The Evolution of Love

December 4, 2010 by

This post is by Jane Sheeba of Find All Answers.

Love dwells everywhere. It is the cause and the purpose of why we came to life and why we are living. Love is something universal. Right from the day we are born (even before it actually) till the day we die, love spreads throughout our lives.

Although love is universal, it takes different forms during different stages of our lives. Or to be precise, our perspective on love changes as we evolve. As we live our lives and experience different things, the way we give and experience love also changes. Since relationships are built on love, they too take different forms as we evolve.

The new-born love

The very first form of love we experience is as a child, yet we don’t give much love even to our parents, because we don’t know yet how to give love. Probably, all we know is to get fed, sleep, and poop. At this stage, however, every touch matters. Love is conveyed to the baby through the touch of the mother, and—who knows?—maybe the way the baby touches the mother could also be a form of love. For the first three months the baby doesn’t recognize faces. After that the baby smiles back at the mother (at least in the first place) and reciprocates the touch and other caring moves.

At this stage of life, love is communicated not only through touches but also through the natural blood bond between the parent and the child.

The child love

When the baby becomes a child who gets to know things, there comes a little difference in the nature of love. The child’s understanding of love is improved a little bit: s/he recognizes the parents by face, and now knows who will protect him or her. The child may or may not be obedient; this doesn’t directly relate to love.

The teen love

Here occurs a rather big jump. Love at this stage branches out beyond parents to take in friends and society. Friends, to many teens, are gods, and they think love is easily understood, shared, and reciprocated only among people of their age. They begin to feel the generation gap, which was likely quite negligible until now. Some distance and separation appears between the teen and the parents. This is natural—it’s nothing to worry about.

Of course, more than 70% of teens translate love to sex. There is nothing wrong with this, since sex is nothing but ‘making love’—something that helps humans to express love. So sex can be translated to love, but lust can’t.

The wedded love

When the teen finds Mr. or Mrs. right, life moves on, and the teen decides to start a new family. Now most of the love is shared between the couple, and hence parents get a very small share. The husband and wife do things to please each other, and make sacrifices. Love dwells in the very fact that they have become a family and they live, earn, save, and do everything for the well being of their family.

The parent love

The individual now sits where their own parents sat: now they know how hard it is to bring up a child. It needs sacrifices, pain, extra work, added commitment, endurance, and many more things. The parent spends sleepless nights, answers their kids’ crazy questions, teaches them lessons, makes them learn the good and the bad, stands beside them, sacrifices some of their own comfort and happiness for that of the children, and so on. Even though all these tasks are tiresome, the parent experiences an inner joy that cannot be explained.

Now the parent gives a different type of love back to their own parents, since they know how much their parents would have gone through to bring them up!

The grandparent love

The individual’s heart is probably full at this stage. After they have given so much love to others in life, they now begin to expect some love and care; that’s quite fair. Some get it, while others don’t. The person’s perspective on love becomes so mature that their joy not only depends on the amount of love they experience, but on the love their loved ones experience.

Which stage are you at now? Has your perspective on love changed or evolved as you’ve grown? What does love mean to you right now? Have I missed any stages? Please add your thoughts in the comments!

Jane Sheeba, a relationship expert, is the one behind Find All Answers. She can pump ideas out of her head to help you with issues on self-improvement, relationships and blogging tips. She has a free ebook for you to grab.

Why Your Loved Ones Are Holding You Back

November 29, 2010 by

This guest post is by Michelle Nickolaisen of Wicked Whimsy.

image by Josep Ma. Rosell

We’ve all had it happen to us. You get a brilliant idea that you’re incredibly excited about. In your excitement, you share the idea with a loved one, hoping that they’ll see its brilliance as well. But your spirits fall as your loved one pauses a moment, and then tells you exactly why your idea is terrible.

I always found this an incredibly frustrating occurrence. And very often, with me or with others, the loved ones are wrong—the idea is in fact an outstanding one, and turns out exceedingly well. So why do they say something negative about it?

