If you text while driving a car you will possibly die a unpleasant death, or at the lowest, turn out to be a terrible disfigured burn victim shunned by society. What’s more is that by doing it, you also endanger the lives of people on the streets and others on the road too. It might sound like hyperbolic exaggeration, however it is advice that nobody should wait to heed until after a closed-casket funeral.

Of around 3 billion cell phone subscribers on earth, over 2.4 billion of which have used cell phones for text messaging, rendering it one of the most huge technologies on earth. With about a third as many automobiles on the road across the world, there is a very substantial overlap in users. However, they should never be used together.

Virtually any use of text messaging, whether receiving and reading a text, or typing and sending one, constitutes distracted or even reckless driving, which is a ticketable offense in most states and can end up in one’s license being revoked in extreme or repetitive circumstances. It’s common sense really: the attention you devote to your phone while texting is withdrawn from the road, increasing your risk of an accident. And yet, in spite of the obvious risks, surveys have indicated that almost 46% of teens have used cell phones while driving.

Research and tests have indicated that driving while distracted by reading an email or text while driving adds about 36 feet to one’s stopping distance. The process of sending a text can add as many as 70 feet to one’s stopping distance at 70 miles per hour. Operating a cell phone can add approximately a full second to one’s reaction time while driving, which sounds small until you give some thought to that at 70 miles per hour, one second of travel totals to over a hundred feet. In comparison, driving at just over the legal alcohol limit adds only a tenth as much time to one’s reaction, or in terms of distance: 4 feet.

In 2008, a passenger train collided head on with a freight train in the Chatsworth district of Los Angeles when the passenger train ran a red stop light going into a single track section of the line that was currently occupied by the freight train, which the train’s dispatcher had given to the go ahead. The conductor of the passenger train had been distracted by text messaging when he ran the red light. 25 people were killed in the accident and another 135 injured, many of them critically. Though not specifically a car accident, the train collision nonetheless occurred for reasons that are equally dangerous in an automobile. And whereas a train need only accelerate or decelerate, a driver has full control over the vehicle which is jeopardized when a used cell phone is in play.

Birthday celebrations are a well-liked personal holiday for many around the world, necessitating cheap party supplies and numerous gifts, but it was not often so. For much of human history, numerous cultures did not seem to reckon one’s own birthday to be of special importance. No cheap party supplies back then! For there was no point towards the commemoration of oneself for many back then, in predemocratic times when society as well as the planet was not generally so concerned with the individual. Indeed, numerous religious traditions discourage or even forbid it, to this very day (more on this soon).

Herodotus, the historical Greek no considered “the father of history,” believed that birthday celebrations went back towards the ancient Persians (modern-day Iranians). No mention is produced of any cheap party supplies, but Herodotus did observe that these historical Persians ate “little solid food but an abundance of dessert” for the a single day out of all the rest in a year that they revered most, their birthdays. Other historical peoples were also given over to birthdays, evidently; the Bible specifically mentions Pharaoh’s birthday. Where sundries for such events, like bowling party supplies, were available is still open to debate in anthropological communities. In some with the more conservative Jewish and even Christian traditions, birthdays aren’t celebrated for just that reason, their association with pagans. Indeed, numerous religions have prohibitions against idolatry, as well as the celebration with the self, even if only for a day, would seem, according to numerous of the strictest most conservative interpretations, to smack of idolatry and self-aggrandizement, which is really a principal sin.

In most forms of Orthodox Judaism, one’s Jahrzeit, or day of passing, is given great significance while little mention is produced of one’s birthday. This feelings goes back to the Book of Ecclesiastes, wherein the Wise King in Jerusalem (traditionally held to become none other than Solomon himself) observes that “a great name [that is, reputation] is much better than good oil, as well as the day of death than the day of birth.” Other rabbis, nevertheless, teach that birthdays could be useful for encouraging self-reflection.

Greek Orthodox Christianity prefers the celebration of name days (particular dates devoted for the saints right after whom one was named) over birthdays, but don’t prohibit birthdays outright. Jehovah’s Witnesses and other “sacred name” adherents about the peripheries of mainstream Christianity do prohibit birthdays. Among Muslims, there is no prohibition against birthdays, but concern above its Western roots and connotations, especially those associated with an emphasis on the self and individualism (right after all, “Islam” means “submission” or “to submit!”).