The Power of Music: MrYoungScholar’s Future, Past and Present

As an iconic rapper and hip hop artist, Mura (Mr. Youngscholar) Gichane had been on the top of the music world for many years, but the fame and riches had come at a hefty price. Mura had been betrayed by the people he called his friends and his girlfriend even left him for another artist.

Mura had voluntarily left the music scene and taken refuge in Oswego, a small town located on the shores of Lake Ontario. In Oswego, Mura had written his best material and produced his legendary music. In his memoir, which became the bestselling book in the decade, he wrote: “I love music. It’s a passion that’s both intrigued and entertained me. I lack any skills with an instrument, and I don’t have an angelic voice; but my mind is creative and that’s the most important component of creating great music. I’m a writer. For some reason I’ve always been able to orchestrate words. My favorite type of music is hip hop, most likely because I relate to those involved in the art. Young, black men blessed with a god-given talent to entertain and mirror their lives in the form of music. Today, hip hop thrives as one of the most profitable music genres, but few artists make it big and even fewer remain there.”

The small town by the lake kept Mura satisfied and happy as it protected him from the paparazzi and those who were looking for reasons to stir up drama in his life. Mura only made an appearance in public every July 4th for the Independence Day celebration and Harborfest, a 4 day festival that took place along Lake Ontario. Men and women with all types of instruments and talents took the stage, but when Mura appeared in front of the crowd, the applause was deafening. He was the biggest star in the festival thanks to his laundry list of hits, but the crowd appreciated his new material.

The bars were all decorated with balloons and flags fueling patriotism and American pride, as pictures of past presidents adorned posters and bumper stickers. For this one day, it felt as if Oswego was the capital of America, better yet the world.

On that particular day in July, the unthinkable happened as an Earthquake devastated the small town minutes into the daylong parade. The earthquake was registered to be only 5.6 on the Richter scale, but it shook the foundation of both bridges in Oswego causing traffic and mayhem on the streets.
Luckily, most people who had been following the parade gathered together in Oswego Harbor to avoid the mayhem going on in town. Mura, sensing the panic in the crowd, picked up his microphone and started talking to people in the audience.

He started at the beginning, declaring his love for hip hop and defining what it means to him. “Hip Hop is a lifestyle. It’s a passion. For many it’s life or death. For most, it’s a feeling of love.”

With those last words he noticed a sudden hush in the crowd. He continued, fearing that a pause in his speech would lose the interest of his listeners. “Hip Hop is a comfortable yet powerful love that can’t hurt you, or break your heart. Hip hop isn’t the sound waves which vibrate our ear drums. It isn’t talking with a slang or an accent. It’s not a bandana, or crisp blue jeans hugging the wings of an Air Jordan sneaker. Hip hop isn’t profanity. It isn’t drugs or alcohol, and it sure isn’t scantily dressed women. It’s not rims. Forty ounces. Blunts. Hip hop is not cornrows. Hip hop is me. I am hip hop.”

In a short time helicopters from the local media outlets arrived and aired Mura’s first performance in years LIVE. Soon other stations picked up the coverage and the performance was broadcast on YouTube where the rest of the international community tuned in to watch history in the making.
By now, the entire crowd was staring up at him waiting on his every word.

He was running out of ideas on what Hip Hop means to him, and then he remembered how he’d fallen in love. “Music is part of my culture back in Kenya. I remember waking up each morning for school to the sounds of a rooster. The sounds of the cows ‘mooing’ and the dogs barking as the shadow of the morning sun sat upon my window sill. I could hear the crackle of fire, as it cooked my breakfast and the splash of water as it bathed my cousins. My grandfather’s snores, absorbing through the cement walls and vibrating my ear drums to the point where I was forced to wake up. This was the music I grew up and it’s the music I miss.”

He took sip of his water that was now at room temperature and paused to regain his message. He could hear cheers from below, but he dared not look down for fear that he would be met with looks of doubt. He continued with his eyes closed, clenching the microphone as he listened to the Lake. “Every sound can be interpreted as beautiful; it’s your mind that makes that choice. I choose to listen, but many times, the music chooses me. I connect with certain songs and get shivers across my spine, as if the artist was directly communicating with me. I can feel the happiness or pain; the raw emotion that the artist is trying to mirror in their songs.”

He opened his eyes and felt the crowd staring back. He understood how important his words were as he saw a father raising his son on his shoulders to get a better view.

“Music is not just bars, the chorus, and the bridge. It’s the shiver across the spine or the smile across the face. It could be the tear trickling down a cheek or the tinge of burning rage. Music is life’s emotions translated through melodic tunes.”

At that moment, a cloud moved out of the suns way allowing for a warm light to shine on Mura. He saw another artist who’d traveled to Oswego for the festival pick up his guitar. Mura gave the guy a nod and continued with his speech as soft guitar tunes filled the air and the hearts of those in attendance.

“Music inspires me. I listen to the beat and it tells me what to write. I listened to the blues today. I felt sad. I felt depressed. But I also felt hope. The message is that no matter how low you are, always look to the sky. Optimism is an underrated character trait that has helped an entire race survive on this continent. Here are my own blues. These are my own demons. Here is what leaves me low, but better yet, this is how I remain staring upwards.”

2013: 05/23
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PICS|Most Popular Memes on the Internet Exposed

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2013: 05/23
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PICS: Neibaz Fashion House Print Shirts

Print Shirts

We were really inspired by Fashion Beans Article on how to do prints.The crew gathered up and decided to show you on how we think is the best way to do prints in a manly way.

Special thank to Carrey Francis Ronjey for coming through.

Remember to like their page Neibaz Fashion House

2013: 05/23
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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Forgotten Heroes: NY Times Readers Write In About Great People Forgotten In History

Forgotten Heroes

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

On May 12, Margalit Fox, an obituary writer for The New York Times, wrote that “the stories obit writers love best are those of history’s backstage players, the unsung men and women who, though no one knows their names, have managed to put a wrinkle in the social fabric.” She wrote about Alice E. Kober, a woman who deciphered an ancient script but never received wide recognition. We asked readers to submit stories of people who had an impact on society but had been lost to history. Here is a selection of the submissions. These entries are the recollections of the readers, and, in some instances, highlight a side of the person that isn’t well known. They have been edited for clarity and length.

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Douglas H. Ring, died in 2000

Submitted by Catherine Ring Saliba, daughter

Courtesy of Catherine Ring Saliba

Douglas H. Ring

My father, Douglas Ring, put more than a “wrinkle in the social fabric.” He changed the fabric’s entire structure and is most definitely one of the unsung heroes of our time. He was the original inventor of the cellphone. In 1947 he presented Bell Labs in Holmdel, N.J., where he was an engineer, with a memo titled “Mobile Telephony, Wide Area Coverage,” which proposed development of a cellular telephone system. At the time, technology to utilize his concept did not exist, so the memo lay dormant until the 1960s when it became possible to develop his ideas and the actual cellphone became a reality. This quiet, modest, brilliant man accomplished it all with a pencil, a pad of paper and a slide rule — no calculators or computers then — and we never knew about it until after his death.

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Bob Teague, died in 2013

Submitted by Karl E. Meyer

It could be, indeed should be, the final scene in a film about the erosion of racism — and the ascent of money — in Big Ten football. After three years on the bench, a Milwaukee-born senior at the University of Wisconsin is given a backfield position in a much-watched 1949 game against the Navy 11. His name is Bob Teague, an African-American who had controversially criticized the racial bias of the longtime Badger coach Harry Stuhldreher, one of Notre Dame’s immortal Four Horsemen during the 1920s. Only after the appointment of a new coach, Ivy Williamson, is Teague given a chance to prove he is “the best ball-carrier on the squad.”

What followed is recalled in a letter Bob Teague later wrote to his young son, Adam: “I am keenly aware that you are likely to doubt me when I say this – it sounds too much like the last page of a boy’s novel – but on my very first play from scrimmage under Coach Williamson, your daddy ran forty-nine yards through Navy for a touchdown. I went on to lead Wisconsin in scoring and ground-gaining, and wound up on the All Big-Ten Team [for the 1949-50 season] selected by the conference coaches.”

Teague’s memorable debut has a personal resonance, since we were fellow students in Madison. When in late March, Bob died, at age 84 in New Jersey, the obituaries focused chiefly on his career as a breakthrough black reporter on The Milwaukee Journal, The New York Times, then for several decades as an NBC television newscaster. Yet Teague’s pioneering role in desegregating Big Ten football was overlooked.

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Courtesy of Elisabeth Becker

Ted E. Becker Jr.

Ted E. Becker Jr., died in 2008

Submitted by Elisabeth Becker, daughter

Ted E. Becker, my father, was a wry psychiatrist who saved many lives. He worked to establish asylum for refugees. He volunteered as the medical director of a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in New York City. He befriended all of the neighborhood locals with mental illnesses, checking in with them and making sure we knew not to assign stigma to such traits. My father sought out those who really needed help, and had too often been turned away or told they were forever broken. This was evidenced in encounters throughout my childhood with individuals recounting stories of how my father had saved their lives. We liked to call him Robin Hood, with his sliding pay scale — many paying nothing for his help. Few men with such charisma use it for a good cause. My father was one of them.

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Abraham Wald, died in 1950

Submitted by David Bee

Abraham Wald was born in Hungary in 1902. Wald received a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Vienna in 1931, and was let into the United States in 1938. In the 1940s he became a professor of mathematical statistics at Columbia University, where students “came from all over the world to hear him” lecture. Among the many things in the field of Statistics bearing his name are the Wald-Wolfowitz Test [Wolfowitz was Jack Wolfowitz, whose son Paul became better known] and the Wald-Blackwell Theorem [Blackwell was the late David Blackwell, the first African-American inducted into the National Academy of Sciences]. Dr. Wald and his wife died together in December 1950 in an airplane crash in Travancore, India, while on an extensive lecture tour on statistics. Jerzy Neyman, who along with Sir Ronald A. Fisher are considered the founders of statistical science, considered Wald to be his successor as such.

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Courtesy of Michael S. Greenberg

Calvin Mooers

Calvin N. Mooers, died in 1994

Submitted by Michael S. Greenberg

He was one of the pioneers of the electronic digital computer. He coined the term “information retrieval” and he was responsible for key concepts in the foundation of modern computer technology.

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Josephine Ursula Herrick, died in 1972

Submitted by Ron Sharpe

Josephine Herrick (1897-1972) helped to found the therapeutic discipline of rehabilitation photography for wounded veterans of World War II. Herrick volunteered to teach the classes in defense photography several months before Pearl Harbor in 1941. In 1942 she initiated a portraits program in the New York area in which photos were taken of departing servicemen and mailed home to their families. In 1944 she began teaching photography to wounded war veterans. In 1946 she founded the charity Volunteer Service Photographers, which taught photography as a healing art to many thousands of military veterans and disabled civilians in the decades after the war. Herrick collaborated with Howard Rusk, one of the founders of rehabilitation medicine, to provide concrete substance to the concept that creative engagement can be essential to physical and emotional healing. The organization that she founded in 1946 continues in existence to this day as the Josephine Herrick Project.

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Michel Thomas, died in 2005

Submitted by Alex Kline, friend

Courtesy of Alex Kline

Michel Thomas

Michel became a close friend in the last years of his life. Born Feb. 3, 1914, died Jan. 8, 2005. He was a polyglot linguist, language teacher and decorated war veteran. He survived imprisonment in several different Nazi concentration camps after serving in the Maquis of the French Resistance and worked as an agent with the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) during World War II. After the war, he emigrated to the United States, where he developed a language-teaching system known as the Michel Thomas Method, and taught many celebrities, business leaders, and academics. In 2004 he was awarded the Silver Star by the U.S. Army. It was pinned on him by Senators Bob Dole and John Warner at the World War II Memorial during the week the memorial was dedicated.

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Louise Whitbeck Fraser, died in 1976

Submitted by Rebecca Fraser, granddaughter

Courtesy of Rebecca Fraser

Louise Whitbeck Fraser

Louise Whitbeck Fraser (1894-1976) was my grandmother and a true pioneer in special education and music therapy in the days when “different” children were not educated but instead were often locked in asylums, some of them housed in filthy cages like unwanted dogs. She grew from a child orphan into a teacher, from a wife and mother into a widow who lost two children — her husband was a murdered prohibition agent — and from the mother of a brain-damaged child into an advocate for and innovator in teaching special children. She started a school for intellectually disabled children in 1935 in Minneapolis; it now is one of the largest schools with autism services in the Midwest. My grandmother left a remarkable legacy in Fraser because of the huge, loving, listening heart she had for all those in her life.

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Hope Lynn Beacham, died in 2007

Submitted by Laura Beacham

How do you write 150 words about a man who taught children and adults alike many lessons? He was a commercial fisherman, decorated retired Vietnam veteran (U.S. Coast Guard), Masonic Lodge member and, in short, a hero. He was also a volunteer at the First Flight Commemorations where he helped interpret the Wright brothers’ achievements, which his grandfather witnessed. Ask any local or a returning tourist and, out of 50 people, 25 will sit you down and tell you a story that involved this influential member of our Outer Banks society!

2013: 05/23
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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PICS: Eye-Poppingly Gorgeous Underground Stations from Around The World

Eye-Poppingly Gorgeous Underground Stations from Around The World

The history of rapid-transit began 150 years ago, with the opening of the Metropolitan Railway in London in 1863. In the next century and a half, dozens of architects and engineers have worked on underground tunnels and stations. Some are abandoned now, but others are as good as new. Here are some of the most wonderful underground railway stations.

Rådhuset, Stockholm, Sweden

Rådhuset (Court House) station was opened in 1975 as a part of the Stockholm rapid transit system, one of the best examples of organic architecture. Pictured above.

(via Tobias Lindman/Flickr)

T-Centralen Station, Stockholm, Sweden

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The only place where all three of Stockholm’s metro lines meet has this really wonderful one platform station, opened in 1975.

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(via Paolo Rosa/Flickr and Erzsébet)

Solna Station, Stockholm, Sweden (1975)

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(via Wikimedia Commons/Wargklo)

Stadium Station, Stockholm, Sweden (1973)

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(via Skye Christensen/Flickr and Wikimedia Commons/Allgau)

Westfriedhof Station, Munich, Germany

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This station was opened in 1998, but the 11 large lamps (with red, blue, and yellow lights) were installed three years later.