Ponder on that for a moment while I tell a related tale. A week or two ago, my husband and I were talking. Eagerly, he told me he had a great idea—he saw a Craigslist ad for an open mic night, and he wanted to try stand up comedy.

His face fell as I said something to the effect of “I don’t know, do you really want to do that? I mean, people at comedy clubs can be really mean!” We talked for a couple of minutes and then I realized that I was doing that thing I hate, where loved ones aren’t very supportive. I was saying exactly what I’ve had people say to me!

And why was I saying it?

Feeling the fear

I was scared for him. Change is scary. Our lizard-brains see change and they run the other way, thinking “No! Security = survival!” When we see a loved one walking into what we’re convinced is a trap, it makes us scared and concerned for them, and we try to dissuade them from going ahead.

It’s only natural, really. But that doesn’t make it any less hurtful or infuriating to the people you’re trying to dissuade. Especially if the idea actually is a good one, and not something like “Hey Mom, I think I’m going to move out into the woods and live with a cult leader. He mentioned Kool Aid. Sound like a plan?”

Fixing it

So what can you do to fix this?

  • If you’re on the giving end of the conversation, stop and think about what you’re saying and why you’re saying it. Do you genuinely think this is a bad idea? Why? If you can’t think of three solid reasons (examples of reasons that are not solid: “you’ll get laughed at”, “people are mean”), you should probably rethink your stance on this idea and give your loved one all your support.
  • If you’re on the receiving end, try to keep in mind that your loved one is coming from a place of being scared for you, not from a place of spite or cruelty. Ask them why they feel that your idea is a bad one, and if they don’t have a good reason, gently say that you appreciate their advice but you’d appreciate their support even more.

Oh, wondering what happened with my husband? After I realized I was being lizard-brained, I explained where I was coming from and apologized to him. Then I offered to read what he’d written for his stand up and give feedback. He’s also run his routine by a couple of other people (to much laughter) and is planning on showing up next time there’s an open mic night!

How about you? Have you ever caught yourself discouraging a good idea out of fear for the idea-haver? Or have you ever been on the receiving end of discouragement? How did you react, and what did you do about it?

Michelle is a 22-year-old, blue-haired blogger who writes about creativity, spirituality, and life. Follow her exploits at Wicked Whimsy. You can also sign up for the mailing list to receive the free Finding Yourself 101 ecourse and monthly updates about Wicked Whimsy.

Where in the World is Mommy? How to Stay Close to Your Kids While Traveling for Work

November 26, 2010 by

This guest post is by Dr. Susan Giurleo of TheVirtualCake.com.

If you’re a parent of young children and working in your own small business, you know that somewhere someone once said to you, “You’re so lucky! You get to make your own schedule, be home with your kids when they need you, and make a great living!”

That’s what we who do the parent/business/work thing call an “urban myth.” When you work for yourself and have to support a young family, you work longer hours and need to travel to connect with people who you call colleagues, even if they live half way around the world.

Traveling when you have young kids is a blessing and a curse. When you’re away from the younger generation, you’re amazed at how focused you can be in the midst of a busy airport  while waiting for your flight. No one is asking for juice, in need of a ride to soccer practice, or stomping around because they can’t find their homework. Compared to a busy home, the airport is quiet and relaxing.

But of course, you miss that chaos, being a part of your children’s every day, celebrating their new milestones that they seem to achieve every time you’re 3000 miles away.

And your kids miss you. Lots.

It can be a real strain on your relationship with your children when you travel often. They don’t know when you’ll be around or if they can count on you to do the last-minute fun stuff that always comes up—pick up football games, tea parties, trips to the mall. The kids don’t resent you so much as they just sort of start to function without you in mind. Their other parent and other adults fill the void left as you are out working your butt off to make a good living for them.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Lucky for you and your family, you can still stay close to them when you’re away. Here are 5 ways to stay close and important to your beautiful kids.

1. Make time to connect.

This can be tricky, especially if you’re not in the same time zone. But you can do it!

