Harnessing the power of social media

I jumped onto the Twitter bandwagon less than a year ago, and am constantly amazed at how my “community” has expanded. I’ve bonded with fellow bloggers, met people who share the same interests as I do, learnt from some of the most inspirational figures of recent times, and followed breaking stories as they happened – minute-by-minute.

As I used the platform and starting interacted with people, I heard their conversations, learnt more about their lives and supported and cheered with them as they triumphed or grappled with life. So what if a lot of them stay half way around the world, or if I haven’t met any of them and probably never will? The conversations and friendships built are real enough. Which is why if one of them were to tell me about a social cause and ask for my support, I would help out to the best of my ability.

And I wouldn’t be alone, as a whooping 84% of the social media savvy aged 30-49 and 55% of those older than 50 used conversational social media to discuss philanthropy. The Philanthropy 2.0 research project also found that 20% of survey respondents between the ages of 30 and 49 gave more than $5,000 through social media discussions, demonstrating the huge potential for social-media savvy fundraisers.

Image by .imelda via Flickr

The funds being raised by leveraging technology are astounding. Twitter users alone donated more than $33 million to the American Red Cross fund for Haitian earthquake victims. Innovative companies like Twestival, which realize the potential of 140 characters and hashtags, are using social media for social good by connecting communities offline on a single day to highlight a great cause and have a fun event. Since 2009, volunteers have raised close to $1.2 million for 137 nonprofits. Of that amount, $15,734.53 was raised in India alone.

Image by taotsu via Flickr

Using the power of hashtags and retweeting, individuals too can make a mark. One recent example is that of @ourmaininabiko. Using an idea that was sparked in the shower, he sent out a tweet calling for eyewitness accounts and personal stories on Twitter. Less than 45 minutes later, the first submission came in. Based on the more than 80 submissions to that single tweet, 2:46 Quakebook was born – a Twitter-sourced collection of personal accounts and pictures of the 11 March 2011 Japan quake and its aftermath. The book is a collaborative effort between bloggers to help raise money for Japan – the proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to the Japan Red Cross.

India recently witnessed its own political revolution of sorts, and a big portion of that battle was fought online – through the creation of a website and by leveraging social media to spread activist Anna Hazare’s message of anti-corruption. Millions of people across the nation joined Hazare in person and in spirit, as he sat on a fast-unto-death outside the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. His demand was for the passage of a Jan Lokpal Bill (Citizen’s ombudsman Bill) that would give more power to the people to fight corruption in all areas of public service. Candlelight vigils and peaceful protests were organized around the country, forcing the government to accept all of the demands put forth by the activists and backed by the common man, corporates and Bollywood stars.

Social media has truly emerged as one of the most powerful Web 2.0 technologies. Not only does it allow us to forge strong friendships, it enables us to spark ideas that turn into revolutions that lead to the ouster of dictators, bring about social change, and raise money for those in need. Ultimately, how we use and leverage it depends on us.

Have you ever made donations or volunteered your services by leveraging technology?

An ode to books – Marginalia by Billy Collins

There’s an ebook revolution of sorts happening out there, which I am stubbornly resisting. I tried ebooks, still read them sometimes, but there’s something about a real, physical book that an electronic version just cannot replace. The smell, the feel, the notes scribbled in the margins.

June Abbas, "In the Margins: Reflections on Scribbles, Knowledge Organization, and Access"

Billy Collins captures this love I feel beautifully in Marginalia. Enjoy!

Marginalia – Billy Collins

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O’Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.
Other comments are more offhand, dismissive –
“Nonsense.” “Please!” “HA!!” –
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
why wrote “Don’t be a ninny”
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.
Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls “Metaphor” next to a stanza of Eliot’s.
Another notes the presence of “Irony”
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.
Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
“Absolutely,” they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
“Yes.” “Bull’s-eye.” “My man!”
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.
And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written “Man vs. Nature”
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.
We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.
Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird signing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.
And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake’s furious scribbling.
Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents’ living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page
A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
“Pardon the egg salad stains, but I’m in love.”