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(via Hannes Maurer 1 – 2)

Marienplatz Station, Munich, Germany

Marienplatz Station is one of the most frequently used stations in Munich, and was opened as part of the new S-Bahn network for the 1972 Summer Olympics.

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(via Jaw3, Flickr/MrOmega and Wikimedia Commons/FloSch)

St.-Quirin-Platz Station, Munich, Germany (1997)

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(via Wikimedia Commons/Florian Schütz, Wikimedia Commons/FloSch and Ian Fisher/Flickr)

Brudermühlstrasse Station, Munich, Germany (1989)

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(via Jaw3)

Olaias Station, Lisbon, Portugal

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Olaias Station was designed by Tomás Taveira and opened shortly before the Expo 1998. Walk through the station on 360cities.

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(via IngolfBLN/Flickr)

Drassanes Station, Barcelona, Spain

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This station was opened in 1968, but was completely renovated between 2007 and 2009 with GRC (Glass Reinforced Concrete) panels and interesting details designed by the Barcelona-based ON-A Architects.

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(via buildtonet)

Avtovo Station, Saint Petersburg, Russia

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This highly ornate white marble station was opened in 1955 and designed by Y. A. Levinson.

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(via Wikimedia Commons/Sbarichev, Wikimedia Commons/Florstein and Andrew L. Moore)

Elektrozavodskaya Station, Moscow, Russia

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Elektrozavodskaya Station was named after an electric light bulb factory nearby and opened in May 1944 during the WWII. It’s famous for its decorations, designed by Vladimir Schuko, Vladimir Gelfreich and Igor Rozhin.

(via Wikimedia Commons/Eugeny1988)

Komsomolskaya Station, Moscow, Russia

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Opened in 1952 and designed by Alexey Shchusev and Viktor Kokorin, this station has some mosaics, red granite, marble and other artistic decorations.

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(via 3 years in Moscow and Wikimedia Commons/Lite)

Kiyevskaya Station – Koltsevaya Line Hall, Moscow, Russia

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The richly decorated hall was opened in 1954 and has a quasi-baroque style with large mosaics by A.V. Myzin and gold-colored trim.

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(via Wikimedia Commons/Antares 610)

Slavyansky Bulvar Station, Moscow, Russia

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The station, designed by S. Volovich and opened in 2008, has green Cuban marble on the walls, and grey granite with darker (Gabbro granite) marble edges.

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(via Wikimedia Commons/VanHelsing.16, Jaime Silva/Flickr and somebody_/Flickr)

Zoloti Vorota Station, Kiev, Ukraine

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The Orthodox cathedral-like Zoloti Vorota was opened on December 30, 1989 as the part of the first stage of the Syretsko-Pecherska Line. Designed by Boris and his son Vadim Zhezherin, S.Adamenko, and M. Ralko.

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(via Wikimedia Commons/AMY )

Puhŭng and Yonggwang Station, Pyongyang, North Korea

Puhŭng

Many foreign tourists were allowed to travel only between Puhŭng Station and Yŏngwang Station (both opened in 1987) on the Chŏllima Line. The Pyongyang Metro is the deepest in the world–the track runs 360 ft (110 m) underground.

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Puhŭng

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Puhŭng

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Yŏngwang

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Yŏngwang

(via Wikimedia Commons/Gilad Rom, Wikimedia Commons/John Pavelka, Geolocation.ws/afchagen, Flickr/John Pavelka 1 – 2)

Museum Subway Station, Toronto, Canada

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This station was redesigned by Diamond and Schmitt Architects in 2008.

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(via architecture NOW)

O’Hare Station, Chicago, Illinois

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This station, with its curved and luminous walls made of glass, is located at O’Hare International Airport. It was designed by Murphy/Jahn and opened in 1984.

(via Wikimedia Commons/Daniel Schwen and Eden Politte/Flickr)

Arts et Métiers Station, Paris, France

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The steampunkish underground station near the Musée des Arts et Métiers was opened in 1904, but was redesigned by the famous Belgian comics artist François Schuiten in a style inspired by the works of Jules Verne.

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(via Pathien/Flickr, Steve Calcott/Flickr and RG1033/Flickr)

Formosa Boulevard Station, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

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This transfer station was built for the 2009 World Games, but opened in September 2008. It has the largest glass work in the world, designed by Narcissus Quagliata, covering an area of 23,465 sq ft (2180 sq m) with 4,500 glass panels.

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(via Wikimedia Commons)

The stations of the Line A, Prague, Czech Republic

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The colorful opened Dalek skirts with hemispheres on the walls make these stations from the 1970s look really fantastic.

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(via Flickr/Brad Ackerman, Flickr/ian LF and Kristin Esteves)

Bockenheimer Warte Station, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

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The construction was finished in 1986, but it was expanded in 2001 under the leadership of Zbigniew Peter Pininski.

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(via Wikimedia Commons/Jcornelius, Bobanac Andreas/fotocommunity, Christine Moje/fotocommunity, mibi55/fotocommunity and Jürg Stuker/Flickr)

Vincze Miklós

2013: 05/23
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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Kobe Bryant FANS: 10 Milestones To Watch Out For in 2012-13

> Milestone watch for 2012-13: Kobe Bryant - Photo posted in BX SportsCenter | Sign in and leave a comment below!

10. Third all-time free throws made (passing Oscar Robertson) With 288 free throws, Kobe moves past the Big O and behind Moses and Karl Malone in the free throws made department. Last year, he made 381 in 58 games.
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9. All-time steals leader in Lakers’ history (needs two to pass Magic Johnson) Barring a fluke, Kobe should notch this within the first week of the season. This isn’t the last time he’s looking to pass Magic in a category.
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8. Most All-NBA First Teams (11, with Karl Marlone) This record is arguably hardest to reach, considering — or assuming — Dwyane Wade comes back injury-free. With new weapons in Steve Nash and Dwight Howard at his side, his load will be lower, thus standing a chance to decrease his statistical output.
7. Most All-NBA Teams (15, with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) This record, on the other hand, is a virtual cinch. If Kobe is healthy this season, it’s impossible to identify six guards better who can keep him from tying Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
6. Most All-NBA Defensive First Teams (10, passing MJ, Gary Payton and Kevin Garnett) Another tough milestone to reach. Kobe still gets after it defensively and with upgraded defensive personnel behind him (read: Howard, Dwight), he can be as aggressive on the perimeter as ever.
5. Most All-NBA Defensive Teams (13, with Tim Duncan) Even if Kobe struggles guarding quicker players, his grit and I.Q. alone makes this milestone his for the taking.
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4. More than 30,000 career points (youngest to reach mark) Wilt Chamberlain reached the 30,000 point plateau when he was 35 years old. Kobe just turned 34 and needs just over 500 points.
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3. Move into fourth all-time in scoring, passing Wilt Chamberlain All Kobe needs is a “mere” 1,936 points. If Kobe averages at least 25 ppg, he’ll reach this toward the end of the season.
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2. Most playoff points, passing Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) Kobe currently sits at 5,640 playoff points, 347 away from MJ and 122 from Kareem. He’ll need a deep playoff run to take top spot (conference finals, Finals).
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1. Pass Magic Johnson, tie Michael Jordan with six rings The record, as far as hoop purists are concerned. From the moment the Black Mamba stepped into the league, this number (six) sticks out as the benchmark. Kobe is not unaware of this.
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By GrownmanJ – BX SportsCenter

2013: 05/23
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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12 Things You Should Be Able to Say About Yourself

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. – Mae West

You know you’re on the right track when you can repeat each of the following headlines to yourself, honestly. (And if you can’t, this list gives you something positive to work on.)

1. I am following my heart and intuition.

Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams. Live the life you want to live. Be the person you want to remember years from now. Make decisions and act on them. Make mistakes, fall and try again. Even if you fall a thousand times, at least you won’t have to wonder what could have been. At least you will know in your heart that you gave your dreams your best shot.

Each of us has a fire in our hearts burning for something. It’s our responsibility in life to find it and keep it lit. This is your life, and it’s a short one. Don’t let others extinguish your flame. Try what you want to try. Go where you want to go. Follow your own intuition. Dream with your eyes open until you know exactly what it looks like. Then do at least one thing every day to make it a reality.

And as you strive to achieve your goals, you can count on there being some fairly substantial disappointments along the way. Don’t get discouraged, the road to your dreams may not be an easy one. Think of these disappointments as challenges – tests of persistence and courage. At the end of the road, more often than not, we regret what we didn’t do far more than what we did. Read Quitter.

2. I am proud of myself.

You are your own best friend and your own biggest critic. Regardless of the opinions of others, at the end of the day the only reflection staring back at you inthe mirror is your own. Accept everything about yourself – EVERYTHING! You are you and that is the beginning and the end – no apologies, no regrets.

People who are proud of themselves tend to have passions in life, feel content and set good examples for others. It requires envisioning the person you would like to become and making your best efforts to grow.

Being proud isn’t bragging about how great you are; it’s more like quietly knowing that you’re worth a lot. It’s not about thinking you’re perfect – because nobody is – but knowing that you’re worthy of being loved and accepted. All you have to do is be yourself and live the story that no one else can live – the story of your own unique life. Be proud, be confident, you never know who has been looking at you wishing they were you.

3. I am making a difference.

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

Is it true that we all live to serve? That by helping others we fulfill our own destiny? The answer is a simple ‘yes.’ When you make a positive impact in someone else’s life, you also make a positive impact in your own life. Do something that’s greater than you – something that helps someone else to be happy or to suffer less.

You are only one, but you are one. You cannot do everything, but you can do something. Smile and enjoy the fact that you made a difference – one you’ll likely remember forever.

4. I am happy and grateful.

Happiness is within you, in your way of thinking. How you view yourself and your world are mindful choices and habits. The lens you choose to view everything through determines how you feel about yourself and everything that happens around you.

Being grateful will always make you happy. If you’re finding it hard to be grateful for anything, sit down close your eyes and take a long slow breath and be grateful for oxygen. Every breath you take is in sync with someone’s last.

5. I am growing in to the best version of me.

Judy Garland once said, “Always be a first rate version of yourself instead of a second rate version of somebody else.” Live by this statement. There is no such thing as living in someone else’s shoes. The only shoes you can occupy are your own. If you aren’t being yourself, you aren’t truly living – you’re merely existing.

Remember, trying to be anyone else is a waste of the person you are. Embrace that individual inside you that has ideas, strengths and beauty like no one else. Be the person you know yourself to be – the best version of you – on your terms. Improve continuously, take care of your body and health, and surround yourself with positivity. Become the best version of you.

6. I am making my time count.

Time is the most valuable constituent of life. Make the time for what does matter today. Really being in the moment, finding passion in your life, seeing the world and traveling, or just seeing the world that’s around you right now, being with great people, doing amazing things, eating amazing food and savoring life’s little pleasures.

Remember, your time is priceless, but it’s free. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can spend it, but you can’t keep it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back. You really do only have a short period to live. So let your dreams be bigger than your fears and your actions louder than your words. Make your time count!

7. I am honest with myself.

Be honest about what’s right, as well as what needs to be changed. Be honest about what you want to achieve and who you want to become. Be honest with every aspect of your life, always. Because you are the one person you can forever count on.

Search your soul, for the truth, so that you truly know who you are. Once you do, you’ll have a better understanding of where you are now and how you got here, and you’ll be better equipped to identify where you want to go and how to get there. Read The Four Agreements.

8. I am good to those I care about.

In human relationships distance is not measured in miles, but in affection. Two people can be right next to each other, yet miles apart. So don’t ignore someone you care about, because lack of concern hurts more than angry words. Stay in touch with those who matter to you. Not because it’s convenient, but because they’re worth the extra effort.

When was the last time you told your family and close personal friends that you loved them? Just spending a little time with someone shows that you care, shows that they are important enough that you’ve chosen — out of all the things to do on your busy schedule — to find the time for them. Talk to them. Listen to them. Understand them.

Many times it’s our actions, not just our words that really speak what our heart feels for another.

9. I know what unconditional love feels like.

Whether your love is towards a child, a lover, or another family member, know the feeling of giving love and not expecting anything in return – this is what lies at the heart of unconditional love. Life through unconditional love is a wondrous adventure that excites the very core of our being and lights our path with delight. This love is a dynamic and powerful energy that lifts us through the most difficult times.

Love is beautiful and unpredictable. It begins with ourselves, for without self-love, we cannot know what true love can be. In loving ourselves, we allow the feeling to generate within us and then we can share it to everyone and everything around us. When you love unconditionally, it isn’t because the person you love is perfect, it’s because you learn to see an imperfect person perfectly.

10. I have forgiven those who once hurt me.

We’ve all been hurt by another person at some point or another – we were treated badly, trust was broken, hearts were hurt. And while this pain is normal, sometimes that pain lingers for too long. We relive the pain over and over, letting them live rent-free in our head and we have a hard time letting go.

Grudges are a waste of perfect happiness, it causes us to miss out on the beauty of life as it happens. To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you.

11. I take full accountability for my life.

Own your choices and mistakes, and be willing to take the necessary steps to improve upon them. Either you take accountability for your life or someone else will. And when they do, you’ll become a slave to their ideas and dreams instead of a pioneer of your own.

You are the only one who can directly control the outcome of your life. And no, it won’t always be easy. Every person has a stack of obstacles in front of them. But you must take accountability for your situation and overcome these obstacles. Choosing not to is choosing a lifetime of mere existence. Read The Road Less Traveled.

12. I have no regrets.

This one is simply a culmination of the previous eleven…

Follow your heart. Be true to yourself. Do what makes you happy. Be with who makes you smile. Laugh as much as you breathe. Love as long as you live. Say what you need to say. Offer a helping hand when you’re able. Appreciate all the things you do have. Smile. Celebrate your small victories. Learn from your mistakes. Realize that everything is a lesson in disguise. Forgive. And let go of the things you can’t control.

