I was reading an article over the net about left-handed people will have a shorter lifespan. Because of that, I went to check it out at Wikipedia to read about it.

It's interesting to read about it because I'm part of the left-handed people. I'm not born left-handed but I chose to be left-handed.

A study published in 1991 claimed that these statistics indicate that left-handed people's lifespans are shorter than those of their right-handed counterparts by as much as 9 years. The authors suggested that this may be the result of left-handed people being more likely to die in accidents as a result of their "affliction", which renders them clumsier and ill-equipped to survive in a right-handed world. Many subsequent studies have shown no evidence that left-handed people have reduced longevity compared to right-handed people.

As a born right-handed, I wouldn't have this problem much because I still use my right-hand frequently for normal stuff. At first, when I wanted to change fully to left hand, I realized that it's difficult to use certain things. I remembered that I had to remind myself that I need to use all the things the opposite way such as turning the pipe, holding the scissors differently and so forth. So it's tough because sometimes I just forgot about it. Because of that, I ended up sticking becoming a right-handed person except for writing.

What not many people realize that I could still write with my right hand. I just don't do it frequently. Nowadays, it's just more for fun. Just to keep me amused. I remembered when I learned to sign my own name for all important document, I make sure that I could sign with both hands. Haha just in case if the other hand is not 'working' at that time. What make me feel sad that, we are supposed to choose to do things by ourselves. And not following the pressure from other people.

According to The Left-Hander Syndrome, most people were only forced to write with their right hand and allowed to continue being left-handed in most other respects indicating that the decline in older left-handers is not from being forced or switching in later life.

It's really sad that by doing that, they are actually reducing their brain capabilities. They are not using it to the maximum potential. Nowadays, where the majority of people doesn't really care if you are a right-handed or left-handed, but those left-handed people still need to live under the right-handed world as most of the normal appliances are made to be used by a right-handed person. There have a certain things that they made for the left-handed people but it's limited. So, some of the left-handed people change some of their ways of doing things just to get themselves comfortable.

Historically, the justification of forcing use of the right-hand was in part due to the difficulty left-handers had writing with liquid ink or fountain pens. When writing with these pens, the side of the left-hander's hand would smear the writing as it passed over the still-wet ink. While not as prone to this, modern ballpoint pens do not entirely eliminate this smudging. Writing in pencil also smudges the graphite as the hand passes over what has just been written. A simple solution to smudging and hook-hand writing is to rotate the writing paper about 20 degrees clockwise. An ink pen also has its nib cut or folded at a slight angle. If a left handed user tries to use a regular ink pen the nib will be at the wrong angle and its corner will scratch or dig into the paper on the up stroke and flick ink over the page, unless one is particularly careful when writing.

Forcing someone to write using right-hand because of the difficulty of using liquid pens and fountain pens are such a lame excuse. It can be overcome. Do you know that most of the left-handed writers could write properly even if the paper is upside down? That's one of our ways to avoid the messiness when using the liquid pens or fountains pens. If it's not upside down, the paper would be in horizontal way. You might not realize this, but probably next time when you see a left-handed person writing, you'll see the way they hold the pen, they way their hands are positioned; you would notice that it's different from right-handed person. There's a lot of ways. I've only said a few.

And in terms of handwriting, I wouldn't say all, but most of them had a slightly awkward handwriting compared to those who are right-handed. This is mainly because the teacher who taught them writing does not take into consideration of the left-handed kids. So it's difficult for the left-handed kids to write properly because they might need to take extra effort in learning to write the alphabet.

I think I'm lucky because when I learned how to write from my mother, I used my right hand. Only after when I was 4 plus, when I just started to read then I switched myself from being a right-handed to a left-handed. One thing I realized is that, by changing it, I could actually practice a lot of writing styles. Sometimes, I did drive my mom crazy for having a few different writing styles. She will ask me to at least stick to one and not changing it. But I found that it's interesting to have different handwriting. Each of my subjects during schools tends to have different handwriting. Small, big, round, flat, tall, fat, thin, all I've tried before. Oh, and another reason that I changed because I could eat while I'm writing. Love doing that.

There are a few causes of left-handedness. Genetically born with the DNA, long term impairment of the right-hand, testosterone or mirror twins. In my case, I'm not sure which category I fell in because I'm not a natural left-handed. It's difficult to tell because I did not have most of the criteria under the first cause and also the third cause.

Ok now here's the interesting part of left-handedness. Took it from Wikipedia.

In his book Right-Hand, Left-Hand, Chris McManus of University College London argues that the proportion of left-handers is rising and left-handed people as a group have historically produced an above-average quota of high achievers. He says that left-handers' brains are structured differently in a way that widens their range of abilities, and the genes that determine left-handedness also govern development of the language centres of the brain.

McManus also says that the increase in the 20th century of people identifying as left-handed could produce a corresponding intellectual advance and a leap in the number of mathematical, sporting, or artistic geniuses.

In 2006, researchers at Lafayette College and Johns Hopkins University in a study found that left-handed men are 15 percent richer than right-handed men for those who attended college, and 26 percent richer if they graduated. The wage difference is still unexplainable and does not appear to apply to women.

Hmm, one question that came through my mind was, why can't left-handed women are 15% richer than right-handed women for those who attended college, and 26 percent richer if they graduated? Gotta make this apply to women as well.

~to be continued~