If 62 is the number in red on the top of your math test, for most of us, it's a total disaster. Your entire week is ruined, and 62 is what races through your head for the rest of the day. If 9 is the number of likes on that cute photo you posted the other day, many will feel rather disappointed.

Our lives have become a constant system of ranks, assessments, and numbers. The days of passing judgment on others based on personality are gone, and now we judge based on how good a person's numbers are. We compare ourselves to the numbers of others, such as how low another person's weight is how high their paycheck. Self-worth is no longer based on quality of character, but quantity of numbers.

In today's social media consumed society,it has never been easier for people to broadcast their numbers to the world.A simple click of a button can take you to a page where you can observe the number of friends or followers a person has. Teenagers have taken on this mentality that if you don't have a certain number of followers, then you aren't“cool”. Many feel they are not important if very few people are witnessing their status updates. This state of mind is harmful and not at all accurate.Twitter and Facebook can let the world witness your updates, but they will never let anyone see who you really are. In the end.self-worth should be based on what you think of yourself, not what the world thinks of you.

So next time you receive a failing grade or you lose a follower, remember that these things cannot and should not define(定义)you. You are not your numbers. You are a person-a3-D living and breathing person with ideas and creativity and love that the rigidity of numbers cannot represent. You are the things you love and the things you laugh at and the way you treat others.

A few years ago, Charles Barkley got into a lot of trouble for making the observation that sports figures didn’t need to be role models. Thousands of fans and professional journalists were cross at this attack on the fundamental principle that the person who jumps highest must aim highest and the person who handles the running back must also be able to deal with life’s problems with grace as well.

The problem is not that we look to these people for perfection when they take off their uniforms. It’s that we expect anyone to be our representatives for perfection. That’s stupid and it makes the rest of us down here lazy.

I get the importance of having heroes, the people who inspire us to cultivate the best potential within us and nurture our better angels. I personally have many heroes. from my mother, Lucy, to my favorite law professor, Howard. But these are personal contacts, people who have actually touched my hand and my heart, and who occupy a pedestal (基座) built of my own experiences and aspirations. To look at an athlete or an actress with high salary and demand that he or she match our dreams is not only a waste of time, but it’s dangerous. The danger comes in how this type of hero worship dehumanizes both the object of affection and the person who blindly adores. That was Barkley’s point, not that we should give public figures a pass for being faulty but that we shouldn’t abandon our own moral compasses and look to them for true north.

Recently on a television program I participated in, the discussion turned to Kathleen Kane. Someone suggested that the fact that the first female attorney general (首席检察官) in Pennsylvania was really messing things up could have unfortunate consequences for women seeking elected office. I offered the opinion that Kane was unquestionably criticized and that it was not hatred towards woman but incompetence at the root of the attacks. After the show aired, I had people emailing to tell me that I was either a traitor (叛徒) for publicly attacking a fellow female when we need to stand together behind this “role model”, or a fool for not going a step further to say that this incompetent lawyer had made it harder for all women to move to the next level.

How depressing! Why should the inferior performance of one woman lead to such diverse but passionate views in people? The answer is obvious: Kane has stopped being an attorney general but has instead become The First Female Attorney General. She can’t just make a mistake and pay the normal consequences.

If we stopped trying to live our lives through the accomplishments of public figures, many of whom look and sound like us, we’d learn how to recognize the heroic character of those we might actually know, and the heroic potential within ourselves. Or, perhaps, the honesty to accept our ordinary humanity.

Although new laws have been passed in some American states to cut down on distracted(分心的) driving, many accidents and deaths were still related with it, especially using cell phones while driving. Recently the Obama administration is considering disabling cell phones in cars, aiming to cut down cell-phone-related road deaths.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the nation’s anti-distracted-driving supporter, said in an interview on November 18 that federal officials are looking at technology to disable cell phones inside cars.

“I think it will be done,” LaHood said. I think the technology is there and I think you’re going to see the technology become adaptable in automobiles to disable these cell phones. We need to do a lot more if we were going to save lives.”

Also on Thursday, the transportation government started a new “Faces of Distracted Driving” video campaign that features(以…为特征) people who have been killed or lost their loved ones because of inattentive drivers. The video features heartbreaking stories of children killed in crashes because of phoning or text messaging, and new videos are expected to be added every few weeks.

A driver is four times more likely to crash while u, sing a mobile phone. More than 5,500 people were killed last year by distracted drivers, and another 500,000 were injured. LaHood has said it is never safe to talk on a cell phone while driving, hands-free or not, because it can really cause distraction.

Incidentally, a lot of people seem to agree with this viewpoint—a new research shows nearly two-thirds of Americans support a national ban on the use of cell phones while driving, even if the driver is using a hands-free device(装置). But the research didn’t ask how people feel about government-issued mobile phone scramblers or other disabling devices.