By Angel Hack

Photo by: Esparta Palma

2013: 05/23
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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Top 10 Excuses People Use To Hate America

It is a very easy thing to hate the United States of America right now. But why? We stormed the beaches at Normandy, saved Europe from economic ruin with the Marshall plan (thanks for paying off the loan, Norway. Anybody else? Anybody? Bueller?), invented the Internet, uprooted tyrants, and give foreign aid away like it was candy. We want to be the good guys and thought we were. Yet we just can’t seem to get any love these days. How’d we get here? Well… [JFrater: as the representative of Listverse, I would like to say that we don't hate America - in fact, I had one of my greatest holidays there. This list will no doubt cause a storm - be calm and debate nicely!]

10. Center of the Universe

The first reason: we act like the world revolves around us. America presumes much for a country generously dated at 300 years old. China has latrines ten times older than that. A quick example: many countries play baseball, but only we have the “World Series”. We’re getting better about our egocentrism, but it’s been a loooong time coming. And don’t get me started about our tourists. Just smile and take the money- they’re loud, but they’ll be gone in a week.

9. We Win Everything

Okay, I’ll concede Vietnam, tennis (but we don’t care) and Kenyan marathon runners. But we win damn near everything else, eventually. The Space Race. The Cold War. Tour de France. The list goes on and on. Even we hate the Olympics now that our professionals are allowed to participate straight up with the underaged/doping communist nations. It’s boring for us, but as a Red Sox/Bolton Wanderers fan, I know the angst that chronic losing against bigger and better funded opponents generates. And if we don’t have the best athletes/scientists/entertainers, we’ll make sure they get a chance to immigrate while others wait in line. That’s gotta sting. Oh, Yao Ming and Ichiro say “Hi”.

8. We Eat Everything

Why? Because we can. Americans are the second fattest industrialized nation per capita (sorry, Australia). But as always, we make up for it in volume. We can afford automobiles so we don’t ride bikes or walk anywhere except for fun, and thanks to abundant agricultural surpluses, ANYTHING we want to eat is readily available from takeaway restaurants and convenience stores. Some of our refrigerators could hide an entire human body. And we like the fatty stuff, because fat tastes good. This is NOT a good thing, and our global franchises (KFC, McDonald’s) are already infecting nations that traditionally had healthier diets (are you listening, Japan?)

7. We Made and Have Nukes

The United States is the inventor and only wartime practitioner of nuclear weapons (never mind that using them prevented an invasion that would make the Iraqi insurgency look like a blowjob. “Operation Downfall”, the now-declassified US plan to invade Japan, estimated 1 Million American casualties alone). Lax security protocols (and clever spying) spread the secret to the USSR and after that the genie got out of the bottle. Many countries now have atomic weapons, and with no clear Cold War counterpart to US supremacy, the balance has shifted, and the peace dividend has not been kind post 9/11.

6. Natural Resources

Though accounting for only 5 percent of the world’s population, Americans consume 26 percent of the world’s energy. (American Almanac), and we are the world’s largest single emitter of carbon dioxide, accounting for 23 percent of energy-related carbon emissions worldwide. (U.S. Department of Energy). This, while worldwide, some 2 billion people are currently without electricity. (U.S. Department of Energy). The good news is that among industrialized and developing countries, Canada consumes per capita the most energy in the world, and the United Sates is only second. Italy consumes the least among industrialized countries (that’s because they still drive Fiats, which “conserve” energy by breaking every other day).

5. International Meddling

The United States has the most advanced army in the world. We station our military in other countries at their “request”, which is a source of much seething and hurt national pride. From Banana Republics, to the Cold War, to the War on Terror, we routinely interfere in the business of other countries to make the world safe for our interests, whether anybody asked for it or not. Even if the intentions are both right and good, many countries resent our involvement in their affairs on sheer principle: they’d rather f*** it up themselves. Are you listening, North Korea?

4. We Export Trash Culture

A thriving market economy and near total freedom of expression liberate Americans to pursue almost every endeavor imaginable, resulting in some of the greatest discoveries and inventions in the history of man, from the first practical light bulb to powered flight, polio vaccines, radio and TV, space exploration, the Internet, and unfortunately, everything in between. So that means ubercrap like Jerry Springer and Britney Spears gets exported worldwide. No, I’m being too kind there– “force fed” worldwide. Other cultures despise this with a mix of dread, envy, and loathing. They can’t figure out how to cull the good from the bad out of this torrent (neither can we, btw)—but once it takes hold, it won’t let go. This what the Islamic world fears most. Tanks, they understand. An educated, employed woman horny and clubbing on Friday night they simply can’t fathom. And it scares the crap out of them.

3. It’s Fashionable

Despite the hyperbole bandied online, strong political opinions won’t get your door kicked in at 3 AM like in the Gulag Archipelago. There are no Stalinist purges or killing fields here. And the FBI/CIA/ATF/DEA/PTA will not shoot you on sight simply because you speak against The Surge or march against the Economic Stimulus Plan. But it’s certainly fun to claim a fear of it! You become an instant radical and feel intellectually enlightened to boot– patriotism is an uncritical, reflexive act, right?– only a deep thinker would hate his country (yet stay on to enjoy its privileges). And don’t worry about proof, because all that matters is the accusation. Volume and conviction win the day, so toss that bibliography—grab half the story and make the rest up. If you get caught in a logic box, claim satire. Other countries see this lack of consequences and pile on.

2. We Don’t Finish the Job

From Vietnam to Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski to “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq to finding Osama Bin Laden, we seem to do most of the work, but keep a lot of things hanging on, never quite finished. Eventually the answer makes itself known, but it usually takes time, and involves help from others after a lot of (necessary) heated discussions. Maybe we should try this as as a first course of action more often…

1. We Act Unilaterally

We are a nation of doers, and our errors (when they occur) will be from acts of commission, not omission (Hypocrisy Alert: Darfur). Sometimes that’s a great thing, like sending Kruschev’s missiles back home, breaking Gaddafi’s/Qaddafi’s/Kaddafi’s nuclear ambitions (his nukes are now safely tucked away in Oak Ridge, Tennessee), or winning the Cold War. Other times, it blows up in our (and often, YOUR) face. Our attempts to spread democracy worldwide, intended to let others enjoy the same freedoms and advantages that we have, sometimes result in innocent people dying. We must stop to remember the Somalia embassy, Madrid and Fiji and Lockerbie 101 bombings, along with the millions of nameless others who suffered and died in countries that are not free. The US is the biggest face opposing these things that actually does anything (not just talk, FRANCE. You railed about Guantanamo but when it came time to release prisoners you took ONE.), but our allies often bear the brunt of our “foreign” wars, because the enemy cannot reach us. That has changed recently, and while it has altered our perspective, it has not altered our resolve.

by Jay K

2013: 05/23
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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10 Incredible Things You May Not Know About Cats

Cats can talk. Researchers have recently learned how cats say I love you. It sounds crazy but it is true. They will also understand if you return the gesture. There you sit, all comfortable in your chair when suddenly, your house cats jumps into your lap and nestles down to get just as cozy. It begins to purr, letting you know that it’s content and happy. If you have ever noticed at moments like this, your cat will look into your eyes and slowly blink. It is that slow blink, researchers now know, that means I love you. They also found that the portion of a cats brain that responds to love become active if you look down and copy the slow blink. You can tell your cat that you love it and it will understand. Continue to read for more fun and interesting facts about the amazing cat.

Tip-toe cat

Tip-Toe-Cat Cats walk on their toes–all of the time. It is called digitigrade. Unless a cat is running or standing on its hind legs, it will not walk on the pads of its feet. There are two reasons, the first goes back to their wild ancestors who had to either be quiet or be eaten. If you have a cat, and chances are that if you are reading this, you probably do have a cat, check out the soft pad on the underside of its paw. Most of the time it is completely clean and soft. This brings us to the second reason they do not like to walk on those soft pads. Cats have a scent gland in those pads and use them to mark their territory. That is what they are doing to your leg when they clench and unclench you with their claws while purring. OUCH!

Scent of a pussycat

scent-of-a-pussycat Have you ever wondered why your cat rubs against your legs with its head? You may have thought that it is a sign of affection until you see them do it to the refrigerator, a doorway, and the bathroom toilet. Well, do not worry. Your cat does love you but it is not telling you about it, it is telling other animals that it owns you. (Humans included) Cats have scent glands in the pads of their feet, the top of their head, the puffy part of their cheeks, and in their bladders. The scent gland in the bladder changes the smell of their urine so that they can mark their territory. When your cat marks you by rubbing its head against you, it is just saying, “You are mine!” The behavior is called bunting and is one of the highest compliments your cat can give. (And you thought you owned the cat.)

No more gifts…PLEASE!

no-more-gifts If a cat is happy with its home and the humans in it, it likes to tell us so. Unfortunately, cats are speechless. The cat cannot tell us why it deposited a dead mouse in the middle of the living room floor, or worse, on the bed.

There are three reasons why your loving pet will do this and all of them are complimentary.

You feed and water your cat every day. Now your cat wants you to know that it can contribute its share and brings to you the only food it knows how to catch, a small animal. (Sometimes, not so small and no so dead)
Your cat wants you to like it as much as it likes you so it brings you a gift to show off how much it loves us in the only way it knows how.
Your cat wants you to see what a great and mighty hunter it is. It expects you to admire its prowess. It thinks you will be amazed at its unparalleled skill.

When you scream and yell at the cat for bringing a dead animal into the house, your cat will be surprised at your reaction and will probably have its feelings deeply hurt. I know it will be difficult, but try not to react adversely to a dead animal gift. The best thing to do is to praise your loving pet and eat the dead animal right in front of it. Of course, I am kidding. Praise your pet and wait until it is not looking before you dispose of it properly. The cat will assume you ate it. Another thing you can do is make sure that it sees you pick it up and put it on the floor next to the trash. If it sees you do this a few times, it will start depositing the gifts in the spot it thinks you prefer to receive such gifts. Your cat loves you enough to feed you, try not to hurt its feelings or you are telling it that the feeling is not mutual. (Or you could just eat the mouse. I hear they are low in calories and high in vitamin M.)

Knowing how your cat feels physically

How old your cat feels and how old it actually is are two entirely different things. If you are a person of age, you will understand what I am about to say. Once I hit fifty, I found that I had good days and bad and on any given day, I could feel anywhere from 30 to 100 years old. On those cold and wet days when I cannot even bend down, I think about my youth and deal with it. Your cat is probably going through the same thing. How can that be when it is only 6 years old? Cats, like dogs, age at a faster rate than we do. Your 6 year old cat is pushing sixty! The picture above will help you figure out how old your cat is so that you can stay in tune with its feeling.

Inhumane Mutilation

cat-claw-DeclawDiagram

A cat’s claw is not a nail. It does not grow at the end of its toe. It is part of the bone in the cat’s foot. To remove it or have your cat declawed is a totally inhumane act that should be avoided at all cost. If you love your animal, you will not have it declawed. It involves multiple amputations of your pet’s bones.

Some cats recover from the trauma with minimal visible damage but in the end, even they will have problems. Never mind the fact that they are defenseless against other animals, that’s secondary to inside cats. (Unless they get out and lost) It is the long term back and neck problems that will arise. Watch out for behavioral changes as well, like urination and defecation in unusual places. Since you cat is digitigrade, it will not be able to walk comfortably or at all for several days or weeks. It will not be able to jump in and out of a liter box without pain and so, may lose its cat box training. Please do not do this to your animal. The United States is one of the few countries in which it is even legal.

The whole of Europe has placed this procedure on the “Inhumane Acts and Cruelty to Animals” list. If you are against the painful mutilation of cats, you may read more about this terrible procedure and sign a petition to help get this inhumane treatment placed where it belongs, on the U.S. Cruelty to Animals Act.

Cat Scratch Fever

cat-scratching-post

Cats claw out of need, not out of boredom or spite or any other ridiculous emotion that has been attributed to it. Well, there is a small element of love involved. First, cats scratch for exercise. It tones up the back and shoulder muscles important for leaping and pouncing as well as having a healthy, proper gait. Contrary to popular belief, they do not do it to sharpen their claws. So why does your feline friend always seem to scratch your favorite pieces of furniture? The answer is in the question. If your cat feels loved and part of your family, it wants to contribute. It is pretty much the same as when they bring you a dead animal.

They know that you enjoy that new sofa. They can read your feelings and sense that it is one of your favorite items in the room. What cats do not understand… is the concept of possession. Yours and mine do not cut it. To the cat, it is just a piece of furniture that the clan uses. The cat thinks it will look good with scratches on it. A little interior decoration never hurt anyone. Your task is not to teach the cat that it is not okay to scratch, nor it is to teach the cat what not to scratch. The best solution is to provide it with something that it can scratch and put it near the couch. Sprinkle some catnip on it and let the cat go to town. Now wait a day and then slide the new scratching post four or five feet away from the couch. A day or two later, refresh the catnip and move the post further away. Do not move it much but make some progress. Continue to move the post until it is in the corner that you prefer it to be. If you are smart, you will leave it in the same room lest the cat decide to maim two rooms. Do not forget to praise your kitty when it uses the post.

Fraidy Cat

fraidy-cat

While all animals and humans are naturally afraid of something, cats seem to have a set of fears that is inherent to them. One of these is called separation anxiety. A cat can form a bond with a human or other cat that is so strong that it can have a negative physical impact on their health if they are separated from the one with whom they bonded. This is particularly hard on a cat if its master whom it bonded with works away from home or is suddenly prone to travel for extended periods of time. Symptoms of separation anxiety include loss of appetite, loss of liter box skills, excited behavior at homecoming reunion, and depression. Since your cat already sleeps 16 to 18 hours out of every day, the last one can be hard to detect.

If your cat suddenly exhibits these symptoms when a change in a loved ones schedule occurs, you should seek medical attention for your beloved pet. Another, more obvious clue is walking the house crying out or mewling after the person when they are gone. The problem is treatable with the right medications and plenty of love and attention from you or another member of the household. It is only recently that it was discovered cats had the ability to “pair bond” which is the natural ability to develop a strong affinity with something so closely that physical separation is painful. It used to be thought that this only happened in same species animals. Cats, as a general rule, do not get lonely. They are extremely territorial and it is thought that being that territorial has a counter effect on loneliness. Pair bonding is supposed to be extremely rare in cats.