Before you leave for your trip, calculate what time in your new location matches your kids’ wake up and bed times. Then set aside the time to call them. Try not to schedule anything too pressing during those times. If you must be in a meeting, duck out for five or ten minutes to make the call. Remember: your kids are more important than ten extra minutes with that business connection.

If it’s midnight where you are, and 7 a.m. at home, still make the effort—wake up or stay up until you can make the call. This will send the message to your family that they’re important and on your mind during the day.

2. Use Skype.

If possible, use streaming video to chat with your family. The connection is deeper and you can see their daily life—the excellent test score, their new PJs, a hair cut. And your kids can get a sense of where you are and feel a part of your trip, too.

3. Connect throughout the day.

Send the family an email, post a YouTube video of yourself showing a bit of the location you’re visiting, tweet a shout out to the family on Twitter.

These things don’t take a lot of time, but they keep the connection between you strong.

4. Get a map.

When my son was a preschooler, my husband traveled quite often. AJ didn’t understand where daddy was, so we got a big map and a globe and stuck pins at the locations where he was that week.

This allowed my son to better understand where his dad went in the plane, gave us some cool geography lessons, and let us search for pictures of the places online. It was fun, and let AJ feel that his dad was actually somewhere —not just missing from his life that day.

5. Bring back something meaningful.

Forget bringing back t-shirts or kitsch souvenirs. Bring your kids something that represents the place you visited or the business you conducted. Maybe it’s sand from the beach resort where the meeting was held, a cool schwag item from a conference bag or exhibitor, or a book from an author you visited. This brings the trip home, makes it relevant to your children, and again, reinforces that you were thinking of them even while you were away.

Remember, your kids don’t need you to connect with them for hours on end—just a few minutes at the beginning and end of their day will mean so much to them. They’ll look forward to your calls, save up things to share when they talk to you, and feel included on your trip.

What other ways have you found to stay connected to your family when you travel? Please share so we can all get better at maintaining the work-family balance!

Susan Giurleo is a mom, wife, psychologist and social media fan who blogs about work-family balance on TheVirtualCake.com. She also juggles running three businesses and figured out how to meet her kid at the bus stop after school three days a week. She feels this is a major accomplishment. Connect with her on Twitter @susangiulreo.

The Panorama of a Polymath’s Experience

November 22, 2010 by

This post is by Ben Harack, the polymath who founded Vision of Earth.

I feel like I am interested in more things than everyone else. Each passion I pursue leads me to more things that enjoy. Every thought seems to spawn two more, and every new experience deepens my wish to try new things.

You may share these experiences, or find them totally alien. In this piece I will talk about some of my history in the area of avidly pursuing my passions as a polymath. Not everything is rosy, but I would not choose to live any other way.

Between focus and frenzy

Too much focus on one issue, and you can become a myopic personality. Too much topic-switching can lead to scattered, fragmented knowledge or a life of chasing every shiny thing that moves.

Instead of letting every little interest run rampant, learn to focus on them one at a time. Multi-tasking is great, but if taken too far it fragments our consciousness to the extent that accomplishing anything becomes very difficult.

In order to be really useful, knowledge has to have some depth. We can imagine a specialist as a well full of water, and a polymath as a pond. If you spread yourself too thin, you become nothing more than a collection of puddles. I don’t think anyone wants to be accused of being as deep as a puddle.

A polymath has to have areas of some degree of specialization. They might have ten of them, but they are interested in each of these areas, and have gained significant knowledge in them. No one is a jack of all trades, but some of us choose to be a jack of many.

There is no sharp distinction between specialists and renaissance (wo)men. During my education for instance I heard the following question posed: Was Isaac Newton a physicist or a mathematician? Those familiar with his life and work will realize that this is a not an either-or. He excelled at both, and each facet supported his accomplishments in the other.

The quote that we all know (and which has been in use for hundreds of years) has an optional second half that few people know about: “Jack of all trades, master of none, though oftentimes better than master of one.”

