, they may well have dreaded school, but now they're older they look back nostalgically at when they were young and had their whole life ahead of them. Of course, once you meet the people at your school reunion, you're usually quickly reminded of why you didn't bother to stay in touch with any of them!

At a school reunion you generally want your old school mates to think that you're successful and that life is going great, regardless of the truth. Everyone else is exactly the same and so you all end up exaggerating about the exciting things you've been doing since leaving school. Of course, there will be those who have actually lived glamorous, adventurous lives, which only serves to make you feel worse. You look at where everyone else is and it's easy to become dissatisfied with your own life, even though you had perhaps never doubted how content you were before. You just realise that if you'd made different decisions in your past, you could be somewhere else in your present.

Maybe you will have stayed in touch with some of your old school mates, so why bother to meet up with the rest when you had very little interest in your school mates at the time? It might be interesting to catch up with people and to find out where everyone is, but you're thrown back into an environment where everyone is judging each other again. If things haven't been going so well, this isn't necessarily something you want to admit to and you can find yourself being rather economical with the truth to avoid embarrassment. It may be that the people you did actually want to catch up with don't bother to turn up, anyway, especially if they're not happy with their own lives.

School reunions give you a chance to drink, reminisce and evaluate your life as it stands. Whilst some people love the nostalgia of school reunions, for many people they are just a reminder of where they went wrong in life. At school they didn't have any worries or responsibilities and had yet to make any decisions that would really affect their lives. By the time people go to their school reunion, they may have married, divorced, had children, chosen a career they don't enjoy and not really done anything of note. There is too much pressure at school reunions to emphasise all the great things you've been doing in life, when the chances are your life has been just as monotonous as everyone else's for much of the time.

Good Reasons to Stay Single

When you're single, it often feels that you're surrounded by couples or other single people who continually complain about being single. However, what is wrong with wanting to be single? Not everyone is interested in all that hand-holding and romantic nonsense! Of course, sometimes being in a relationship does have its benefits; you can drag your partner to social events that he doesn't want to go to and bore him to death with what is going on in your favourite soap. However, being in a relationship also means having to take into consideration the other person's interests and feelings, which can be somewhat of a hassle.

Being single means that you don't have to answer to anyone other than yourself, so that if you want to have a night out with your friends, you can, without having to explain where you've been or what you've been doing until the early hours of the morning. You can flirt with lots of other men and not have to feel guilty that you could be doing something wrong. You don't have to settle for one man, because you can play the field and see what exactly is out there. Just because you're single doesn't mean you have to be sat at home all alone, watching television and crying yourself to sleep at night!

At the same time, you don't even have to bother with members of the opposite sex romantically, if that's not what you desire. When you're single you can enjoy the fact that you have your house or flat to yourself and that you can determine how you use that space. You can keep your living area as messy or as tidy as you want; you can eat what you want, when you want; and you can basically do whatever you feel like without trying to please anyone else. Sometimes, when you're in a relationship with someone it isn't always easy to be yourself around that person, which clearly isn't an issue when it's just you. Being single means that you are in control of your finances.

Although sometimes it might be nice to have someone to help you pay the household bills, being financially independent means you can spend your money how you want. If you want to go out clubbing with friends or take a spontaneous trip abroad, you can do so without having to justify yourself to anyone. It might be nice to have someone to do things with, which being in a relationship helps with, but you can be single and still have friends to go out with. Not everybody wants to get married and have children, and even those who do can surely appreciate that there are certain benefits of staying single for awhile!

Good Reasons to Want to Lose Weight

There are plenty of good reasons to lose weight, especially those pertaining to the state of your health. Losing weight gives you an opportunity to overhaul your lifestyle, so that you make healthy eating a priority and exercise into a habit. By eating healthily and exercising regularly you will be able to lose weight, so that you find yourself able to move around easier and faster without getting out of breath or experiencing discomfort of any kind. Clearly, if your weight is having a detrimental impact on your quality of life, losing weight is the only solution, so that you can get your life back on track.

Losing weight is a positive step to take when you're carrying so many extra pounds that your weight is interfering with your life. If you are finding it increasingly difficult to take part in activities that people of a normal weight take for granted, then weight loss can help. You may be struggling to find a job because of your size and having difficulty leaving the house and socialising because of your size; your confidence can take a severe knock when you're subjected to abuse because you're overweight. At the end of the day, though,you have to lose weight for your own sake.

You shouldn't have to lose weight just because you don't fit in with someone else's idea of a suitable size, but when you're constantly told you're fat and ugly, it is not surprising if you fixate on the idea of being slim. After all, you want to be able to wear whatever you feel like without worrying about how fat you look, and to be able to do what everyone else does with ease. You want to know that you're not going to get stuck in a theatre seat or be stared at when you go to a restaurant, which losing weight might be able to help with.

Losing weight can help to give you the confidence you need to pursue other interests in your life. Sometimes, your weight can hold you back, perhaps making you doubt yourself, so that you don't bother applying to university or trying to obtain a promotion. You may have difficulty meeting new people and socialising because you are so self-conscious of your weight, whilst your love life may be non-existent if you are so negative about your size. Losing weight could therefore benefit your social life.

Most important of all, though, is the fact that losing weight could extend your life significantly. To lose weight and keep it off, you have to embrace better eating and exercise habits, which will ultimately improve your health. Losing weight will mean that your heart is under less strain, so that you are at less risk of having a heart attack or stroke, whilst your blood sugar levels will be under control so that you have less chance of developing diabetes. You will look and feel healthier, which is particularly important if you decide to start a family of your own, something that weight loss can actually increase the chances of!