Natures GPS

natures-gps

You can take a cat far from its home and it has the ability to find its way back. This is due partly to instinct and partly to a built in homing device. Just like a migrating species of bird, a cat uses its biological clock, the angle of the sun, and a not as yet understood sensitivity to the earth’s magnetic field to navigate.

There have been incredible, documented cases of cats finding their way home from great distances. Some believe that they feel their way home. Whether this is instinct, an amazing combination of its ears, eyes, and sense of smell–or both–cats are some of the best navigators on the planet. May the force be with them.

The buddy system

Loneliness is not a problem that your average cat experiences. They are content to be alone but can also share their home. If your cat starts getting into mischief while you are not at home, it could be trying to tell you something. Most people misunderstand exactly what it is the cat is trying to convey. They think that the cat gets lonely in the house by itself all day while they are at work. They mistake loneliness with boredom. These are two completely different problems. If you have tried all the other solutions like leaving out toys and spending more time with your cat but nothing works, the solution might be to introduce another cat into the home. You have to be careful though as your cat will not get along with just any old playmate. Most cats are willing to share and are able to make friends but it is just as likely that it will reject another animal, making the situation much worse.

There are a couple of things that you can do to ensure that the new member of the family is accepted.

Never put two females together unless you absolutely have no other choice. Researchers do not understand why yet, but female cats have a harder time getting along than any other combination. A male and a female will find a way to cohabitate and become friends and two males will have no problems at all, as long as there is not a female feline in heat in the house.
Studies show that a getting a cat of the same color or close to the same color will greatly increase the chance of successful friendship. Cats of the same size, color, and temperament seem to get along better than opposite colors and personality.
Introduce the new family member gradually and under close supervision. Do not just bring home a kitten and toss it in a locked room with a bored cat that has been trashing your house. Short periods of contact 2 or 3 times a day for a few days is all it will take. It is very healthy for two cats to share and interact. It gives both the kind of emotional and social interaction that makes for happy cats.

Now that you have two cats, it will not be long before they are tearing through the house in the middle of the night chasing each other and having a grand old time. FYI, adopting a cat or kitten from an animal shelter is a great thing to do. Just make sure that they understand that you have a cat at home and if they do not get along, the animal is coming back. Most shelters understand and will not have a problem with this request.

Eye of the cat

That cute, furry little kitty at home might be just a pet, but its eyes are a medical and scientific wonder. The cat has some of the coolest vision in the animal kingdom. The reason a cat is not afraid of the dark is that it is rarely in the dark. To see well, a cat only needs one sixth of the light humans need. To put it into perspective, for us that is like being in a windowless room at night with the only light coming in through a crack under the door. They also have an extra eyelid that keeps their eyes moist. Cats are not colorblind but they cannot distinguish between red and green. Detail is not big on the cat’s ability list but it can see very far. In fact, cats see very clearly for up to 120 feet and their peripheral vision is fantastic at 285 degrees. The most amazing thing about cat’s eyes is the depth of love that they hold there when they look at you. They can melt your heart.

If you have a cute, amazing, funny, or cat-astrophic story about your cat, we would love to hear about it. Please leave a comment and let us know.

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2013: 05/23
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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The Father of Analytical Psychology: Carl Jung’s Near-Death Experience

The Father of Analytical Psychology

Carl Jung’s Near-Death Experience

In a hospital in Switzerland in 1944, the world-renowned psychiatrist Carl G. Jung, had a heart attack and then a near-death experience. His vivid encounter with the light, plus the intensely meaningful insights led Jung to conclude that his experience came from something real and eternal. Jung’s experience is unique in that he saw the Earth from a vantage point of about a thousand miles above it. His incredibly accurate view of the Earth from outer space was described about two decades before astronauts in space first described it.

Subsequently, as he reflected on life after death, Jung recalled the meditating Hindu from his near-death experience and read it as a parable of the archetypal Higher Self, the God-image within. Carl Jung, who founded analytical psychology, centered on the archetypes of the collective unconscious. The following is an excerpt from his autobiography entitled Memories, Dreams, Reflections describing his near-death experience.

“It seemed to me that I was high up in space. Far below I saw the globe of the Earth, bathed in a gloriously blue light. I saw the deep blue sea and the continents. Far below my feet lay Ceylon, and in the distance ahead of me the subcontinent of India. My field of vision did not include the whole Earth, but its global shape was plainly distinguishable and its outlines shone with a silvery gleam through that wonderful blue light. In many places the globe seemed colored, or spotted dark green like oxidized silver.

Far away to the left lay a broad expanse – the reddish-yellow desert of Arabia; it was as though the silver of the Earth had there assumed a reddish-gold hue. Then came the Red Sea, and far, far back – as if in the upper left of a map – I could just make out a bit of the Mediterranean. My gaze was directed chiefly toward that. Everything else appeared indistinct. I could also see the snow-covered Himalayas, but in that direction it was foggy or cloudy. I did not look to the right at all. I knew that I was on the point of departing from the Earth.

“Later I discovered how high in space one would have to be to have so extensive a view – approximately a thousand miles! The sight of the Earth from this height was the most glorious thing I had ever seen.

“After contemplating it for a while, I turned around. I had been standing with my back to the Indian Ocean, as it were, and my face to the north. Then it seemed to me that I made a turn to the south. Something new entered my field of vision. A short distance away I saw in space a tremendous dark block of stone, like a meteorite. It was about the size of my house, or even bigger. It was floating in space, and I myself was floating in space.

“I had seen similar stones on the coast of the Gulf of Bengal. They were blocks of tawny granite, and some of them had been hollowed out into temples. My stone was one such gigantic dark block. An entrance led into a small antechamber. To the right of the entrance, a black Hindu sat silently in lotus posture upon a stone bench. He wore a white gown, and I knew that he expected me.

Two steps led up to this antechamber, and inside, on the left, was the gate to the temple. Innumerable tiny niches, each with a saucer-like concavity filled with coconut oil and small burning wicks, surrounded the door with a wreath of bright flames. I had once actually seen this when I visited the Temple of the Holy Tooth at Kandy in Ceylon; the gate had been framed by several rows of burning oil lamps of this sort.

“As I approached the steps leading up to the entrance into the rock, a strange thing happened: I had the feeling that everything was being sloughed away; everything I aimed at or wished for or thought, the whole phantasmagoria of earthly existence, fell away or was stripped from me – an extremely painful process. Nevertheless something remained; it was as if I now carried along with me everything I had ever experienced or done, everything that had happened around me. I might also say: it was with me, and I was it.

I consisted of all that, so to speak. I consisted of my own history and I felt with great certainty: this is what I am. I am this bundle of what has been and what has been accomplished.

we

“This experience gave me a feeling of extreme poverty, but at the same time of great fullness. There was no longer anything I wanted or desired. I existed in an objective form; I was what I had been and lived. At first the sense of annihilation predominated, of having been stripped or pillaged; but suddenly that became of no consequence.

“Everything seemed to be past; what remained was a ‘fait accompli,’ without any reference back to what had been. There was no longer any regret that something had dropped away or been taken away. On the contrary: I had everything that I was, and that was everything.

“Something else engaged my attention: as I approached the temple I had the certainty that I was about to enter an illuminated room and would meet there all those people to whom I belong in reality. There I would at last understand – this too was a certainty – what historical nexus I or my life fitted into. I would know what had been before me, why I had come into being, and where my life was flowing. My life as I lived it had often seemed to me like a story that has no beginning and end. I had the feeling that I was a historical fragment, an excerpt for which the preceding and succeeding text was missing. My life seemed to have been snipped out of a long chain of events, and many questions had remained unanswered.

Why had it taken this course? Why had I brought these particular assumptions with me? What had I made of them? What will follow? I felt sure that I would receive an answer to all the questions as soon as I entered the rock temple. There I would meet the people who knew the answer to my question about what had been before and what would come after.

“While I was thinking over these matters, something happened that caught my attention. From below, from the direction of Europe, an image floated up. It was my doctor, or rather, his likeness – framed by a golden chain or a golden laurel wreath. I knew at once: ‘Aha, this is my doctor, of course, the one who has been treating me. But now he is coming in his primal form. In life he was an avatar of the temporal embodiment of the primal form, which has existed from the beginning. Now he is appearing in that primal form.’

“Presumably I too was in my primal form, though this was something I did not observe but simply took for granted. As he stood before me, a mute exchange of thought took place between us. The doctor had been delegated by the Earth to deliver a message to me, to tell me that there was a protest against my going away. I had no right to leave the Earth and must return. The moment I heard that, the vision ceased.

“I was profoundly disappointed, for now it all seemed to have been for nothing. The painful process of defoliation had been in vain, and I was not to be allowed to enter the temple, to join the people in whose company I belonged.

“In reality, a good three weeks were still to pass before I could truly make up my mind to live again. I could not eat because all food repelled me. The view of city and mountains from my sickbed seemed to me like a painted curtain with black holes in it, or a tattered sheet of newspaper full of photographs that meant nothing.

Disappointed, I thought, “Now I must return to the “box system” again.” For it seemed to me as if behind the horizon of the cosmos a three-dimensional world had been artificially built up, in which each person sat by himself in a little box. And now I should have to convince myself all over again that this was important! Life and the whole world struck me as a prison, and it bothered me beyond measure that I should again be finding all that quite in order. I had been so glad to shed it all, and now it had come about that I – along with everyone else – would again be hung up in a box by a thread.

“I felt violent resistance to my doctor because he had brought me back to life. At the same time, I was worried about him. His life is in danger, for heaven’s sake! He has appeared to me in his primal form! When anybody attains this form it means he is going to die, for already he belongs to the ‘greater company.’ Suddenly the terrifying thought came to me that the doctor would have to die in my stead. I tried my best to talk to him about it, but he did not understand me. Then I became angry with him.

“In actual fact I was his last patient. On April 4, 1944 – I still remember the exact date I was allowed to sit up on the edge of my bed for the first time since the beginning of my illness, and on this same day the doctor took to his bed and did not leave it again. I heard that he was having intermittent attacks of fever. Soon afterward he died of septicernia. He was a good doctor; there was something of the genius about him. Otherwise he would not have appeared to me as an avatar of the temporal embodiment of the primal form.”

His vivid encounter with the light, plus the intensely meaningful insights led Jung to conclude that his experience came from something real and eternal. Jung’s experience is unique in that he saw the Earth from a vantage point of about a thousand miles above it. His incredibly accurate view of the Earth from outer space was described about two decades before astronauts in space first described it. Subsequently, as he reflected on life after death, Jung recalled the meditating Hindu from his near-death experience and read it as a parable of the archetypal Higher Self, the God-image within.

No matter what you call it, a higher self within or God… once touched, it does lead to insights and the belief that something lies just beyond our realm here on Earth.

“The unconscious psyche believes in life after death” – Carl Jung MD

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2013: 05/23
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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The 6 Principles of Powerful Relationships

Principles of Powerful Relationships

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”

Emotional Abuse …

Frustration because your needs are not met…

Lack of Support…

Emptiness …

Distance…

Five things you want to avoid in relationships.

The best way to do that?

Respect is demonstrated by our actions, not our words. When those actions are absent, especially at a trivial or simple level, there is also a distinct lack of respect. In every relationship respect goes hand-in-hand with love and commitment. You cannot love someone you don’t respect or are not prepared to commit to, even for a short time. Otherwise you will resent the time spent with them, or spent doing things on their behalf, when you could be doing something else or be with someone else. Neither can you love someone you really do not trust. Once trust is gone, the feelings become superficial as the relationship shifts in terms of both emotion and power. You would no longer respect that person, tending to be suspicious of their actions instead of celebrating and enjoying their presence.

The Six Dimensions of Respect

Often a lack of respect comes from a misunderstanding of the word. We throw around the word ‘respect’ very glibly, as a single cure-all for our feelings. But respect is not just one term. It carries six other dimensions within it:

1. Curiosity

2. Attention

3. Dialogue

4. Sensitivity

5. Empowerment

6. Healing

If we are not really demonstrating those six concepts in various ways, with regards to the one we say we respect, we are not showing them much respect at all.

Curiosity

Respect starts with curiosity. We have an interest in that person. We want to know as much about them as possible, or at least a few key things to start with. In the dating process we engineer all kinds of opportunities to satisfy that curiosity and are often mortified when we get no response from our interest because are unable to fulfill our curiosity in any way and to give our attention. We feel frustrated, rejected and insignificant.

Attention

If curiosity is satisfied, we move to give that person our full attention. Indeed, our curiosity grows too, because that person begins to assume value in our eyes. The amount of value will depend on the way they satisfy our curiosity and attention. If the information we get is weak, unappealing or non-reinforcing, we lose interest rapidly, our attention wanes and we move towards another. However, if we perceive that the new interest aligns with us and matches us in major ways, excitement and interest both quicken. We then lavish even more attention on that person, going out of our way to attract their attention and interest.

Dialogue

Lots of attention inevitably leads to dialogue because that is the only way we can learn about our new interest. We communicate verbally as much as possible because we respect that person enough to want to hear what they have to say. We also take the greatest pleasure in conversing for our own sake. Hence much money will be spent on dates and phone calls, in particular. Where there is little respect, we are not in the least bit interested in that person and won’t even talk to them. If there is also disrespect, for example, we made assumptions about them based upon their gender, color, sexuality etc., we will go so far as to treat them negatively. We might have a dialogue at such times but it will express our anxieties, prejudices or anger, not our respect.

Sensitivity

This is at the core of respect. Accepting the person as they are without wanting to change them to suit us; fully acknowledging their values, culture, identity and who they want to be; valuing their contributions, opinions and inputs and genuinely listening to them and sharing their concerns. These are all essential elements of showing sensitivity to the person they are, and wish to be. When we put ourselves and our needs first, and can only see our values, cultures and opinions, we are lacking great sensitivity to those we care for and are actually denying them respect, no matter what we say to the contrary.

