I’m standing in front of the microwave, tapping my foot, waiting for water to heat up.

Then I stopped and started laughing at myself. Am I really so impatient that I can’t wait two minutes for water to boil?

Unfortunately, the immediacy of the Internet and social networking has caused many of us to become irritated when something cannot be done instantly.

We count on text messages to be replied too quickly and can voice our thoughts immediately to all of our friends through Facebook and Twitter.

What happens when you’re sick?

You post as your status how terrible you’re feeling and people comment on it, saying they hope you feel better soon.

But does anyone ever actually come and help you?

Hopefully the answer is yes, but not always.

There’s an old Chinese proverb that says, “when you fall into a pit, you either die or get out.”

That seems rather obvious.

Taken literally, if you fall into a big, dark hole, you either die of starvation down there or find a way out. What isn’t so self-explanatory however, is how you get out.

The people you call friends outside of the Internet world are the ones that come throw you a rope and pull you out.

Yet, if we spend all of our time on our computers and cell phones, we don’t have the opportunity to make those rope-throwing friends.

I participated in an incredible track meet last weekend.

What made it incredible, however, was not the number of medals received; it was the enthusiasm that each Baker athlete had toward his or her teammates.

Usually, track is more of an individual sport, but when the meet ended, our voices were hoarse from cheering for each other. Notice, our fingers were not sore from texting good luck or congratulations.

Recently, a computer named Watson was invented to compete against humans in Jeopardy.

While that computer might be able to answer questions about all-star athletes and winning streaks in college sports, it was not able to answer questions about human experiences.

This week, whenever you might be tempted to spend an hour on Facebook, instead, challenge yourself to spend time with the people in your life that matter to you; the ones that you know would, and have, throw you a rope.