Learning

My experience is that as I learn more varied fields of knowledge, new knowledge is easier to access. I find that new areas of knowledge begin to integrate more easily into knowledge that I already know. Each new field of specialty tends to fit itself neatly into the structure of everything I know about the world.

Natural memory is best achieved through integration of new knowledge with things that you already know and attachment to things that you care about. As your experience broadens, you will find it easier to grasp new concepts and remember them.

Context is everything. Most scientific studies include investigations of how the new knowledge that they uncover will fit into what insights science has already gained. A key facet of contributing scientific knowledge is the effort to describe its broader implications. People of all backgrounds and perspectives are capable of doing this, and doing it well. I claim that the difference is that rather than merely researching the broad context of their work, polymaths live their context every day. Instead of turning our attention to the big picture every once in a while, we experience it constantly as our default way of viewing the world.

Health

Pursue a variety of physical activities. A complete list of my favored physical activities would be laboriously long, thanks in part to my father being a physical education teacher. Some of my current favorites are jogging, yoga, tai chi and frisbee. Having a variety of physical activities that you are comfortable with can be very useful when you move to a new home, or transfer to  a new workplace where your options for activities may be limited.

I also encourage people to embrace physical activities of different sorts. Cardiovascular health is incredibly important for longevity and quality of life, but so is mental health. Choosing activities that train the mind and teach emotional control can be as important as being able to run for an hour.

For instance, I have competed in the sport of badminton since I was quite young. I loved to play so much that eventually I finished seventh at the Canada Games in 2007. On the other end of the spectrum, I love golf. I claim that badminton is one of the most dynamic and physically demanding sports in the world, while golf can be a mental and emotional roller coaster. Each activity has distinct characteristics that make it challenging and healthy.

Relationships

A broad base of experience and knowledge means that you can identify with more people on a personal level. You will be able to see the world through more perspectives and carry on conversations on more topics that people care about. People identify strongly with their jobs so if you have similar experience it can provide a great basis for a growing relationship.

People are my true passion, and my interest in the universe is for connecting with other consciousnesses. If my pursuit of deep knowledge was pulling me away from people, I would abandon it. My experience is that as I have learned more, I care more for people. As I learn and care more, I am able to help more. My own well-being is fundamentally connected to others, leading to my efforts to connect with and help as much of humanity as I can.

Work and finance

Finding a job that will allow you to use all of your abilities may be impossible unless you create it yourself. Especially in the internet age, people have had great success using their different skills and interests to create multiple streams of income for themselves. ProBlogger, one of Darren’s other blogs, is the go-to resource for people looking to make a living online.

On the other end of things, it is possible to combine interests that are generally very disparate into a single effort. For instance, one of my most definite long-term goals is to combine my educational backgrounds in physics and psychology to pursue knowledge about consciousness and the universe. Perhaps in a decade or two you will be able to read a book of mine on the subject!

What to work at? Follow your passions while creating value for people. Even if a job only reflects part of who you are, it can still be very valuable for you, your employer, and your customers.

Your work should not be your life, unless you want it to be. My work with Vision of Earth grows directly out of who I am and what I want to do with my life. My work is not an intrusion into my life, it is part of the expression of my life.

Solving social problems

Social issues tend to be complicated and controversial. Deep knowledge of a variety of fields is extremely valuable when trying to address any of the big problems that our society is facing today.

Some problems are best approached with a new over-arching mindset or a re-invention of the fundamentals. These are things that can only be achieved by polymaths or specialists working very closely together in teams. I believe that omnology may be one of the waves of the future. I certainly intend to see how far I can take it!

Several of my professors in university, in varying fields, told me that they expect scientific leaps of the near future to be based heavily on interdisciplinary study. I feel that they are right. We have compartmentalized our knowledge to such an extent that its growth is often hidden from us. I think it is time to set knowledge and passions free.

If your life and knowledge is a building that’s always under construction, it makes sense that a broad and solid foundation will give you a great platform for reaching for the stars.

This post is by Ben Harack, the polymath who founded Vision of Earth. He has four degrees, is working on a fifth, and has lived his life passionately pursuing the knowledge and activities that he loves. He hopes to better his society by making deep knowledge understandable and accessible by the general public.

