Buying Is Doing?

How important is shopping to you? How much time do you spend buying things? And how much time do you spend organizing these things in your home? In the future, how much time will you spend in movie theaters, at amusement parks, at shopping malls, or at convenience stores? When you add it all up, you will probably see you spend a lot of your life consuming（消费）things. Consuming products is not necessarily bad. However, if we spend too much time doing it, we should look at it carefully.

Imagine that you have a week off from school. You don’t have to go to class. However, in this week, you cannot spend any money — no shopping, no movies, no eating out. How would you spend your time?

What things would bring you happiness? Perhaps you would take a walk with your best friend. Perhaps you would help a child read. Or you might spend time with your family.

When we look back, it is likely that non-consuming experiences like these will be our most important memories. Why? Non-consuming activities are active, not passive. They don’t come in a package. You make the experience yourself. For example, each person who reads to a child will have a different experience. The experience changes with the reader, the child, and the book. Similarly, when you have a conversation with a friend, you are actively creating an experience. The conversation that you have with your friend cannot be experienced or recreated by anyone else. However, if you watch a movie with a friend, you will each have a package experience. It requires no action and little interaction between the two of you.

The environment we live in encourages us to have packaged experiences. We feel that we must consume because we believe that buying is doing. However, we can start a personal revolution（变革） against consumerism. How? By consuming less, we can ask ourselves what experiences bring us the greatest satisfaction. Then we can organize our lives so that we have more of those kinds of experiences.

Say you’re sitting around with some friends playing video games and someone mentions a game that happens to be one of your favorites. “Oh, that game’s easy. So not worth the time,” one of your friends says.The others agree. Although you enjoy the game quite a lot, not wanting to argue with them, you go along with the crowd.

You have just experienced what is commonly referred to as peer pressure（同伴压力）, also called peer influence. You will adopt a certain type of behavior, dress, or attitude in order to be accepted as part of a group of your “peers”. As a teen, you are likely to have experienced the effect of peer pressure in a number of different areas.

We are all influenced by our peers at any age. For teens, as school and other activities take you away from home, you may spend more time with your friends than with your family. As you become more independent, your peers naturally play a greater role in your life.

According to Dr. Casey from Cornell University, teens are very quick and accurate in making decisions on their own and in situations where they have time to think. However, when they make decisions in the heat of the moment or in social situations, their decisions are often influenced by factors like peers. In a recent study, teen volunteers played a video driving game, either alone or with friends watching. The researchers discovered that the number of risks teens took more than doubled when their friends were watching, compared with when they played alone. This shows that teens may find it more difficult to control risky behavior when their friends are around, or in situations where they are extremely angry. Just as people can influence us to make unwise choices, they can also influence us to make good ones. A teen might join in a volunteer project because his or her friends are doing it, or get good grades because his or her friends think getting good grades is important. In fact, friends often encourage each other to study, or try out for sports.

While we are always influenced by those around us, the decision to act or not is up to us. So when it comes to decision making, the choice is up to you.

Lara and Tara are twins.
36．, but they are very different in everything else. For example, hot food is Lara’s favorite, and Tara has a sweet choice.

However, this isn’t the problem with the twin girls. They always argued that the opposite one was wrong.
37．, while Tara insisted that mornings were fresh and it was difficult to stay up till midnight.
38．. To put an end to their fights, their parents decided to create a small drama. They wanted the girls to understand that they were both correct from their own point of view. Their parents covered the girls’ eyes with black ribbons, and brought them to the dining room.
39．Lara was asked to stand on one side of the board and Tara on the other. They couldn’t see the other side of it. When the ribbons were taken away, they were surprised to see a huge board between them.

Now, their father asked Lara, “What’s the color of the board?” She replied, “It’s black!”
40．She replied, “It’s white!” The two girls began to argue again. While Lara was confident it was black, Tara was sure it was white. Then, they were asked to exchange（交换）their places. They couldn’t believe their eyes. Tara, who insisted it was a white board, saw a black one. Similarly, Lara, who argued the board was black, was shocked to see a white one. They understood that each of them was right in her own view. Most of us are like Lara and Tara. We are right most times, but insist that others are wrong!

   （2017﹒北京）假如你是李华，正在美国参加一个交换生项目。今天下午你应邀和朋友Jim 一家外出，请用英语给接待家庭的妈妈Mrs. Smith 写一个留言条，告诉她你们要去哪里，去做什么，以及你回家的时间和方式。

提示词语：park, movie theater, go boating, watch a movie

提示问题：Where are you going?

What are you going to do?

When and how will you get home?

My friend Jim asks me to go out with his family this afternoon.______________________________________

Yours,

Li Hua