Empowerment

Being curious about someone, giving our attention to, having a dialogue with, him or her, and being sensitive to their needs represent the greatest form of empowerment we can grant to another human being. It shows we value them greatly if we are willing to give them our attention and time, and also care about what they value. Anything else lacks respect. For example, if someone is trying to talk to you but you are busy playing on your computer, or talking to someone else on the phone, that shows little reciprocity for the respect they might be giving to you, or sensitivity to their presence and needs.

Healing

Respect has the capacity to heal, especially when we have had past experiences that have been very hurtful or traumatic, so this last dimension is important. When we have had a bad time it is very affirming to be respected and valued by the new person we are attracted to, or the people we interact with, and it is effective in speeding up the healing process. For example, if someone felt really inadequate because her man went off with a younger, more beautiful woman, a new lover in her life demonstrating how wonderful she is would give her much-needed respect and reinforcement. This would heal her pain even quicker than if she had to overcome it by herself. Respect heals because it affirms and reinforces who we are and wish to be. It also puts past hurt into perspective, or even negates it, and restores our confidence.

Respect and trust can never be taken for granted. They are attributes that have to be proven. They are also directly reciprocal to the behavior of others. For example, when we feel that we have had no respect from other people we care about; it is likely that we have given them very little respect ourselves. Most of us are sensitive to when we are not being treated with respect and are then unable to give any in its absence.

If you feel disrespected, what are you doing in the process? There is always a connection. You are either accepting substandard behavior in order to gain approval, allowing yourself to be treated like a doormat, or you are not treating someone well enough. Once you sort out the root cause, mutual respect and trust are usually assured.

Altogether these six dimensions add up to the powerful concept of respect. When we show another human being that respect, we add an even greater experience to their life and perspectives while we too are empowered by its effects.

Respect is an absolute must have in building business relationships and other personal relationships. We would never have the quality of relationships that we do without respect for one another, for our business, and for the talents we poses. Respect boils down to taking personal action and responsibility for mistakes and past actions and moving forward to what we grow and learn to love as our current state of mind and beliefs.

There are many different kinds of relationships. There will be people you have met and are ‘acquainted’ with. There are people you will know as friends, some as lovers. Hopefully you have more friends than lovers. These significant relationships are difficult to find but let me highlight how we can build these incredible relationships.

Fire and Forget relationships… people you meet then never see again

This level of relationship I like to think of as a brief ‘six degrees of separation moment’. These are times in life when you meet somebody who shares a space with you for a moment… and that’s it.

Facebook friendships… people you know but don’t spend much time with

Face book friendships are with people that you know for some reason but don’t really spend a lot of time with. You may think of these people as the step underneath acquaintances.

People you keep at arm’s length… Acquaintances

These are people you know and have spent time with but are not really close to. They are beyond the Face book friend because you have spent time with each other on more than a few occasions. People like this are usually around but not there all the time. You can call them and they wouldn’t mind (I hope) and maybe once in a while you might have dinner with them. But, these aren’t the kind of people you spend a great deal of time with. You are acquainted and may not even like each other.

Real relationships… people you know and love

I have about one or two people in my life I would consider to be deep friends. These are people I share common interests with that I know I am never going to have to give them something in return. The company is enough. My boyfriend is one and the other is a person I know up the coast. Every time I see this guy I know he just wants to talk and chatter away with me. There is no hidden agenda, no mutual bootlicking, no butt kissing or anything like that. It’s all about mutual company not what we can get from each other. No ambition nothing just each other’s company. So how do you find friends like that?

The art of building meaningful relationships

The key to building meaningful relationships is to recognize the relationships you have for what they are. You may have heard that a relationship is a like a garden. You have to work on it. That may be true for some people but it’s the way I have come to understand it. Here are some keys to look for when searching for meaningful relationships.

Key #1 Do they want something in return

These are the kinds of people who want something. They ring and ask to have dinner once in a while but you just know it’s not to see you… it’s to get something. In a perfect world nobody would act this way but it’s the way it works I’m afraid.

Key #2: Is the relationship ‘needs’ based?

Are you providing what’s missing in someone else? This is a relationship of convenience. There are times when knowing the right person to help you out is a must but you would hardly call that a deep relationship. In the Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell identifies people called ‘connectors’ who are really good at placing people in relationships with other people. He notes that these people often have few meaningful relationships yet know lots of people. There are times when this is a useful thing to be.

Key #3: Is it a sick relationship?

Another way to find meaningful relationships is to ask if you are in a sick relationship. These kinds of relationships are when you are being used and abused and know it but won’t do anything about it. People of power are great at these. I experienced something a while back where a person was attempting to bully me into making a decision that in hindsight would have been a disaster. Lucky enough, I had the guts to change my mind. Don’t allow yourself to be controlled… by anyone.

Key #4: Looking for mutual satisfaction on a deeper level

The final key is knowing how to look for deeper meaning in your relationships. This is what makes building meaningful relationships an art form. This is where you and another person share a friendship with no expectations. There is no neediness from either of you, it’s not a sick relationship nor is it a relationship that requires you to do tricks in order to get approval. It is simply an understanding that you are mates and that is that. There is no need to be anything other than yourself and there is an unspoken treaty between you and the other person where you share each other’s lives but expect nothing more than friendship in return. If you find a relationship like this hold on it… it’s worth cherishing.

At the end of the day real relationships are formed when we allow people into our lives. I am a person who likes the background. I don’t enjoy being the center of attention neither do I like social gatherings. My idea of a good time is with my significant other. That said, I have a few people (maybe one or two) that I would consider to be meaningful friends. That doesn’t mean that the people I also know (if you are reading this!) are dogs. It just means I don’t share my life with them on that level. Maybe through time this might be so … but I doubt it. In my opinion the art of building relationships involves a level of intuition that’s missing from normal relationships. We shouldn’t embrace this as a horrible thing. Instead I think we should look towards the relationships we do have and build the meaning that’s desired by both parties. Sometimes, people will want more from you than you should give. If you don’t have that for them … it’s better not to give it. You are not responsible for other people. We are all responsible for ourselves. So…

Figure out what matters to you!

While determining what direction to take in life, many of us make the same mistake: we try to apply the principles of our parents, spouses, co-workers, etc., to our own individual journey. Then, we’re surprised when we’re miserable. The first thing to do when trying to connect to your life’s purpose, then, is to set aside the need to please others or live up to anyone else’s expectations. Be completely honest about what matters most to you. Define your core values, and respect and be yourself.

Treasure your relationships not your possessions.

Melissa Krivachek President of Briella Arion is deeply & passionately committed to the growth & effectiveness of young leaders, teams, and organizations. Melissa is a High Caliber Leadership, Sales, and Personal Growth Expert, Author, Speaker, Coach, and Life Enthusiast! To IGNITE your Purpose, Presence, Passion, & Profit visit http://www.contagiousconfidenceconference.com.

Image Credit: Shutterstock.com

2013: 05/21
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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Running a Home: Phyllis Keino Builds Up Kenya’s Abandoned Youth With Love and Care by @AnnKeino

Phyllis Keino had just started her own family, she saw small children, abandoned begging for food in the streets and going round from house to house. It was then that she realized that she wanted to help the children. They did not ask to be abandoned, become a victim of domestic violence, or sex abuse.

Many of the children who arrived at her Home she took care of because many do not realize the situation there in at that very moment. She decided to give them a place to stay, protecting them and giving them as much love and care she could next to what she betstowed on her own children.

In the 1970s the Keino family started fostering and taking care of destitute and abandoned children from Isiolo. In 1972 they moved back to their home area in Uasin Gishu District Eldoret, and in 1975 to Kazi Mingi Farm. The number of children increased, income was obtained through fund raising and income generated by the family themselves. In 1978 Phyllis registered the children’s home with the Ministry of Home Affairs. In 2003 the children’s home moved to Baraka Farm under a new name: “LEWA Children’s Home”

The home offers a home and care to orphans and vulnerable children in Kenya. Though there was an influx of children needing homes after the post-election violence of 2007, the Home has coped well, offering care to the most needy. Currently there are 108 resident children and another 200 children in outreach programs.

Phyllis takes care of children ranging from a few days old up to university graduates. The children come from different parts of the country therefore their ethnic background is quite diverse.

The children are all raised speaking Kiswahili, the national language, and from nursery school onwards they are taught English. Other children have gone for further education and they stay in boarding schools during school holidays, before returning home. Wherever possible and applicable the children go for further studies in the area they originated during weekends or school holidays so they can visit family members or at least spend time in the community they came from in order to get to know the culture and traditions.

This group of children is mainly supported through scholarship and everything that is needed to finish their education.

kids receiving food items for christmas from guests

Children from the home who are not able to find employment immediately gain practical experience on the Baraka Farm. Besides agricultural activities, they help with the administration, food processing or other sections on the farm.

Also children with a mental or physical handicap are helped in this way. Many children have been able to find their place in society in this way. In other words, the farm is used as a place where children can “learn as you work”, LAYW.

Mrs. Keino had the idea to build a school and many people, among them international athletes and other contacts, offered her to help to realize it. By the end of 1996, a piece of 12.5 hectacres was set aside on Baraka Farm to build a primary school of excellence. KipKeino opened as a day school on January 11^th, 1999 with 160 students, 10 -15 % of the children came and still come from the Children’s Home. The school was set up and run nicely by Mr Paul Scott, the administrator, and currently being run by Mrs Sebastian.

Phyllis had always struggled to give her own children the best education she could afford in Kenya but that was not possible for all the other children in the home. They were just going to a local government school the nearest to the Home.

“I wanted to give all my children the best possible education as I had learned through experience that for orphaned and abandoned children that was their best hope for the future to have a good foundation,” she says.

“Despite all the difficulties I have had all these years, it’s the love I receive from the children and the need I see in them to be defended that brings me through these critical moments in life,” she adds.

“I am probably not a leader in the sense that I am part of a political party or organization but my vision, my believe and aim in life is that I am very dedicated to this decision that I made long time ago to do whatever it takes or crosses my path to be able to help them. I guess it is the perseverance and dedication with which I carry out in my work that makes me an example for my children and many other people,” said Phyllis.

Through the years many volunteers and students have been active one way or another in the Home and on the Farm. Their contributions vary from working alongside the management, making a financial contribution or carrying out their own project with finances they collected at home. Some examples are starting a little library in the Home especially for the youngest children, helping older children with their homework, and the building of a play ground.

BY ANN KEINO

2013: 05/20
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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Infographic: Alarming Facebook MISUSE Stats

Facebook is booming and business has never been better for the social media giant. However, it’s proliferation in the last few years has resulted in some unintended and unwanted consequences. The alarming numbers on Facebook are on the rise and further climbing.

Be it a teen or an employee – effort is needed to ensure that the damaging impact of Facebook is contained and curbed – this is where tools such as the Facebook spy come in. Teens can end up being a victim of Facebook depression just like employees can end up getting their firm into trouble by posting a rant online.

Parents can lose their teens in a forest of problems associated with the social media giant and employers can get caught in a great storm by ignoring the same. So you think Facebook is as damaging as we do?

2013: 05/20
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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Audio: Kanye West “Black Skinhead”

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2013: 05/20
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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Music Video: Kanye West – New Slaves (Premiere) HD

2013: 05/20
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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Audio: T.I. x Lil Wayne “Wit Me”

wit me-cover

2013: 05/20
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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Music Video: B.o.B “Through My Head” @bobatl

2013: 05/20
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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8 Common Misconceptions About Bitcoin

Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s recent price surge attracted a lot of attention, including the attention of the mainstream media, and as people struggle to understand and explain this strange new digital currency, they formed a number of misconceptions about it. I will try to address seven of the common ones in this piece.

1. “It’s not a currency”

Since a currency, as it is widely understood, is basically anything that can be used as a means of exchange for goods and services, and Bitcoin is used for that purpose, it stands to reason that Bitcoin is a currency. However, that’s not all Bitcoin is, and there actually wasn’t anything quite like this before. This is why pigeonholing it into any of the established categories isn’t very wise.

Bitcoin is both a currency and a payment system, with one being inseparable from the other. Its purposes are in a kind of symbiotic relationship. Its value as a payment system feeds its value as a currency, and vice versa. And the fact that it is something new, perhaps a new category of money, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You can call it the evolution of money.

2. “It has no backing”

The argument goes that Bitcoin is basically conjured out of thin air, and being a “virtual” currency, actually isn’t even real. This argument essentially equates Bitcoin to World of Warcraft gold, EVE Online ISK, or Linden Dollars – in other words it’s useless play money.

First of all, it is quite shortsighted to think even of these virtual world currencies as worthless since they obviously aren’t without value to the many people using them for the specific purposes for which they are useful. If a person assigns value to a particular virtual good or service, even if it exists merely within the confines of what is essentially a game, then a currency which allows him to acquire those goods has value to such a person. Value in general is a subjective thing, and if bitcoin demonstrates that it has value to a lot of people then it is not worthless.

Furthermore, Bitcoin definitely is not conjured out of thin air. That’s what the whole process of mining is all about! In order to make a bitcoin come into existence it is not enough to just type a random number on a screen and press enter in some sort of a program. Instead, the program joins in the process of solving highly complicated mathematical problems which have the purpose of strengthening the cryptography of the entire Bitcoin system, thereby strengthening the security of all Bitcoin users. This is the utility value of Bitcoin, in addition to all of the other characteristics that make it an attractive payment system.

And in order to be able to do that it expends significant amounts of electricity. Thus if you’re looking for a real world source of Bitcoins it is electricity, or rather, energy. Between matter (physical tangible things) and energy, there really isn’t a fundamental difference. Just ask Einstein!

I personally find it somewhat laughable when people pose this critique against Bitcoin and immediately compare it to the US Dollar, for example, which is “backed” by the might and power of the US Government. It seems there’s a rather widespread cultural blind spot that has developed among the masses which prevents people from seeing the “backing” of the US Government as a liability rather than anything to be happy and secure about.

The problem is trust, and the fact is that this government which so many trusted, is giving the federal reserve the power to print as much money as they please, literally by typing up numbers on a computer screen in accordance to what they, the masters of the economy, believe to be prudent. I don’t get how does this situation make people feel safe and secure. This fact, that the US Government and the fed control our money, has played a crucial role in just about every recession we’ve had in recent decades, including the 2008 financial crisis, and the upcoming inevitable crash which they won’t be able to maneuver out of by simply printing up stimulus packages (it will kill the dollar).