– Billy Collins

10 things in 10 mins

In our daily busy lives, as we go about meeting deadlines, keeping the house, looking after husbands, pets and children, it can be easy to forget the one person who needs the most care – you. If you’re bemoaning the lack of time, worry not.

premasagar via Flickr

Here are 10 things you can do for yourself in all of 10 minutes.

1. Meditate – The next time you’re online, download a few meditation podcasts, or check out my Spiritual Sunday posts and choose a piece of meditation music or guided meditation you like. Sync it to your music player (iPod) or phone. Next time you need a break, plug in your headphones and tune in to radio: you.

2. Collect images for an idea file/vision board – Dreaming of a relaxing spa treatment, a beach holiday, or something else? Set aside 10 minutes to scan through old magazines looking for pictures that speak to you. Clip them out and stick them into an envelope. Next time you need a mini break, get the envelope out, bring out a sheet of paper and a glue stick, and stick those images to make a collage of your very own vision board. Put it up where you can see it as you race through your busy day.

3. Breath yoga – Known as Pranayam in Yoga practice, are a set of simple breath exercises you can do in 10 minutes (or less, or more).

4. Listen to music – Music can change your mood – relax you, pep you up, make you dance or cry or fall in love all over again. Better still, if you’re at home faced with an unpleasant task (like cleaning up the house), put on some peppy music, turn up the volume, and dance as your clean!

Image by Kuzeytac via Flickr

5. Have a cuppa – A hot cup of tea or coffee, a slice of cake (if you want to be indulgent), quiet time for 10 minutes, and you’ll feel shiny and new. Promise!

6. Mini home facial – Put on some soft music – Chopin, Mozart, anything instrumental. Exfoliate your skin, apply a face mask, put a slice of cucumber over your eyes, and lay down for 5 minutes. Rinse. Apply a face cream. Fresh, smooth skin can make you feel absolutely wonderful!

7. A few quick photos – Take your mind off your to-do list. Grab your camera, yes, even your phone camera will do. Frame and fire off a few shots. Admire your mini creations.

Cover of Messages from Your Angels

8. Quick 1-card reading – Get yourself an oracle deck – one of my favorites is Doreen Virtue’s Messages from your Angels. Next time you have 10 minutes, do a quick 1-card reading for yourself. The messages on the card deck are very uplifting, and might just help you shift your focus so you can approach your day from a calmer place.

9. Read a poem/passage you love – I’ve found that reading a poem can help me shift my mood, no matter what kind of a mood I am in.

1o. Make a 5-min cup cake – click here for the recipe. Then snatch another few minutes to indulge in your guilty treat. If you’re feeling super generous, share it with your significant other! 😉

There you have it! A list of 10 things you can do in 10 minutes to recharge your batteries.

Do you have any favorites of your own? Do share in the comments!

Calling: Motivation

I don’t know what’s come over me these days. While planning out my day at work, I also write up a list of to-dos that need to be done after work, but once I leave office, I think “Hell with it all. I’m just going home.” And kiss the to-dos goodbye. It’s not like I have anything pressing to do at home, either. Nor do I go home and get cracking on things that can be done around the house. Interesting stuff too, mind. Like experimenting with photography. Learning the tarot. Cleaning up my art table so I can make some art.

Instead, I go home, change into my sweats, and play Bubble Explode on my iPhone like my life depended on it. That game is evil, I tell you! It has me totally obsessed.

Seriously though, I don’t like this change that has crept upon me. And for the life of me, I can’t figure out why I have zero motivation. I know myself well enough to know it’s more than sheer laziness (not to say I’m not lazy, but I’m not this lazy!) So, what is it?

A lot of the things on my to-do list are related to long-term goals – like going for a walk and cooking evening supper minus carbs (to lose weight), doing 1 chapter from Learn the Tarot (to, of course, learn how to read the cards), clean the art table (so I can start creating art once again).

I know from experience that long-term goals can change sometimes, so the first thing I asked myself was if I still cared enough about said goals. I do!

