Fear of failure is stomping my big dream

You can love your work, hate your work, or tolerate it for the sake of having a stable career and a reasonable paycheck. Those who belong to the first category are very small in number. Very often, they are pioneers and trailblazers who have carve a niche of their own. A decade back, when I started off my content writing career, I wanted to be a part of the first category. 10 years into the profession, I do love what I do and am passionate about all things content writing. But I still haven’t been able to love it to the fullest and gel completely into the first category. So where do I fit in? I belong to that narrow space between first and third categories. Wondering why? I still have a long-cherished dream to pursue; my dream is to start a business of my own.

Content writing is my forte and my dream is to start a company that provides genuine and plagiarism-free content. However, I keep pushing my entrepreneurial ambition aside all the time. Fear of failure is holding me back and stopping me from diving in.  Over the years, I had the chance to meet some good mentors who have created significant and measurable impact on my life and career. I am well aware that all the ground makers out there, who made a real difference, started off in the simplest manner, took the risk, and scaled up with genuine hard work, passion, and hope. But I am completely monopolized by the fear of failing.

It generates a strong feeling of uncertainty that overpowers my mind and paralyzes it from taking any action. In case if I fail, I have nothing to fall back on. Absolutely nothing! I am scared of losing a cushy job and a dependable income that helps fend for myself and my family. I haven’t yet made too many connections to pitch my idea.  I don’t have the money to bootstrap. And I don’t have a bigwig’s back. How will I start out and stay afloat? I am not able to trust my gut and am forced to play safe.

I have read countless articles that educate on various ways to transform my fears into motivations. But I still haven’t amassed the courage to apply what I have read into real life. It takes substantial amount of time and generous amount of money to setup and successfully run a business. But what if I fail? Failure sucks and the impact will be much higher if I bootstrap and have no money left after a misstep. After a failed entrepreneurial stint, I won’t be able to get back into a fulltime job easily. I live in a society where failure is viewed as negative, and the opposite of success. Rather than motivating me for finding out those “10,000 ways that won’t work”, I will be repeatedly told that I have miserably failed.

Will I ever be able to overcome my fear, forge ahead, and pursue my dream?

‘Active Status’ in LinkedIn Messaging – An interesting new feature (and On by default)

With no grand announcement LinkedIn just unrolled a new feature called ‘Active Status’. It’s a hollowed out green circle that shows when you are online and available to chat through LinkedIn Messaging. If there is no green circle, the connection is either not active or has disabled the ‘Active Status; feature. This might sound simple but has the power to significantly change the way you use the professional networking platform. It can also put you in trouble for not being able to keep your job search private.

With ‘Active Status’ feature for desktop and mobile app, your LinkedIn contacts can see if you are online and available to message. The feature is quite similar to the one on Skype. Messaging features are widely used on most online platforms. But messaging on LinkedIn was not that frequent in the past. But the new feature might improve the amount of messaging on LinkedIn, helping many users, particularly the large number of candidates and recruiters out there. Eventually it might also make LinkedIn more engaging.

If you want to keep tab on active users like recruiters and HR Heads, you might appreciate this feature, but if you are not keen, you can turn it off anytime. ‘Active Status’ is on by default, but you can turn it off anytime. Most of us are quick to turn off chat on Facebook. What about LinkedIn messaging?

LinkedIn messaging might enhance communication but ‘Active Status’ might also alert the innumerable number of overzealous message senders out there. Hence, it’s better to shut off the feature if you don’t want your contacts to know that you are online.

Here is how you can turn off the feature:

Source - ZNet

The LinkedIn Help page has adequate details on how to turn Active Status in LinkedIn Messaging off or on.

LinkedIn is not Facebook

Pause for a second before hitting that Post or Share button on LinkedIn, because, what you are about share might do more harm than good to your authority on the go-to-site for building professional relationships. Professionals like you and me turn to LinkedIn to build professional network, look for potential opportunities, and enhance professional growth. It’s a one stop destination for all this educational and professional. But lately, the quality of posts, comments, and articles have plummeted significantly.

LinkedIn is becoming a casual landscape where people are free to post anything, no matter professional or not. Simply put, LinkedIn is slowly morphing into a social media platform for people to hang out, chat, and share irrelevant content of all sorts. There is a major disconnect in the objective of the platform and the expectations and ideas of some users out there.