Bitcoin is, when you understand these facts, actually better backed in the long term than the US dollar or other fiat currencies. It has actual energy behind it, utility value, and cannot be inflated at will. When you also understand that value is subjective, and that many people value things like trust, security, privacy, and other things provided by Bitcoin, that also gives bitcoin the backing it needs to be a worthy currency. In comparison US dollar is only numbers on the screen representing someone’s debt to some bank, and requires you to trust a centralized system.

3. “It is valued too high”

If you consider the fact that there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins (built in scarcity), and that the increasing difficulty in mining it resembles the increasing difficulty in mining natural metals such as gold, this misconception should be easily answered. The more people enter the bitcoin economy the more valuable it will be relative to the dollar economy. If the whole world were to join in, the current value of around $100 to $130 is actually fantastically undervalued. Bitcoin wouldn’t even be on the same playing field. USD would look worthless in comparison.

In other words, it’s not valued too high. It is valued too low, albeit at this point this is probably where it should be, during its volatile stage as the word is still spreading, people are still struggling to understand it, and the infrastructure is still being established and polished up. But when it stabilizes at its real value it should be orders of magnitude worth more than it is now relative to USD.

As a side note, you might think this scarcity presents another problem; how would billions of people trade with only 21 million bitcoins. The answer is that bitcoins can be subdivided into fractions of bitcoins such as microbitcoins or nanobitcoins. When one bitcoin becomes too valuable things that cost far less can be traded in these smaller units of bitcoin. This is similar to how we have cents for dollars and euros, or how you can trade in grams of gold instead of just kilograms or ounces. You can’t subdivide dollar cents like this, which presents a necessity for there to be many more dollars than bitcoins, but that opens the doors to inflation and economic manipulation since there is a central authority that prints these new dollars that can easily abuse this power.

4. “You can mainly buy drugs and other illegal goods with it”

I’ve seen certain talking heads shamelessly repeat this lie in the media multiple times in a way that suggests embarrassing ignorance at best and downright dishonesty at worst; that Bitcoins are mainly used to buy illegal drugs and for other types of shady business. You only need to look at the sizeable list of places that accept bitcoins, the fact that major brands like Reddit, WordPress, Namecheap, and others accept it, to see how far from truth this claim is.

You can buy just about anything with bitcoins, and many are. Drugs are just a small subset of it. The same actually holds true for cash in other currencies. You can buy drugs with dollars and euros as well, yet that doesn’t make people think of these currencies as “shady”, since you can obviously buy many other things with them that don’t have any connotations with shady business. If you think something still can’t be bought with bitcoins that you can buy with dollars, perhaps it’s an opportunity to provide it yourself and make some of your own bitcoins.

5. “It appeals mainly to libertarian anarchists”

While there is some truth to this claim, it isn’t true that Bitcoin appeals only to libertarian leaning people. There are socialist anarchists across Europe who are heeding its arrival for their own reasons, not so much tied to libertarian free market ideals.

Beyond political affiliations people across Europe find it appealing due to its decentralized nature, in the face of the crisis that is hitting the eurozone as governments bail out banks and entire countries on its back. It’s no coincidence, for example, that the cypriot collapse has been widely reported as one of the fuels of the recent Bitcoin price spike. People are losing trust in currencies which are tied to a system that looks increasingly unstable.

Then there’s the purely practical appeal. A good example are merchants which see Bitcoin as a quick and convenient payment method that they can offer to their customers without fear of chargebacks, and high processing fees. Customers find it appealing for the privacy, borderlessness, and ease of use.

In other words, Bitcoin appeals to people of various politicial affiliations, but also for reasons that go beyond politics in general.

6. “It will be heavily regulated and/or shut down”

There may be some sense in the expectation that governments will try to regulate or shut down Bitcoin. From the perspective of those with vested interests in the current system it is a threat. It is easy for them to trump up associations between bitcoin and money laundering, tax evasion, and drug dealing to make it seem as if Bitcoin is mainly enabling criminal enterprises, and use this as an excuse to regulate or shut it down.

The trouble is, it can’t really be shut down, and it doesn’t lend itself easily to regulation. This again has to do with its decentralized nature. It isn’t based in any single country, and doesn’t have a single governing body. In that sense it is much like the internet itself. Even if one country regulated it, people can still extremely easily bypass it through other countries. Furthermore, the encryption and the ability to conduct untraceable transactions make it very difficult to enforce any would be regulations. How can you control what you cannot see?

Finally, even if they somehow banned bitcoin, it is open source software, and the whole system can easily be forked to create an alternative that the government hasn’t even begun to tackle yet.

So it looks extremely unlikely that successful regulation or even banning of Bitcoin is even possible.

7. “It is completely anonymous”

Bitcoin actually doesn’t insure complete anonymity as bitcoin transactions technically aren’t anonymous. Rather they are pseudonymous, with addresses acting as pseudonyms, and transactions between these addresses being public. What it does is allow you to be as anonymous as you wish, that is, it enables you to take control over your privacy. How private your transactions will be, and how easily traceable to you, will depend on how you use it.

For example, if you put up an address on a web page related to you, accepting payments or donations to it, then it will be rather obvious that the bitcoins coming into that address are being paid to you. Generally, if you want to ensure the complete anonymity and untraceability of your transactions you should use a new address for each new transaction, and the bitcoin system makes that pretty easy to do. If each transaction is tied to a new address it will be next to impossible to tell that this new address, or all the other addresses you used, actually belong to you.

8. “It is too difficult to use”

Setting up an offline wallet may be a bit bothersome, I will grant that, but there are some options which make it more straightforward. Namely, the Electrum bitcoin wallet doesn’t require you to download gigabytes of the constantly growing blockchain before you can actually use it to transact. Instead it uses blockchain copies already available online elsewhere. It also backs up your wallet to one of a number of secure servers. Only thing you absolutely have to remember is your passphrase.

But there is a number of online wallets, such as blockchain.info, which make it as easy to use as PayPal, and even easier since it won’t require you to send in copies of your government IDs and whatnot in order to become a verified account holder and be able to take full advantage of it. It also features one click backups of your wallet to specified destinations, including email, and can automatically backup your wallet after every change made to it (that is, after every transaction). Creating new addresses for new transactions is also super easy.

Even buying bitcoins generally isn’t much harder than exchanging into any other currencies, with deposit options including everything from direct deposits and wire transfers to paypal via special channels. Check out our introductory guide to bitcoin for more information.

Source: http://www.tech-faq.com

2013: 05/15
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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15 Reasons to Become an Entrepreneur

Top 15 Biggest Perks of Entrepreneurship

QUESTION: WHAT IS THE BIGGEST PERK OF OWNING YOUR OWN BUSINESS?

Question by: Ashley

LIFESTYLE OF CHOICE

“Some people value creative freedom above all else. Some value work/life balance. Still others have their eye on the big bucks. For me, success is the ability to be picky about the projects I take on while still making enough money to pay the bills…all on a part-time schedule that leaves time for myself and my family. Entrepreneurship has made that flexibility possible.”

- Steph Auteri | career coach, writer, and editor, Word Nerd Pro

IN GOOD COMPANY

“In the corporate environment you often have limited control over who you work with or for, and it can be draining at best. The hands down No. 1 perk of owning my own business is working with only the best people. Surrounding myself with great people impacts my life even beyond working hours — no more dreading Monday mornings or that client call in the afternoon!”

- Kelly Azevedo | Founder, She’s Got Systems

FLEXIBILITY IS KING

“The biggest perk of owning my own business is the flexibility. Having two young children, the ability to work non-traditional hours is invaluable. It means I can attend a recital from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and work an extra two hours at night, when most corporate employees are watching American Idol.”

- Alexandra Levit | President and Founder, Inspiration at Work

SURROUNDED BY GREAT PEOPLE

“Traveling to conferences and events around the world, and interacting and engaging with really smart, passionate people is a fantastic perk for entrepreneurs who are outgoing and love traveling. Every person that you interact with has an interesting life story, an experience, or a valuable insight — try to find out what it is.”

- Matt Mickiewicz | Co-Founder, Flippa and 99designs

MOVING THE OFFICE WHENEVER I WANT

“When I worked out of a cubicle early in my career, I used to daydream about going down the street to work from a coffee shop, just to change my scenery and stimulate my creativity. Now, I can work anywhere with reliable Wi-Fi.”

- Allie Siarto | Partner, Director of Analytics, Loudpixel

A CHANCE TO SHAPE SOCIETY

“Owning my business gives me a concrete way to change the things I don’t agree with in society. Corporations have a responsibility to the people who help build them. I pay the entire health insurance premium for my employees, let those traveling spend an extra day in the cities they visit so they can see the world, and make sure that I manage the workload correctly so they all go home on time.”

- Vanessa Nornberg | President, Metal Mafia

COMPLETE CREATIVE RIGHTS!

“For me, a big value in owning my own business is all the work put into is mine :the designs, website, packaging — everything you see, I had my fingers on and thought of. Coming from and still being part of the creative design world, it’s sometimes a frustration when asked to “make the red more red” in a design. Owning is sort of a therapy session.”

- Jerry Piscitelli | Owner / Inventor, Portopong LLC

FREEDOM OF THOUGHT

“I cannot play an instrument, sing, or dance well. I use entrepreneurship as my art of self-expression. It allows me to be creative and challenge myself to create something of value that the rest of the world will love.”

- Lawrence Watkins | Founder & CEO, Great Black Speakers

IMMEASURABLE PERSONAL GROWTH

“A mentor of mine, Dan Cohen, recently described the personal growth changes in other young entrepreneurs he’s known as “growing in dog years.” It’s a true statement, and I can say my ventures have forced me to grow and adapt incredibly fast to a variety of challenges and situations.”

- Matthew Ackerson | Founder, Saber Blast

RED SOX GAMES!

“The biggest perk is that I can go to as many day sporting events without getting approval from a boss. I can also get up as late as I want and work until 4 a.m., with nobody to complain about my “weird” hours.”

- Patrick Curtis | Chief Monkey and Founder, WallStreetOasis.com

WHAT A RIDE!

“I always say that running a startup is like a roller coaster. The highs are really high, and the lows are really low, and it all comes down to you. I love that. Not everyone does, but I do.”

- Lauren Friese | Founder, TalentEgg

EXISTENTIAL JOY

“When you are running a startup, you learn a lot of skills quickly and feel challenged every day. At a regular job, it’s easy to get bored or just get by with little effort. Not so at a startup. The biggest perk I feel about owning my business is the feeling that I am living to my potential. When you live to your potential, you feel an existential joy in your life that is so satisfying.”

- Eric Bahn | Founder, Beat The GMAT

I’M BUILDING IT FOR ME

“Working for someone else means that everything you do goes to make their company better and more sustainable. You may be improving your odds of having a job in a few years, but you aren’t really building a future. But every hour I sink into my business goes toward creating something for me. That means I’m better able to take care of myself and my family and to live the life I want to.”

- Thursday Bram | Consultant, Hyper Modern Consulting

PASSPORT, PLEASE!

“I sometimes take for granted the fact that if I want to leave on a trip, I don’t have to ask anyone’s permission. I remember back to the times when I worked for someone else, and I would have to fill out forms and ask permission, and then await approval from upper management. I felt trapped, suffocated and limited. Now, I don’t have to ask for any permission. I just book it and go.”

- Steven Le Vine | CEO/President, grapevine pr

FREEDOM OF TIME

“While I work harder than most people I know in traditional jobs, I have way more flexibility and freedom than they do. If I want to take an afternoon off to go golf, I can. Or if I want to take my business with me and work from Thailand, I can do that too. Owning my own business has ensured I don’t have to sacrifice lifestyle for a paycheck.”

- Sean Ogle | Founder, Location 180, LLC

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Image Credit: Shutterstock.com

2013: 05/15
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Infographic: 8 People Who Changed the World – Without Formal Education

People Who Changed the World – Without Formal Education

Famous scientists and inventors who dropped out of school changed the way we understand and perceive reality. They proved that imagination, hard work, and trusting your hunches are more important than formal education. Their inventions gave recreation and work to millions of people around the world. These famous scientists and tech people donated to charitable causes to eradicate poverty and diseases and to help disadvantaged people.

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison is a prolific inventor, businessman, and a famous dropout who invented the light bulb, motion picture camera, and stock ticker. His mother taught him to read and write after he was expelled from school because teachers thought he was too slow to learn. He was self-disciplined and industrious, worked hard, experimented, and spent a lot of time reading in the public library. While working on a train, selling newspapers, tobacco, and candy, a bottle of phosphorus in his train lab started a fire. He gave up trains, changed several jobs, and devoted himself to inventing.

The Wright Brothers

The Wright brothers invented the “flying machine” and flew the first airplane. Orville Wright was expelled from elementary school. While both Wilbur and Orville attended high school, they never graduated. They spent a lot of time watching birds in flight, designed gliders, and invented an airplane that gained enough airspeed for a successful flight. The fathers of flight did work on wing design, propellers, and in the field of aerodynamics. There is little hope for advance if we believe that reality is fixed and only accepted truths are true, Orville Wright once said.

Bill Gates

Bill Gates, a Harvard dropout, became a dropout billionaire who earns about $20 million a day. If he were to pay the U.S. national debt, it would take him about 10 years. The former chief executive of Microsoft is a computer programmer, entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist. While Edison put a lot of time and money into his inventions, Bill Gates is focused on malaria eradication and improving access to education.

Larry Ellison

Larry Ellison, who founded Oracle, is a billionaire college dropout and the world’s 9th richest person. Diplomas are for losers, he told Yale graduates in his commencement address. “Loserhood. Loser Cum Laude,” he said. Ellison is a magnate who owns planes, yachts, and islands. He also said he has given millions of dollars to charitable causes, including education and medical research.

Michael Dell

Michael Dell dropped out of college at the age of 19. The founder of Dell Inc. shown an interest in technology from an early age and contributed to the computer revolution later in his life. Dell Inc. has hundreds of thousands of employees around the world. Millions of companies, public libraries, foundations, and individuals use Dell computers for research and their daily tasks. The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation has donated to many charitable causes such as the Asian tsunami victims.