Since it wasn’t as simple as sheer boredom with my goals, I knew I needed to dig deeper. Time to bring out a notebook and a steaming cup of tea.

Image by angietorres via Flickr

I listed each goal on a separate page, then wrote the words “I’m afraid I won’t be able to achieve this because” underneath, and without stopping to think or analyze, I wrote down all the thoughts that came to mind. For e.g., under the goal of losing weight, one of the things I listed out was that since working out regularly for 6 months gave me no tangible results, I was destined to stay overweight.

Once I had repeated the exercise for all three goals, I went back and confronted my demons head-on. To counter the fear of never being able to shed the excess weight, I checked my food diary from when I was exercising. Based on Gary Taube’s book Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It, I now see that I was eating too many carbs and hidden sugars back then. So it is worth my while to try out a course correction in my diet combined with a moderate workout to help me achieve my goal of slow, steady and permanent weight loss.

Finally, I asked myself if there were any other thought patterns that were pulling me back and keeping me de-motivated. Surprisingly, I found that I am actually overwhelming myself by over-thinking things. Take going for a walk, for instance. How hard is that? Not hard at all, right? Now, start thinking and imagining these steps – fight through traffic to get home, keep purse in its designated place, drink some water, maybe have a fruit, change into tracks and tee, find socks and wear running shoes, lock the house, go for a 30-45 min walk, come home, shower, change into sweats…Doesn’t the very thought of the entire process overwhelm you?

Note to self: Do NOT break down a simple walk into a thousand steps ‘cause it does not help! Instead, just think get home, go for walk. See, that’s so simple!

What about you? Ever felt like you were lacking motivation? What did you do to overcome it?

Friday Frame #15: Born survivor

I stumbled upon this image by Joflyx on deviantart. I wanted to link to her work, but her account doesn't exist any more.

(More Friday Frames)

If you have any artwork or photography to share, please leave a comment, a link back to your blog and your e-mail address, and I’ll feature it on an upcoming Friday Frame!

Sweet little things

Lately it seems like almost all my friends are going through a tough time with their marriages. So many of them are getting divorced, or the love is long gone and they’re just staying together for practical reasons like their children or finances. And in most of the stories I’ve heard, it’s almost always the husband’s fault that things aren’t going right. There are the cheaters, the beaters, the emotionally detached ones, the downright insensitive ones. Every time I hear their stories, I send out a silent “thank you” to God.

I’ve been blessed to have a wonderful hubby. Yes, we have fights. There are days when he drives me absolutely nuts. There have been times when in the heat of a fight I’ve wanted to give the whole marriage thing up. There are times when I think he’s an insensitive jerk.

But even now, after 13 years of knowing each other and 7 years of marriage, my heart skips a beat when I look at him. Even now, he does the sweetest, most wonderful things for me.

Like never forgetting birthdays or anniversaries – a lot of my friends are amazed by that…

letting me sleep in on weekends while he finishes up the laundry…

just knowing when I’ve had a stressful day at work and turning the TV off to talk to me or give me a massage…

sharing the dinner heating and clearing up chores…

making an effort to come out with me on weekends even though sometimes all he wants to do is stay at home…

giving me my space…

letting me be all silly sometimes…

making me feel like a girl and a woman – I don’t know how he does it…

being cool with me having a slumber party with my girlfriends…

making me a fresh fruit gateaux because that’s one of my favorite deserts and he makes it so well!

Yes, I love the husband!

And with all the marriages breaking apart around me, it’s so wonderful to know we’re still rock solid, and to see other men out there doing special things for their girl. Like Debra’s husband Tony, who made her this wonderful chocolate cake!

So here’s a toast to the husbands we love and to remembering the little things that make our marriages tick!

I believe…in magic!

Image via Wikipedia

I believe that our beliefs change as we age. When I was around five, I believed in the fairy godmother and the tooth fairy, I believed that wicked witches and jealous queens existed, that there was a forest somewhere filled with enchanted creatures that can talk, and that mushroom rings meant that there had been a council of fairies…

But of course, as I grew up, I lost the magic somewhere. Life became a what you see is what you get deal.

