We all do it. When no one is around, we take out our laptops, open an incognito window and start an intense Google search on that killer headache we’ve had all week. 

Why do we take to the Internet for medical problems? Nothing good ever comes out of it. 

We go in with a headache and come out with a brain tumor. 

We know we shouldn’t do it. There are no answers for us on the Internet, just the paranoia of impending doom that comes with WebMD and the black hole of forum posts from random people who think they are doctors.

They aren’t doctors and you’re most likely not dying from what they claim you have. Don’t take it to heart. 

Looking up symptoms to something that’s bothering you is nothing but trouble. 

It’s scary going to a doctor, but it’s even scarier to let someone make you believe you have a serious problem.

Most of the time, it’s best to just suck it up and go. Don’t consult with your English major friend about it first. 

Nothing against English majors, but I just wouldn’t ask one for medical advice.

A lot of people, on the Internet and in real life, want to think they’re doctors. They want to act like they know what they are talking about, but most of the time they don’t. 

Maybe it’s an ego thing or maybe they just want to be helpful.

But it’s the exact opposite of helpful. Giving a friend medical advice can go two ways. 

You make them worry themselves sicker over something that isn’t even wrong or you make them think that a potentially serious problem isn’t that serious.

Imagine a friend has been having pains in his or her kidneys. Your friend doesn’t know what to think, so you tell him or her to cut down on caffeine and drink more water. 

Seems plausible. It’s no big deal, right? Just think a little more about diet. 

Then, it turns out that person has kidney disease, but the doctors didn’t catch it as early as they could have all because you wanted to play doctor and your naïve friend went along with it.

Imagine a friend has been having bad stomach pains and oh my God, that sounds just like Crohn’s disease. You’re sure of it. 

Now your friend is lying away at night racking their brain over your “diagnosis” when all they really need to do is stop eating Chick-Fil-A every day and take some vitamins.

This is the kind of behavior that really harms those impressionable hypochondriacs. 

Due to an issue with my fingertips and being the owner of a MacBook, I decided to look up what a nickel allergy might look like. 

I found what I was looking for, but I got lured into a forum of people discussing it. 

I read everything from stress breakout to lotion fragrance allergy and from celiac disease to thyroid issues. Treatment varied from eating more sunflower seeds to visiting a dermatologist about cortisone cream. 

How could so many people who have the same problem have such varied explanations about what the problem is? 

Because they don’t actually know what they’re talking about.

Instead they want to pretend to know they are talking about, but here’s the thing: They are not doctors. They never will be, and no one but an actual certified doctor can help you. 

Don’t get reeled in by Internet physicians and don’t let a friend tell you they are so sure you have a watermelon allergy. 

Please go to a real doctor.

And if you’re one of those people who think they know everything, just chill. Go eat some sunflower seeds and focus on what you actually know. 

Religion can be spoken about freely, yet we tread softly when publically mentioning it.

But, the hardest idea to grasp is that having the right to spread religious awareness is certainly not the same as pushing beliefs on others. 

While people reserve the right to practice religious freedom and to speak without restraint about any faith they choose, forcing others to listen isn’t freedom of speech; it’s harassment.  

There are over 127 major religions and seven billion people on earth with seven billion different views of God. Some love Him, some fear Him, some question His existence and some are still searching for Him.

Some will decide that God plays no role in the trials and tribulations of life, while others will find faith the moment they see their newborn child take the first breath of being. 

Whether we discover where we spiritually belong in a pew on Sunday morning or on a lonely drive with no destination, the journey to finding or forgetting God is what determines our views. We can’t be told what and who to believe in, or to even believe in anything at all.

What we learn, who we meet and the challenges we face are what we remember when we stand before Him, not the church members that knock on our front doors, or the people that stand in the quad condemning us all to hell.

And if the church goer at your front door changes your perspective, let them. Be baptized in one church, change your mind, and be baptized in another. Let what you learned in biology class make you question evolution and the powers above. 

Learning from life experiences and questioning God’s ways isn’t sin; it’s human. It’s human to change emotionally, mentally, and spiritually when physical surroundings change. It’s human to simply be curious and indecisive.

Faith only exists because there are people that believe strongly enough in it to make it a reality and a way of life. Without doubters and differences, the strength of religion would never have anything to be measured against. 

Because of that, religion without true belief is weak. 

Never practice out of habit, don’t follow just because your parents or friends do, and don’t ever think one religion is superior to another. In a time that seems to have the explanation for everything in a test tube or on a database, people believing in any God at all is a miracle in itself.