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, the chairman and co-founder of Apple Inc. was also a college dropout. He introduced the Macintosh and is recognized as one of the pioneers of the computer revolution. His many visionary creations, such as the iPad and iPhone, have changed the lives of millions of people. The man who set a standard for animated films believed that technology would help lives, not charity.

Paul Allen

Paul Allen, the founder of Xiant software and co-founder of Microsoft dropped out of the University of Washington. Known as the “idea man”, Allen became a billionaire in his early 30s. He invested in different companies while pursuing his wired world strategy. In his words, he “saw a connected future” and a wired world. Allen is the founder of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation which has donated close to $30 million to non-for-profits in the U.S.

Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg is a Harvard dropout and the founder of Facebook. For him, it is more important to connect the world than to offer services for money. Openness and minimalism are important for him. Zuckerberg is a charity donor who gave more than $498 million to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

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2013: 05/15
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Threading Africa Together Through Fashion and Style: Interview with @saidiChulala by @PoshyPorsche

You have to appreciate young ambitious upcoming Kenyans who are taking the culture a notch higher, by fulfilling their dreams, while demonstrating the rewards of following your passion.

CHULALA

Marvin Saidi: I am a guy who was born in Kenya and spent most of my formative years growing up in United Kingdom, Bristol. I have a very strong perfectionist professional side, tempered with a very soft fun-loving humorous nature, which stands me in good stead for the demands of my chosen profession.

I have a double major in BCom and Law don’t ask me why I chose fashion industry but I just had to.

1. What is the name of your clothing line and how did it start?

My shoe/clothing line is called CHULALA which is a nick name that I was used to be called because I knew how to dress and start my own fashion trends. The shoes are made from ankara fabric and they are designed for people who want to stand out.

I started in 2007 as a trial run back in the United Kingdom, more specifically in Bristol, designing stuff and giving my pals to rock for free.

This went on for quite some time till I got great reception in my products from my peers, before taking it on as a full time professional endeavor in 2011.

I’ve been growing big ever since. So far what I think has been my biggest challenge was acceptance, for you to try make people move the same direction you are is a pain in the ass.

In the beginning people used to think handmade African fabric shoes and clothing were so cliché’ and too crazy because they are so consumed by the Western style, but now all that has changed.

2. What has been your greatest achievement?

My greatest achievement I must say was making $2,500 in 2 hours when I started out.

3. What is the platform that you use to sell your products?

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For now everyone can find my designs at http://shop.closet49.com/Chulala_fashions, we are working on the new website to be launched in mid-2013, which will incorporate an online shop, and some new exciting sections.

You can keep up to date in the meantime with my blog or Twitter @saidiChulala

4. How does Kenya inspire you in regards to what you do?

Kenya does inspire me in some way. The culture and the people help remind me not to drag and be too comfortable because everyone in Kenya is thriving hard to excel and with this high competition I can’t really afford to sleep.

5. Appreciate three Kenyans in the industry who are doing big things

Hmm!! 3 Kenyans….. I must say my fellow model friend Emo, owner of Afros, Gilbert CEO for Fashion house Kenya and of course my main man Nick Ondu for Ankara Vintage

6. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

In 10 years I see my brand CHULALA as one of the biggest brands in Africa as a whole and it will be a household name just like Gucci and Prada.

Interview by Pauline Wanjohi

2013: 05/15
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Interview: Chulala, Threading Africa Together Through Fashion and Style @saidiChulala by @PoshyPorsche

2013: 05/15
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5 Things to Do When You Have Second Thoughts About Your Degree

Major Regrets: What to Do When You Have Second Thoughts About Your Degree

Brittni Ping, an international studies and French language major, soon found out after graduating college that just because a college offers a particular degree, doesn’t mean there’s an application for it in the real world.

She’s not alone. There is a large group of adults out there, perfectly capable adults who have college degrees and career aspirations, who regret their college major. Data from a May 2012 report by the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development found that of graduates who would’ve done something differently in college, 37% would’ve been more careful about selecting a major or chosen a different major. And with some saying the college degree is becoming the new high school diploma, who has time, and who can afford, to have regrets about their degree choice?

Value of the Internship

Ping began an internship in Tel Aviv after finishing college and found that it was a great way for her to get her feet wet in her field.

“The internship was actually a part of the Glazer Institute, which I heard of through my school. It was my first job within the realm of the arts, which I am very passionate about,” she said. “The internship gave me a good idea of what goes on behind the scenes and from a business prospective, and since my major was international studies, I really benefitted from learning how to mesh into a new work culture.”

Ping said unhappy or disenchanted graduates should seek out internships, especially abroad. Like Ping, students may learn of these opportunities through their respective schools. After interning, Ping taught English abroad in France for a year, in order to bolster her French degree.

“Even though the work may be short-term, you’ll never be bored. You learn a lot of things abroad at a much quicker pace, simply because the environment is so different from what you’re used to,” she said. “I believe experiences like this have the ability to set you apart also from job applicants who have never left their own state, for example.”

Abby Kohut, career expert and blogger for AbsolutelyAbby, said her internships were extremely beneficial.

“They helped me determine the kind of work environment I preferred, the kinds of job responsibilities I enjoyed, and the type of manager I worked with best. When you regret your major, it’s important to take the time that you need to find a job that you won’t regret, and internships offer a perfect opportunity to do just that,” Kohut said. “Plus, an internship gives both parties a ‘try and buy’ so that each can decide whether the match is appropriate.”

Kohut suggested graduates looking for internships check out sites such as InternsOver40 and Intern Match.

“You can also find internships on large job boards such as Monster and Careerbuilder. The best way to find a job shadowing opportunity is to use LinkedIn to find individuals in the profession you are interested in and ask them for a shadowing opportunity. Typically, college career centers can point you towards these kinds of opportunities as well,” she said.

Work Through It, Literally

Sometimes when graduates are stuck with a degree they deem as worthless, the only thing to do is get to work.

“In this current job market, you need every advantage you can get on your resume and ‘psychology undergrad’ does not open many doors,” said Anna Gamel, who majored in psychology and decided to forego grad school and get a job to pay back some of her undergraduate debt. “It’ll take me many years of good work experience to make up for that degree.”

She began by taking a job completely unrelated to her field.

“I took a random job assisting a contracted public relations team at a tech company. The initial pay was $13/hour and was found by a friend’s cousin who worked for a recruiting company,” Gamel said. “Within the first three months, they fired the contracted team, asked me to take over all PR for the company, and brought me on as a salaried employee with a substantial raise.”

Gamel said she was able to teach herself PR through trial and error and with the help of Google.

“I was able to train myself to be effective in PR because I pushed myself past any comfort levels I ever had. I worked long hours and would bring my laptop home to read PR blogs,” she said. “I literally had to Google what a press release was before writing my first one. I had to build lists of influential media people and executives by researching them from the ground-up. I pored over top technology lists and learned what Google Alerts were so I could keep myself up to date on emerging competition.”

Loren Guerriero said his liberal arts degree in general psychology didn’t leave him with much but temporary work and volunteering opportunities.

His first job out of school was wilderness therapy, or leading a group of troubled teenagers through hikes in the woods — he stopped because it got cold — and after that began counseling homeless youth in downtown Portland. Guerriero said he realized the life of a social worker was “chronically underpaid, underappreciated, and morally exhausting.”

So he packed up his belongings and bought a one-way ticket to Mexico.

“I had run out of ideas and options in the United States, so I decided to do something completely different, and I was interested in Mexico because of its rapid and unequal economic development,” Guerriero said. “Mexico is so close by, and so different, yet intimately connected to us. But to be perfectly honest, it was a wild card without a clear outcome.”

Guerriero began volunteering with local Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Mexico until he finally got his big break: an environmental justice NGO needed someone to translate its website from Spanish into English.

“Although I felt like I was adept at using computers, it was a stretch to work on a website. In addition, I was only an intermediate Spanish speaker,” he said. “Regardless, I decided to take the job, even though I wasn’t sure how I would succeed. The steep learning curve — HTML and Spanish — forced me into many hours of trial and error, scouring the internet for tutorials and community discussions. I was surprised to find that I could pull it off with patience and self-paced study.”

Because of the spontaneous trip to Mexico, Guerriero was able to make the most out of his degree.

“Ever since then, HTML has been a critical skill that has helped me get every job, each one forcing me to up my web ante. Without realizing it, the impulsive trip to Mexico sparked a new skill set.”

Network Your Way to a Career

Possibly one of the best weapons a disgruntled graduate can use when networking are the various forms of social media.

“Networking is helpful for anyone entering a new field,” Kohut said. “Use LinkedIn to locate individuals who are in the profession or industry that you are interested in, then ask for an informational interview where you can ask questions about why they entered the field, what they like or dislike, and what education is needed.”

Gamel said all she had to go on when she took over her company’s PR efforts was a vague plan on a PowerPoint file. Her success relied on her ability to self-teach and network and she admittedly has networked herself into each position she’s had since college.

“I befriended some of the feistiest tech bloggers in the tech sphere and after two years was friendly enough to visit them in their homes,” she said. I landed my bosses presentation slots at Proctor and Gamble, Harvard, MIT and Stanford University. We did conferences and expos in various states. I put on a press release party at the Ritz in Tokyo, Japan.”

Gamel began her job not knowing what Twitter was and a year later was on a list in Portland as one of the top people to ‘follow.’

“I moved to a new city and had my sights set on a certain agency. I applied twice without luck, so I started networking via Twitter and found out the CEO would be attending a certain Tweet-Up,” she said. “I went to the Tweet-Up and met as many people as I could until one person finally offered to introduce me to her. We chatted and I told her I would love to grab coffee sometime. Soon after, I was employed.”

The key to networking, Gamel said, is stepping outside of one’s comfort zone.

“I actually hate networking and going to a networking event alone is like pure torture to me. But, you have to do it,” she said. “If you have a hobby that makes you employable, for example you’re good at writing, volunteer at a writing center and meet people who could help you find a job. Think of a field where you believe you could make your skills work for you — find people in that field and ask them out to coffee.”

The MOOC Advantage

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) became extremely popular in 2012, as many saw them as a game changer in education technology.

With the opportunity to take classes for free, some of them for credit, graduates dissatisfied with their degrees can use MOOCs to enhance their resumes and possibly land them their dream job.

“Additional education whether free or credit worthy is valuable, especially in this job market,” Kohut said. “If what you learned during the MOOC is relevant to your career goal, you can list it on your resume in the education section. You can also mention the class in your cover letter and in your interview, especially if the class helped you with your career choice.”

Gamel said she considered going back to school for more education, but feels the additional debt would be hard to deal with.

“Before enrolling in MOOCs, I would try to talk to people in the industry I wanted to get into and research what MOOCs mean to my prospective employer,” she said. “If I was already employed and thought it would help me move up, I would bring it up with my employer. I would try and get various employers or HR departments to chat with me about their thoughts on them first. I’ve been surprised at how receptive employers are about chatting with you regarding qualifications and what they look for in candidates.”

The Importance of Being Realistic

Ping said students can no longer rely on good grades to come out with a well-paid, secure career.

“The business world just isn’t running like that anymore. Students do need to get As in school and have suitable experience through internships, but after that it’s about creativity and demonstrating how you stand out,” she said.

Guerriero has similar opinions.

“By telling students that they can do anything, and trumpeting the inherent value of higher education, we sometimes miss the opportunity to teach the necessity of being technical and entrepreneurial in a the modern job market,” he said. “The job hunt can be frustrating because a student is used to the pattern of applying for a program, completing the requirements, and receiving a certification. This thinking means that some individuals seek credentials perpetually, even without checking to see if that’s completely necessary.”

Guerriero suggested recent graduates consider these questions before rushing to enroll in a program to acquire additional certification: What is the job I really want and what is required from this employer? Is it another degree or something else?

“This might be more education, or it might be volunteer work, an apprenticeship, or portfolio development,” he said. “And don’t only respond to postings. Many opportunities are filled before they even make it to the public listings.”

Kohut said many individuals make poor choices when it comes to their major because they are unaware of how their interests match potential careers.

It’s normal for students to have concerns about their job prospects after graduation, especially in this job market and especially if the choice of major doesn’t seem too promising. But, there are ways for graduates to combat these concerns, and ultimately find their way to successful and fulfilling careers.

Source: http://www.onlinedegreeprograms.com/blog/2013/major-regrets-what-to-do-when-you-have-second-thoughts-about-your-degree/

2013: 05/15
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CapitalFM TV|The Strength of a Woman: Waithera Kabiru’s Journey From Breast Cancer

Thirty seven-year old Waithera says her smile is not just physical but from the deepest part of her heart/CFM

NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 24 – As Hollywood star Michael Douglas put it, “cancer didn’t bring me to my knees, it brought me to my feet.”This is the energy that I notice as Waithera Kabiru heartily unleashes a dazzling smile despite the drip hanging from above her small bed to her right breast.

The smile does not resemble that of a patient, or for that matter of someone who has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Waithera is full of life as she prepares herself to undergo a chemotherapy session. She has an iPad and a bible ready to take her through the long hours in a small cancer ward.

Thirty seven-year old Waithera says her smile is not just physical but from the deepest part of her heart.

According to her, despite being diagnosed with cancer, God has not made any mistake. “I have no regrets at all. I got this cancer for a reason. God has a purpose for me, to be able to help others, create awareness and help in raising funds for others.”

In fact, cancer has given her a second chance and the secret of this second chance is staying positive.

“On 12/12/12, one day after my 37th birthday, I underwent my first course of treatment – breast cancer surgery to remove the tumours found in my right breast and removal of my lymph nodes. I will never forget that date in my life. It is the day that marked the beginning of my Second Chance in Life,” Waithera explains.

Many people after being diagnosed with chronic illnesses allow the disease to take toll on their lives shattering the glimmer of hope that has kept many alive and in fact cancer free.

Despite the physical and emotional evils that the cancer has come with, Waithera is among the few of the likes of Robin Roberts who said, “It’s about focusing on the fight and not the fright.”