Neale Donald Walsch: Handsome Guy! (or: How b...

Image by ToastyKen via Flickr

That changed again, when I met the wonderful man who was to become the hubby. We got married despite great odds, only because I believed that this was going to be. Since then, I have slowly opened up to the mysteries of the universe. I read a lot of great authors and some wonderful books, especially Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversation With God series. Now, again, I believe in magic.

I believe that we have a loving, compassionate God. That we are made in his image so we can go out and experience life, embrace it, warts and all.

I believe that things happen because we choose them – the good as well as the bad. Our thoughts shape a lot of our life experiences, so I believe in choosing good thoughts.

Image by AlicePopkorn via Flickr

I believe that angels exist. They don’t have to be of the winged variety. That stranger who found an envelope with office money that I had left at the phone booth and came running after me to return it was an angel – I didn’t have enough money to replace what I would have lost that day.

I believe that we can see God in the natural beauty around us, in the moment before dawn, in the innocence of a child’s laugh.

These are some of the wonders of the universe that I believe in.

What do you believe?

Book review: These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf

These Things Hidden is an interesting and well-told story. Starting with Allison’s early release from prison for good behaviour, the narrative gathers pace slowly, revealing how her fateful actions on a night five years ago are still affecting the lives of the four main protagonists.

Allison was the blue-eyed girl of the small Linden Falls community. The darling of her parents and teachers, she could do no wrong, until that fateful night… Now, she is out of prison and in a halfway house, where the rest of the women are unable to reconcile with her heinous crime. Low on confidence and abandoned by her family, Allison gets a new lease of life when Caroline offers her a part time job at Bookends.

But when Allison sees Joshua, Caroline’s adopted son, the past comes rushing back. A past that Bryn is working hard to forget. Unable to take Allison’s place in her parent’s heart, heckled and stared at as “the killer’s sister,” Bryn leaves Linden Falls to stay with her grandmother, where she looks after broken and maimed animals. By fixing those broken creatures, she hopes she can mend herself, torn as she is by guilt over the events of that fateful night, when she helped Allison give birth to her child while their parents were out for the night.

No one knows of the child except for Charm, sister of Allison’s boyfriend Christopher, and Gus, her step-father. Allison left her son at Charm’s house, saying her parents knew nothing about her pregnancy and that she couldn’t care for the child. Torn between the love she felt for the baby boy and tired as she was looking after Gus, who was battling with lung cancer, Charm was forced to make a difficult choice. She left the baby at the fire station, hoping that he would find a loving family.

Joshua gets that family with Caroline and her husband Jonathan. But with Allison working at Bookends and determined to re-establish contact with Bryn, things are about to come to a dramatic head. Only the two sisters know exactly what happened on the night Joshua and his twin sister were born, and the secrets are about to explode.

As the story unfolds, so does Allison’s character – she isn’t the two-dimensional cardboard cut-out she is initially made out to be. There are hints of a dysfunctional family and a younger sister who is deeply disturbed. Heather also does a wonderful job of exploring motherhood from the point of view of the four protagonists. Allison’s dysfunctional relationship with her mother leads her to be detached from her own children, as she refuses to even acknowledge that she is pregnant. Brynn, who lives in her sister’s shadow, is given a few opportunities to rise to a mothering role, but her failure leads to her mental complexities and to her outpouring of love for crippled animals. Charm is already playing the role of caregiver to her step father, and is unable to take on the added responsibility of looking after a baby herself, but even after giving him up, she checks in on him to see that he is well and happy. And then there is Caroline, who wants nothing more than to be a mother, and fulfills that role well. Her only shortcoming, if you can call it that, would be her over-possessiveness and the extra care she takes of Joshua.

On the whole, this is an interesting read. While you might be able to guess some of the plot twists, you won’t be able to guess them all! The writing is wonderful and the plot development and characters are well-rounded. You won’t regret picking this one up!

Are you killing your dreams?

Kant said that we require three things by which to measure happiness: someone to love, something we like to do, and something to look forward to.*

Look closely at this statement, and you’ll realize that most people have someone to love and something that they like to do, it’s the something to look forward to that we sometimes forget .

