Write a list: the 10 most unexpected consequences of being online

Social media - todays communication

Being an active online user is common practice these days. My seventy year old uncle has just learned how to use email and the internet and as a retired accountant is doing private books with excel! Amazing!

Making use of social networks such as Blogging, Tweeting and LinkedIn is now of utmost importance, if you are not active online you don’t exist. What you talk about and who you follow is also important you must be relevant ad interesting otherwise you are just boring and irritating. The saying you are who you surround yourself with rings true for the cyber world as well – always remember that.

For me the 10 most unexpected consequences of being online are:
Spam – I am still amazed and a bit frightened at the amount of Spam I receive in my inbox and the people who comment on tweets, most of them I don’t know and how do these spammers get into your profile?

Hacking – I have at least 3 friends whose profiles have been hacked into, causing a lot of problems and leaving a bad taste in many people’s mouths.

Die Hards – I call them die hards because no matter how many times you ignore their friend requests they keep poking you and sending new requests
Gossipers – People on line who just want to know everyone’s business so they can be the first to spread the news virally and verbally

Intruders/Invaders – People who post pictures of you on a social site that you don’t even know, even pictures of your children? I cannot understand this. Or those who tweet about your good news (is it their good news or yours?)

Being online can also create a lot of relationship problems, emotional postings are never a good idea. I am a social person and love being in touch but my husband is a private person and does not appreciate our lives being all over the internet – compromise plays a huge part of the online space in this case.

The other four unexpected consequences would have to be personal safety, especially for children, addiction to sites or just the internet, education (a good consequence) and information overload.

All the best to moms and dads out there on balancing the internet and trips to the library.

Love
Tanya B

The elephant in the room



The preverbial elephant in the room

Have you ever experienced an uneasy feeling between you and someone else in a room or even between you and a crowd in a room? I’m sure you have at some or other stage. The Elephant in the room is usually referred to when there is an uneasy topic of discussion or if a certain uneasy discussion needs to take place.

We have all been faced with this – parents with their children, spouses with each other, bosses and employees and even friends with one another. In all our day to day lives and professions we experience this in some form or the other. The elephant in the room is used in many different contexts, business, in the design and interior industry, in money markets and boardrooms to name a few.

Its Origins according to Wikipidea - The Oxford English Dictionary gives the first recorded use of the phrase, as a simile, as The New York Times on June 20, 1959: "Financing schools has become a problem about equal to having an elephant in the living room. It's so big you just can't ignore it."

This idiomatic expression may have been in general use much earlier than 1959. For example, the phrase appears 44 years earlier in the pages of a British journal in 1915. The sentence was presented as a trivial illustration of question British schoolboys would be able to answer, e.g., "Is there an elephant in the class-room?"

There has been a musical item, book, play and drama series based on this phrase and is used in many forms the world over.

Elephant in the room" is an English metaphorical idiom for an obvious truth that is being ignored or goes unaddressed. The idiomatic expression also applies to an obvious problem or risk no one wants to discuss.

It is based on the idea that an elephant in a room would be impossible to overlook; thus, people in the room who pretend the elephant is not there have chosen to avoid dealing with the looming big issue.

Every Day is a good day

Life is what we make of it

So who reading this blog was drawn to it because of how ridiculous it sounds? Really everyday is a good day, with full time work (with afterhour’s demands, a family, social activities, part time studies and preparing for my first child). From the sounds and tone of the opening statement everyday is not a good day.

My honest opinion is, like anything in life it depends how you look at it, the glass is half full or its half empty, there’s too little time in a day or you can prioritize what is the most important and just start saying no to things that are of less importance. The way I see it every day brings new opportunities and challenges that can either assist in your personal and professional growth or you can choose to stagnate and complain about early winter mornings and grumpy bosses.
Ones outlook on life ultimately is mind over matter. We need to surround ourselves with positive and energetic people, face challenges of life, be open to learn and change, believe in some kind of religious calling and have something amazing to motivate us like our children, our partners or our families.

Motivation means something different for all people, some like gym while others are inspired by baking, whatever your choice is hone in on it and use your talents to create a great life for yourself. In my life I place great value on good relationships (friendships, my marriage and family) every friend I have brings something different to my life and I learn from all of them in some way, my husband is a great voice of reason and grounds me, from him I learn patience and the appreciation of others view points, from my parents I have learned what true and unconditional Love is and from my brother I have known a best friend through good and bad days, so I can go on and on we all have many things that make everyday a good day, we just need to understand and appreciate what we have.

I wish you all many blessings in your life

Love

Tanya B

Our Greatest Strengths are our greatest Weaknesses



Our greatest Strenghth could be our fatal flaw

 I don’t know about you, but it has become part of human instinct and spirit to doubt oneself at some stage or the other. Some people suffer from this in a great degree and it affects their personality ad self-image and worth. It is the most crippling and frustrating feeling I have ever experienced. We all have gifts and talents and are really good at certain things. It’s our differences that make us interesting and dependant on one another for growth, understanding and most importantly to learn from one another.

The topic of this blog rings true in my life (I shall give you one example). I used to think with my heart way more than with my head and this lead to alot loss, loss of friendships, hurt and betrayal of people and even cutting myself shot and standing back for others to have better opportunities than I because I felt sorry for them (I have a few examples of this actually). I even found myself agreeing to white lies because I did not want to get people into trouble – Absurd!
The flip side of all of this is that I now find myself being a bit harder than necessary in certain instances, even towards myself. I realised this when a friend of mine told me that something has died in me – I was shocked at this statement but when I went back and thought about it, it was true, I had allowed situations, people and circumstances to change who I really was, I was no longer really being true to myself.

I sat back and took stock of what was important to me – my family, my health, being happy (we create this for ourselves, no person can do this for us – I finally learned that) and being true to my God and to myself. Since then I have learned to let allot of things go and allow the flow of life to guide me, acceptance of where you are in your life is a great starting point to this free making journey.

So – don’t allow your strengths to become your weaknesses, know who you are and be happy with your life – if you are not, make a change and become Happy, find it within yourself.

Much Love

Tanya B