[dropcap]Y[/dropcap]our memory is one of the most vital things in your brain. You use it every day for everything, but most of the time you don't think about that part. You're too busy trying to remember what the correct terminology would be to correctly locate a specific piece of information using Google or your smartphone's dictionary.

People have begun to take for granted that which is so ubiquitously used as a standard: the Internet's vast database. I'm sure you use Google or some other search engine to remember something you recently forgot. This will slowly put your brain on idle if you don't watch your usage. I've tried to stop using search engines or anything like Wolfram Alpha to find out things that I do know because I don't feel like beating my head against a brick wall when such tools aren't at my disposal. You should do this too, or at least use the beauty of technology as something less than a substitute for your brilliant mind.

Nearly everyone can train their brain to actually think of something that they just read twenty minutes back, but people have become lazy and would rather resort to their browser history for that one sentence in The New York Times article that was oh-so-important. People forget that they have the ability to remember things, that their minds can comprehend anything if they just pay attention. It would seem that they have lost control of their brains due to the exposure to easier methods of doing things.

Don't be lazy, think about what you forgot. Stop resorting to IMDb for the name of the actress in that film you just watched when you saw it in the credits and clearly paid attention to it. The more you keep up this routine of no self discipline, the more you let yourself fall into the realm of the lazy. Once you're there, it's not easy to climb back up. It's not worth the time that you saved using the Internet as a substitute for your memory. The former will never be as clever and you don't want it to be, so practice this.

Stop checking your email to remember what someone told you. Stop referring to a quick dictionary for the definition of something that you know well. Stop thinking that you'll never remember something and must resort to other means -- just take a break. Stop overworking your mind. Take a walk.