With so much content out there, it’s always tempting to share most of them. But remember that the rules are different on a professional networking platform and breaking them will definitely infuriate your audience. Some of the faux pas aren’t really bad, but some others can leave permanent damages on your online reputation and professional aspirations.

On most of the days, our LinkedIn feeds are loaded with a whole lot of posts that should land on a Facebook, Twitter, or Google Plus page. From personal posts, random quotes, irrelevant images and memes, birthday and anniversary wishes, to requests to contribute for charity programs, the line between 'social networking' and 'professional networking' is blurring. Some LinkedIn users bitterly fail to pull in the reins on the amount of content they share, and often run the risk of looking like spammers. Some others even overlook the danger of sharing sensitive information to hundreds of strangers and many more from extended network. A sizable number of users post numerous profanities and leave us baffled. A lot of articles and group posts are self-congratulatory and mindless link building exercises that add no value.

With millions of users from all over the world, it’s not easy to stand out on a platform like LinkedIn. If you intend to network professionally, refrain from sharing inspirational quotes, cartoons, memes, selfies, or controversial posts. Instead, upload them onto Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and you’ll get thousands of ‘likes’. If you can sell through knowledge and add value, there is nothing wrong in promoting and marketing a product or a service on LinkedIn,. But incessant number of meaningless, manipulative, and sales-y posts as status updates will hurt trust and ruin reputation of a person/company/brand.

Every online platform has its own identity and purpose. The next time you plan to share something on LinkedIn, take a step back and think twice whether you have something really insightful for your LinkedIn connections. Remember why you joined the platform in the first place – it wasn’t to share random low-quality content and get your reputation tarnished.

A cringe-fest

Indian TV shows have had some of the most ridiculous plots by far. Titular characters turned into chudails nevlas, makkhis, daayans, and even ichchadhari naagins on various TV shows, taking audience to a whole new level in suspension of disbelief every time. But, Indian television has now hit a new low with the making of a show on the crass love story and supposedly unique bond of a 9-year-old boy and an 18-year old woman.

Major backlash arose right after the launch of its promo which shows a prepubescent boy putting vermilion on his adult wife’s head. The episodes are much worse and awful than the promo. It features a mismatched couple, an 18-year-old woman and her nine-year-old husband, and narrates the story their so-called unusual relationship. To shock us further, it is a consensual marriage.

The much younger husband is totally besotted with the young woman. He is seen stalking and photographing his future wife. He rescues her from cockroach, proposes for marriage, gets married, celebrates suhaag raat, and is even gets ready to go on a honeymoon with her. Isn't it cringeworthy? It’s almost Lolitha in reverse.  However, the makers have the weirdest reason for portraying the strange relationship – The child prince has to be protected by a bodyguard, the reason why the 18-year old, who has always longed to marry a prince, agrees to marry the 9-year-old prince.  Looks like the makers are yet to hear about Raksha Bandhan. Or, portraying her as a expert bodyguard too would have been an acceptable alternative. A woman who walks in heavy and ornate lehengas all the time and who is scared of cockroaches agrees to marry a child to keep him safe. Seriously? She is neither a trained bodyguard or a closet ninja.

Simply put, the show sells stupidity and continues to get a lot of flak for the creepy storyline which is no less than crude, appalling, and downright shameful. The makers of the show are totally unfazed and keep boasting of portraying an unconventional love story, but the fact is, it has the most bizarre plot till date, and is a clear glorification of child marriage.

The show is loaded with double entendres. It is not even adhering to the basics of censoring rules in our country and is still getting lauded as a major breakthrough in TV shows. What if the story was told in reverse? What if an adult man was shown marrying a 9-year-old girl? The entire team would have definitely faced a whole lot of hullaballoo, mass boycotting, and even legal hurdles. So, why doesn't the same apply to the present situation?

Fun Fact - In a few months, there would be a time leap, as always, and the boy would reach a consensual age to woo and seduce his much-older ‘wife’. A love-triangle is a close-second possibility.

The possible subtle reason behind the awkward storyline - Any publicity is good publicity and there's no such thing as bad publicity. The makers will go on displaying go on displaying gross, regressive, and indigestible content to raise more eyebrows and get more viewers with peanut sized brains.

