The 12 Meme’s of Christmas

During the holiday season it is customary for people to do a number of traditional activities.  These can include chopping down and decorating a tree, cooking seasonal foods and of course, listening to holiday music. 

As there are only a few total Christmas songs that exist, you tend to hear the same ones quite often.  One that has always stuck out to me is the “12 Days of Christmas” song and its numerous variations.  There’s the ever popular “12 Pains of Christmas”, Jeff Foxworthy’s “12 Redneck Days of Christmas” and even the Muppets version of the original song. 

I feel it is appropriate for me to create a new tradition for the Christmas season.  As our world becomes more and more social media driven and people have become almost entirely dependent upon the internet, it is only right for it to be a tradition that features some of the best from the World Wide Web. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I present a holiday gift to you, the “12 Memes of Christmas”. 

12.  Sweet Brown Ain’t Nobody Got Time Fo Dat

We have all heard the song, the "12 Days of Christmas,"  Now a days, people are busy, we don't have time for one day, let alone 12!

11.  Overly Attached Girlfriend

We have all had that significant other at one time or another...

10.  Questioning Raptor

The PhilosoRaptor is known for questioning the things that matter most.

9.  Soon Meme

Because Christmas is always here sooner than you think. 

8.  And It's Gone

It's also gone before you know it. 

7.  Yao Ming Bitch Please Face

This was the feeling you had the first year you finished Christmas Shopping early.

6.  Success Kid

Because hey, sometimes bad things have a silver lining...

5.  Oprah You Get a Car

Buying gifts for people with money you don't have.  Awww Yes.

4.  Ned from Game of Thrones

You are probably wonder if we are close to done yet... Maybe this should have been 12.

3.  Futurama Fry Not Sure If

We have all been there.  Sometimes you aren't popular enough to merit an individual text.

2.  Stoner Stanley

We all have that one friend who never gets the words right, whether they are wasted or not.

1.  Y U No Guy

Of course there is always that one light that ruins it for everyone.  Why the hell can't they make a more efficient system.  

Happy Holidays people, no matter which one you celebrate!  Take some time, open some presents, and most important, enjoy the time with your loved ones. 

Patience is a Virtue

Patience has never been one of my strong suits, at least not since I was a kid building Legos or playing with Matchbox cars.

I find myself, as everyone does, growing older each day.  Learning more about the world we live in and more about myself.  Over the last few weeks I've learned a valuable lesson, a lesson in patience.

Lately, I’ll agree and I’ll be the first to say that I am no poster child for the patience movement.  I drive fast, which leads to road rage.  I hate to wait in lines.  For Christ’s sake if the drive thru lane takes more than a minute I’m getting antsy anymore.

They say, “Good things come to those who wait.” 

The question is, how long?

Eight years.  That’s the approximately how long the American Revolutionary War lasted.

The American patriots knew it would be a long road, especially fighting against the world’s best army at the time, but they did it anyway.  Eight years they fought a war that they nearly came close to losing a number of times.  Eight years they were able to stick to a plan, a vision, an ideal that kept them going through all of the bad times and all of the losses.

Furthermore, the story of Valley Forge, where General George Washington and his troops nearly lost not only their lives, but the cause as well.  With morale very low and food and supplies even lower the patriot army hunkered down for the winter in Pennsylvania. 

Despite a very long winter and a span of six months, the Americans came out of Valley Forge with a renewed vigor and a taste for liberty. 

After receiving a number of new supplies nearly three months into their stay in Valley Forge, the troops also acquired training from some Frenchmen that were newly appointed allies in the war on Britain.

The point I am trying to make is that without hardships and without obstacles, there is no way we know what we are really capable of.  George Washington was known for acknowledging that the soldiers went through a very dark and desperate time during the war, but these hardships instilled the values of perseverance and the ability to endure anything.  These renewed soldiers used this momentum from inside and spring boarded off of the winter of 1777-78 and by the fall of 1778 had won the war.