The Power of Touch

November 19, 2010 by

Image by Fr. Stephen, MSC

Do you realize how little we touch one another?

When I was 19 I had the opportunity to spend a couple of months living and working in a community development project in one of Bangkok’s largest slums. I learned a lot from that trip, and I’m sure it’ll come up in a future post, as it was a formative experience for me, but one of the lasting memories I have of that trip is the amount I was physically touched.

The first time it happened I was walking down the street with two local guys that I’d met the day before. They’d been friendly but we’d only just met and I’m not sure that I’d have called them friends just yet.

As we walked down the street, one of the men slipped his arm around my shoulder. A few minutes later the other took my hand. The three of us strolled down the street, arm in arm, hand in hand.

They were totally natural about it. I was in the middle, and I was freaking out, wondering if I was going to have to talk my way out of a compromising situation.

The thing was that there was nothing sexual about the touch of these guys. Over the coming weeks I saw and experienced it many times over. Men sitting arm in arm with each other, and women walking down the street hand in hand.

It took me a while to take off my Western Glasses and get used to it. The Thai people were just much more able to express their feelings and comfort with each other using touch than I’d ever been.

Interestingly, as I reflect back on those two months in a Thai slum, I realize that while I was in a fairly stressful situation, it was one of the times in my life that I felt most at peace and relaxed. There may be numerous reasons for that, but I suspect one was touch.

The Power of Touch

It has been well documented that touch is a very powerful thing.

Any parent doing a pre-natal class has it drummed into them. Babies that are touched regularly thrive, while those that aren’t touched, don’t.

Image by _Nezemnaya_

Touch is effectively our first language as a baby:

  • Touch helps create the bond between a baby and its parents.
  • Touch helps to calm and soothe a distressed baby.
  • Touch is thought to help in neurological developmen.
  • Touch is thought to help relieve physical discomfort.

The list goes on—particularly in the early years, it’s widely accepted that touch is essential.

I still remember being taken to an orphanage on that same trip to Thailand, and seeing a room full of young children and babies in cots who were rarely touched. The looks on the faces of those children still haunt me. Distressed, lonely, and obviously physically unwell, these children were physically cared for, but something was missing—loving touch.

I still remember picking up one of the babies in that room. When I picked her up she was a very stressed little girl but over the next 30 minutes as I held her and massaged her little arms and cheeks she relaxed and the distress in her face melted away. Leaving her alone in her cot, perhaps never to be cuddled again, was one of the toughest things I’ve done.

Experiences like that have made me very aware of the importance of touch as I raise my own children today. My kids have been massaged, cuddled, kissed, and tickled since the days they were born. Of course the touch is backed up with love and care in other areas, but we’ve gone out of our way to use touch in day-to-day of life.

Touch beyond childhood

Somewhere along the line, physical touch slowly drops out of the lives of many of us. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it changes in nature.

I’m no sociologist but somewhere as we grow older and enter into adolescence touch tends to become sexualized. On some levels I guess that’s natural—we hit puberty, those hormones begin to pump around our bodies, our sexuality wakes up, and we begin to become aware of touch with new possibilities.

The problem is that for many of us non-sexual touch tends to exit life at this point.

Image by Patrick Gage

The need for touch doesn’t end, though—and that sets us up for something of a problem.

Sure, we still use it when greeting each other—handshakes, perhaps a hug or a kiss on the cheek—but part of me wonders whether we’re short-changing ourselves a little.

I’m not saying we all need to touch one another indiscriminately—there’s a need for common sense, boundaries, and appropriate touch—but it strikes me that perhaps as a society that we could learn a thing or two about this topic.

If touch is such a powerful thing, why do we reserve it for kids, fleeting greetings, or the bedroom?

Have your say

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this—either in comments below or on our Facebook page where we’ve already been chatting about touch and have had some interesting input on topics including touch in health care, pets, and the cultural differences of touch.

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