“Today I stand here, five months into my treatment and my life has never felt better or wholesome! Despite going through chemotherapy treatment since January, I have never felt this wholesome in my life! Yes, I have a mile long list of side effects, from hair loss, insomnia, constipation, lack of appetite, back pain, chronic fatigue, and the list goes on, but I can live with them. Every day I wake up and I value the small things in life and I am thankful for them. That’s cancer for you, it keeps you in perspective!” Waithera describes.

This is the attitude that has given the mother of two sons the energy, courage and determination of patiently going through chemotherapy sometimes for three to four hours every two weeks.

Waithera who describes herself as a digital diva, soccer mum and soon to be cancer survivor learnt about her condition in November last year.

She felt a lump on her breast by chance.

“I was not checking for a lump, I just happened to find a lump after taking a shower. I told my sister about it who told me to see an oncologist. I did not even know who an oncologist is. But I went to see the oncologist after that.”

Waithera who is former Head of Digital Media at Capital FM was quite aware of the numerous frequent campaigns reminding Kenyans to do self breast examination regularly.

But like most Kenyans, she did not take the reminders seriously. She knew of her condition when the cancer was at stage three.

According to the Breast Cancer Organisation, cancer tumours are described from stage I to IV with IV being the most advanced cancer.

Waithera is now advising Kenyans to take cancer awareness messages seriously because if cancer is discovered at early stages, it can be better managed than a discovery at late stages.

“I was in media…I got that information; I was aware of that, I did not do it consistently. Don’t be too busy to do it. I was fortunate I caught mine at stage 3. If I was doing it regularly I would have caught it very early. Do a self breast examination in the shower, do it once per month. Anyone can get cancer. Lifestyles have changed; not only those with a family history of cancer can get it,” she warns.

In her second chance, Waithera wants to talk to people and advocate for regular cancer screening and early detection.

Talking from experience, treatment of cancer is very expensive. In total, Waithera requires between Sh5 to Sh6 million for her treatment.

“My treatment involves surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. The surgery costs from Sh500,000. The chemotherapy (I am doing eight cycles) every session costs between Sh30,000 to 70,000 per session. I am also on a drug that costs about Sh500,000. The radiation costs between Sh200,000 to 500,000.

Waithera is also on additional treatment of a drug that costs Sh279,000 for every dose and she requires 12 of them. “Cancer is very expensive to manage but I have put my trust in God that he will provide.”

Even as she struggles not to dose off after getting additional drip mixed with a sleeping pill, Waithera’s wish and prayer is that one day Kenyans will access affordable and quality cancer detection, treatment and management services.

On April 1st, during a campaign dubbed ‘Motor Hunt’ Sh420,000 was raised to aid Waithera to meet her medical costs.

A second funds drive, called ‘Family Affair Wellness and Music Festival’ will be held on May 1st, 2013 at the Carnivore grounds in Nairobi from 10am.

At a charge of Sh500 for adults and Sh200 for children above 5 years, guests will be entertained by the likes of Eric Wainaina, Daddy Owen, DJ Pinye and Capital FM’s DJ Adrian.

Cancer survivors will also be present to share their life experiences.

Free cancer screening services will also be made available.

“Hi well-wishers and thanks for your support. You can mPESA donations to 0722 583 790 (Mary Kabiru), or make cheque to the Waithera Kabiru Medical Fund, Family Bank Account No 48000005353. Thank-you very much,” – Waithera Kabiru

Courtesy of http://www.capitalfm.co.ke

2013: 05/06
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Music Video|Birdman – Tapout ft. Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Mack Maine & Future

2013: 05/06
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CapitalFM TV Business Profile|Standing Tall, Barefoot Consultancy Makes Strides in Hotel Sector

2013: 04/26
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Wondering How To Be Successful? Here Are The 6 Secrets

All of us want to be successful in life, business, careers, relations e.t.c. However, most people believe that success is difficult. Such people that actually want and need success to be hard have a built-in excuse when things don’t go their way! They blame nature, your parents, your boss, friend etc instead of taking a 100% of their lives.

Success is all about attitude, and believe in yourself. Napoleon once said that “whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” You must believe that what you want is possible.

For those of you who are serious about having more, doing more, giving more and being more, success is achievable with some understanding of what to do, some discipline around planning and execution of those plans and belief that you can achieve your desires.

Jack Canfield in his book “The Principles of Success” says that success takes time, effort, perseverance and patience. Therefore, put in mind that success is a process – nothing more, nothing less. There is really no magic to it and it’s not reserved only for a select few people. As such, success really has nothing to do with luck, coincidence or fate. It really comes down to understanding the steps in the process and then executing on those steps.

Here are some key steps that can get you from where you are to where you want to be.

1.Decide what you want
“The indispensable first step to getting things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.” Bein stein. We all know that nothing moves until someone makes a decision. The first action is always in making the decision to proceed. This is a fundamental step, which most people overlook. So, make the decision to move forward. Commit your decision to paper, just to bring it into focus. Then, go for it!

2. Clarity
Have clarity of purpose which entails understanding what you want, why you want it and what it will do for you. Majority of people have no clue about what they truly want. They have no clarity. When asked the question, responses will be superficial at best, and at worst, will be what someone else wants for them.

Ask yourself lots of questions: What do I really want? What does success look like to me? Why do I want a particular thing? How will this achievement change my life? How can I use this success to make a difference for others? Once you have a clear understanding of what you want, you can engage in goal setting – specifically setting SMART goals.

3. Focus
Focus is having the unwavering attention to complete what you set out to do. There are a million distractions in every facet of our lives. Telephones and e-mail, clients and managers, spouses and kids, TV, newspapers and radio – the distractions are everywhere and endless. Everyone wants a piece of us and the result can be totally overwhelming.

So, to stay on course with all these distractions, you need willpower, though it’s very difficult to stay on track simply through willpower. Therefore, you need to develop and follow a plan on the steps required to get you to the goals on paper. Review it regularly and ensure that every step takes you closer to your Vision and Goals. If the plan doesn’t support the vision then change it!

4.Commitment
Commitment is something that comes from understanding that everything has its price and then having the willingness to pay that price. This is important because nobody wants to put significant effort into something, only to find out after the fact that the price was too high.

The price is something not necessarily defined as financial. It could be time, effort, sacrifice, money or perhaps, something else. The point is that we must be fully aware of the price and be willing to pay it, if we want to have success.

5.Belief
This is the single biggest obstacle that all of us must overcome in order to be successful. We all carry a lot of baggage, thanks to our upbringing. The majority of people carry with them, an entire series of self-limiting beliefs that will absolutely stop, and hold them back from, success. Things like “I’m not good enough”, “I’m not smart enough”, “I’m not lucky enough”, and the worst, “I’m not worthy” are but a few of the self-limiting beliefs I have encountered. We carry them with us like rocks in a knapsack, and then use them to sabotage our success. So, how twisted is that?!?!

The old expression is absolutely true – whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right! You need to shed off these non-supportive beliefs and replacing them with beliefs that will help them to accomplish their desires.

6.Taking Action
“Nothing changes until something moves” – this is the battle cry of author and journalist Robert Ringer. Not all of the decision-making, clarity, planning, focus and belief in the world, will get you to where you want to be, without taking action!

Action – putting your plans into play – that is what will get you to the destination. Don’t get caught in the paralysis of analysis, or in the conundrum of Ready, Aim, Aim, Aim, Aim…

Get the oars in the water and start rowing. Execution is the single biggest factor in achievement, so the faster and better your execution, the quicker you will get to the goals!

By Dorcas Karuana

2013: 04/26
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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Interview: KTN’s @AnneKiguta Talks About Life & Career Success

She is sassy, beautiful and a jewel that KTN would find hard to replace if she ever decided to look the other way (get poached)

She spoke to Elleafrique Magazine and below is an excerpt of that interview.

Who is Anne Kiguta?
I am 28 years old and the last of four girls. I grew up in an average Kenyan family. We weren’t wealthy and my parents made it abundantly clear that I had to work for everything I wanted in life.
So I learnt the values of work, determination and tenacity quite early in life.

My upbringing was difficult because I was raised in a home where my father physically assaulted my mother and on occasion my sisters and myself. It was a very painful experience by many beautiful things have come out of that including the work I do with Kenyan families. Am part of various mentor-ship programmes in Kenya for women and girls with save the children as a child nutrition advocate. I am also a mother to the coolest kid I know, Sasha.

How did you get into television?
I’ve always loved language. English literature was my favourite in school. I have always had what I think is an above average sense of curiosity. Asking questions was in built. After my A levels I took a gap year to figure out what I wanted. It just so happens that my local church was setting up a radio station and was looking for presenters.

I got the job and the rest is history. I worked at Hope FM then News market leader at Capital FM for a total of seven years before venturing into TV. Oddly enough, I did my screen test while I was pregnant a very prominent baby bump. they told me to return after I had the baby and I did!

How is the competition with the male counterparts? Are you all treated as equals or not?
Media is a testosterone driven business. No we are not treated like equals. but its up to you to make your presence felt and take your position. I have faced my fair of chauvinism. Even now, with some male peers, they still from time to time talk down to women.

Having said that I have also had the fortune to work work with great men in this business who didn’t shoo me away from their offices with my million questions as a young journalist. The challenges have become a powerful motivator for me. I strive to be doubly good at what I do. Having said that, who wants to be treated as equals? I’m a woman, specially designed by my creator to bring things to life. I was made for greatness. Treat me special because I am!

Is it true that you had to literally fight with another female anchor for the top position?
Haha. No. But isn’t that the story that some bloggers would love to tell! It is as if women can’t get ahead without cat-fights or sleeping around. Any way, I do not shy away from challenges or opportunity. I do my homework and put my best foot forward always! I focus on Anne. I’m her number one cheerleader and her fiercest critic. I don’t look over my shoulder to see who is doing what. I have my mission and my purpose and I’m determined to accomplish it. I have been blessed to achieve many firsts throughout my career. First to go straight to prime time, being the youngest to hold several editorial positions etc. These things did not come on a silver platter. They have come through a lot of prayer and hard work. I’m proud of my accomplishments and thankful for the opportunity to do what I do.

A few months ago Kenya elected a new President. How was the whole experience of reporting the news?
It was intense and thrilling. I was on air for 10 or 11 hours straight and when it was time to rest, I barely could because I did not want to miss an update. That coupled with the amount of reading I had to do to be ready made it all challenging and great fun. I was proud to be Kenyan I salute the millions who lined up for hours to cast their vote. They redeemed our faith in the democratic process. Kenyans have kept the peace. I am confident they will continue to do so.

What do you do when you are not working?
I go about with my mission with women and children across the country. I find it deeply rewarding and it is my way of building Kenya. I love to hang with my daughter. We do a lot of dancing and eating! I’ve also recently joined the gym and found it very rewarding! Then of course there is Friday night with my girls.

We could laugh for days on end sipping on red wine.

Do you have a family of your own/are you planning to have any/are you dating?
As mentioned, I have a gorgeous three year old. She is my joy and means the wide world to me. I am seeing someone. I’m taking it a day at a time and enjoying the journey. Living, loving, learning.

Men find you very sexy. How does that make you feel?
Haha. Very sexy? Haha. Well it is nice to get a compliment. How does it make me feel? To be honest I don’t think about it until someone does ask. It feels nice and kind of awkward really. I prefer to get compliments based on the work I do rather than how I look.

Give us five names of African women who inspire you today?
1. Njoki Ndugu, Supreme Court Judge – Kenya
2. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Former World Bank Managing Director and Nigeria Finance Minister
3. H.E Joyce Banda, President of Malawi
4. Alek Wek, Supermodel
5. Margaret Kiguta, my mum.

2013: 04/26
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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Why Most Kenyans Are Always Broke

Let me start off by saying that if you are not on the “most” list, you deserve a trophy for making the rest of us look bad. We only have one question for you, ‘How on earth do you manage to stay off the ‘broke fellas’ lane and stay on the avenue of ‘smugly have my finances under control avenue’?

It’s almost the end month and most of us , myself included can barely wait for that cheque to clear off to finally have some money on us. Spend it within a week, two weeks if you are lucky and the whole
cycle just keeps repeating itself.

Wondering why you are always broke? No, you are not cursed, I will tell you why…

1.The Economy Sucks!
We are humans and we love to lay blame on things we have no control over. So let’s blame our misery on the economy. It is not an empty blame though. Prices of every commodity go up, the land lord demands a little more after every two months or so, the matatu conductor decides to surprise us every now and then and woe unto you if you come from Rongai and it starts to rain or it seem like it’s going to rain. See, the economy doesn’t favour our shallow pockets.

2.We live beyond our means
Everyone loves a good life even if they can’t afford it. We live in neighbourhoods that we know very well will leave a dent on our bank accounts every month, we shop at places we know very well are not designed for people like us…the good life as they call it ends up leaving us in trouble.

3.We Try to keep up with everybody else.
A friend buys something and for the love of all things decent we want to show them that, “Dude, I can rock that too” But in the real sense, can you? Check your pockets, are they deep enough to keep up?

4.We are not paid well enough
Of course we are not paid well enough… You and everybody else. A six figure salary would be the end of your troubles but since that is not likely to happen any time soon, welcome to the ‘broke fellas lane’

They may not be the only reasons why most Kenyans are always broke and always on the lookout for the pay day. The nyamachoma joints, that clubbing we enjoy every Friday, those outings and road trips we love so much, the unplanned emergencies (new clothes) are going to be the death of us, literally. Lack of money, creates stress and stress could kill you. I read that somewhere, check it out sometimes.

The good news is that we can change that…here is how.
•    Create a budget- and Stick to it.
•    Pay attention to your finances.
•    Stop wasting money
•    Spend less than earn
•    Earn more.

How, can you earn more you ask? Look for ways of making more income so you can have more money. You don’t have to have a weekend off each week. You can find other jobs that will give you more hours so you can get ahead on your bills. This might seem difficult, but the extra cash will go a long way.

Other than getting another job, you can also start a small business that costs little in terms of time and money.

By Tabitha Makumi

2013: 04/26
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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I Got Cancer For a Reason; God Has a Purpose by @JudieJeez

By JUDIE KABERIA