When we ignore our dreams, our life feels withered and empty

I know, I forgot about it too, recently. Life goes along smoothly…we work, spend time with family, meet up with friends…life has a steady rhythm and we don’t do much to shake it up…happy to maintain the status quo…not realizing that we just might be killing our dreams in the process.

Image via Wikipedia

So, how do you know if you’re exactly where you need to be right now, or if you need to challenge the status quo? I got the answer to this question by chance, just when I needed to hear it the most, as I was scrolling through my Twitter steam. “Killing our dreams: the three symptoms” flashed out at me that day – an article by the master himself, Paulo Coelho.

The first symptom is the lack of time. Ever looked at those super busy people and wondered how they find the time to fit so much into their day? They’re living their dream. It’s those of us who say we’re too busy to do this or that who are actually shying away from fighting for what we believe in.

The second symptom is our certainties – a false belief that we are being wise by not demanding more from life. When we look at others striving hard to achieve their dreams, we choose to retreat into our own daily existence, not realizing that the fight is what excites and rejuvenates.

Image by Yuliya Libkina via Flickr

The final symptom is complacency. Since we’re satisfied with the way our life is going, we get comfortable in our daily routine. We brush our grand dreams under the carpet, believing we are “mature” in seeking only professional and personal development, and are surprised when we hear others saying they want still more in life.

When we renounce our dreams, we go through a short period of tranquility because we buy into the illusion of comfort. But our dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being. We become cruel to those around us, and then we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves. That’s when illnesses and psychosis arise. What we sought to avoid in fighting for our dreams – disappointment and defeat – come upon us because of our cowardice.

And these don’t even have to be really big dreams. They could be small ones too.

I always wanted to have a vase of fresh flowers at home. It makes the entire room just come alive, doesn’t it? But as time went by and life got busy, I found myself waiting for those special occasions when the hubby would bring me flowers, and that dream of always having fresh flowers fell by the wayside.

But recently, I’ve picked that dream up and dusted it off, examined it and decided that it isn’t something that I want to give up on. So, I have decided that I will buy fresh flowers every week during the winter and monsoon months. It’s rather pointless to bother is summer, because flowers just wilt away in a day. Here’s the bunch of blooms I bought myself this week – pretty, aren’t they?

Sit down and ask yourself: what are your dreams? Are you living them, pursuing them, or have you given up on them?

* Thanks to the Designer Wife for sparking this idea with her post on Measuring happiness

Pasta in tomato sauce

A friend recently gave me some pork ravioli that she bought on her trip to Europe. Since the hubby doesn’t eat pork (something about not liking the thought of eating a pig), I decided to make it on Friday as the hubs was travelling, and it turned out SO good!

Ingredients:

1 bowl uncooked pasta
4 tomatoes, diced
1 medium-sized onion, cut in thin long slices
4-5 cloves garlic, chopped fine
100 gm cottage cheese, cut in thin long strips.
2 tbsp olive oil
Herbs – thyme, parsley, oregano and basil
Salt to taste

Method:

First, fill a big pot with about ½ a litre of water, a pinch of salt and some oil. Bring it to a boil and put in the pasta. Cook until al dente. Drain and set aside.

In a non-stick cooking pot, pour in the oil. Once it’s hot, throw in the garlic and sauté until light brown. Then add the onions and cook until translucent.

Add in the tomatoes and salt. Mix well.

Now add in the herbs. I generally sprinkle them in without measuring (one of the very few recipes where I don’t actually hyperventilate if I don’t have the exact measure), but I’d say about 1 tsp of each should be just right.

Turn the gas to low, cover and cook for 20 minutes, while you read a book or watch some TV, though you might want to check on it in about 10 minutes. In case the water has evaporated, add in some more, mix and cover.

After 20 minutes, the sauce should be ready. Tip in the pasta and the cottage cheese (keep the gas on low flame), mix well and cook until the pasta is heated through.

Serve!

Bon Appétit!