Today, most people are in such a hurry to get things done and are always wanting to save time.  The problem is they get so caught up in rushing that they forget to slow things down and admire the time they are in now. 

My situation, which I solely believe can only be cured by the passage of time, will no doubt work out the way I hope it does.  I have faith, a clear goal and know what I want.  Trying to rush things has never led to anything good for me, so if I have to use the brake pedal to get things right, it’s not going to kill me. 

History, whether you like it or not, can teach us a number of lessons.  What happened to you has undoubtedly happened to someone else out there before.  If you look at what those people did, what worked and what did not, you will be able to better figure out your own situation. 

Thanks to the past and the urging of a few close friends, I can now clearly see that taking a little extra time to get things right is the obvious choice. 

I've now realized that the question shouldn't be how long, but how long am I willing to wait?

The answer to that question surprised me, and frankly it’s a nice change.  The answer I came up with is, “as long as it takes.”  

ADD or evolution?

What is A.D.D?  Take a moment and think about it.  And for the love of god don’t “Google” it, bah, it’s probably too late already anyway.

Attention Deficit Disorder, let’s discuss this.  When did you first hear the term?  For me it was in the mid to late 90’s when I found out about this so-called disease.

Upon further review it is classified as a lack of focus, the inability to set your mind on a task and finish it.  It seems that just about every child now a days is considered to have it, hell even some adults.

A quick bit of research on the disease allows you to see that in popular belief, the first cases of it were in the 1970’s. 

Fast forward to todays fast paced world, full of gadgets and gizmos to keep you more informed and socially connected to everyone from family to friends and even those people you hated in high school. 

Technology has single handedly destroyed human communication, at least in a personal sense.  It has made it’s users, who were once brilliant, vibrant and had a thirst for knowledge that was unquenchable, into empty shells with little to no communication skills and even worse, clueless empty headed fools who depend on search engines to spell and do math for them.

Remember evolution? How a creature adapts to its surroundings to survive.  I believe this is again happening to the human race, but this time it is actually reverting us to a lesser life form.

We have become a society that solely depends on technology.  Whether it is at work, in the classroom or even in your own free time.  We have become decadent and lazy. When was the last time you put your phone down and had an actual conversation with someone?  I don’t just mean five minutes; I’m talking a few hours, without checking your phone once.   Chances are it has been quite sometime.

With the advancements in technology, it has become far easier to retrieve information than ever before.  State Capitals, translating words from one language to another, medical advice and even the name of that actor in the movie you can’t remember the name of are all accessible at the end of your fingers in just seconds.

Is this a bad thing? No, not necessarily, but it has changed the way out mind works, the way that out mind expects information. 

 The Internet has been around for the better part of 15 years now, scary to think about it that way, I know.  With it’s invention has come a change for the way the human mind works.  Gone are the days of having to search the library for a book, leaf through its pages and actually read a passage to discover a piece of information or knowledge.  Typing and E-mail has replaced writing and letters.  Text messages are the new letters, ones that can be received and replied to in an instant.  No longer do we have to wait for it to be mailed, a response to be written and it to be mailed back. 

What I’m getting at here is that our minds have changed to expect the answers they want right now. 

Our society has lost its patience with the world.  Fast food has replaced home-cooked meals, text messages have replaced actual conversations and social skills have been boiled down to “likes”, “favorites” and “comments”.

This is why I believe A.D.D. has become obsolete.  The only person I can think of off the top of my head that I can say probably does not have this, is my gam-gam.  She cooks her meals, crochets her afghans and watches her old time movies. 

Whatever happened to imagination and the ability to daydream?  To read a book and create your own interpretations of the characters and what you think they look or sound like?  Or to be able to have fun, with out any form of technology to be involved?

Sadly, I too am guilty of over using technology. When used with a purpose, it has great potential.  When used as we are currently doing so, it creates a soul-less population that struggles to communicate when not in front of a lit up screen. 

Attention Deficit Disorder may be classified as a disease or problem, but really its just evolution.  Don’t believe me? Read “On the Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin.  Better yet.  Just “Google” it.