When a small bottle of liquid changes one’s life forever

“He threw acid on my face, not on my dreams.” When Laxmi Agarwal said this during her TEDx talk, I stood up and clapped, forgetting for a while that I was sitting in my hostel room and watching the video of her talk on my laptop. She is an inspiration, an embodiment of courage and grit, and so are all the acid attack survivors who chose to fight back and win, rather than whining over their past. A few strong women survivors together run a café, named Sheroes Hangout, in Agra, and tell their stories to the world. Kudos to the way they chose to emerge to the social mainstream, rather than hiding their scarred faces. It has ignited the hopes and dreams of many other survivors who want to get out of pain and isolation.

Acid attack, it is not something unheard of, at least in our country. It keeps shaking our conscience again and again, practically every other day. The laws were modified a few years back, but have we done enough to deal with this horrific infliction on women? Acid is still readily available in our country, and costs less than a packet of milk. Despite strong laws and punishments, the number of acid attacks continues to rise each day. And irrespective of having lawful curb on the sale of acid, illicit buying and selling still happen in full swing.

As per a report on The Guardian, “women make up 80% of acid victims”. It debilitates them, ruthlessly robs them of income, livelihood, opportunities, and sometimes life as well. With hardly a few advanced burn hospitals and specialized experts, getting timely and adequate medical treatment is far from easy. Survivors need multiple reconstructive surgeries, and soon they will be neck deep in debt.

You cannot even fathom what acid can do to a human body. It burns skin, eats the flesh, it can blind, disfigure, and literally leave person’s face unrecognizable. Why do the perpetrators do this most ghastly crime? The obsession with superficial beauty and fairness is a strong reason why perpetrators use acid to ruin a victim’s chance to lead a normal life. May be they want to deprive the victim of love and acceptance. Sadly, the perpetrators win in many cases and victims get ostracized. They suffer in many ways, undergo tremendous amount of trauma, and can never dream of a career, marriage, or even a normal life. They are literally treated as outcasts. Isn’t that mind numbing cruelty? What shocks me most is the fact that acid attacks often happen for all unimaginably trivial reasons possible.

Are all acid attacks getting reported? No, says the volunteers who work for Stop Acid Attack campaigns. Several cases go unreported, and not every victim gets the needed support and recognition. The struggles are endless and the pain is more than excruciating. No one deserves such terrible fate. No one. We need to stop acid attacks once and for all.

Dangal: Empowering or reinforcing patriarchy?

Aamir Khan’s Dangal raked big moolah in India and abroad, and reached the 2000 crore club. It won all major awards, and continues to get lauded by both public and critics. Dangal is definitely a feel-good, crowd-pleasing film. But the subtle narrative is not really about the two sisters. Instead, it focuses mostly on their despotic yet affectionate father and his unfulfilled dream.

Dangal is not a Bend It Like Beckham like movie where the female protagonist beats all the odds to achieve her dreams. The movie justifies dictatorial parenting and reinforces the age-old ideas that it hopes to fight . Yet, many people are touting it as a feminist movie, just because two important characters are female wrestlers from Haryana.

The female protagonists fight sexism and male privilege throughout their journey, but the girls are not chasing their dreams, instead striving hard to make their father proud. They are docile, puppet-like, and blindly obey their father, who is an autocrat kind of a person. He imposes his interests and choices on them. He is the decision maker, and believes he knows what’s best for the girls. That’s not even remotely close to empowerment.

Along the way, the girls face severe ridicules yet go against all odds to get successful and make it big in a world that’s traditionally envisaged by men. But, it’s not the girls who win at the end, it’s their father, the patriarch. From chopping off their hair, to denying their favorite food, and making them undergo grueling training even from a tender age, the father forces wrestling on them by all means. Does such a story propagate woman empowerment in any manner?

By putting the burden of his unfulfilled dream on his young daughters' shoulders, Mahavir reinforces the prevalent norms in our society. The movie is about his dreams, predicaments, and challenges. How on earth does this break misogyny?

That said, Mahavir is not a complete patriarchal stooge either. The father teaches the girls to be fearless and persist, no matter what the situation is. So, the movie definitely makes us want to cheer for women who make it big in male dominated fields like wrestling. But a Mahavir-like dad and his ‘hanikarak’ ‘craziness’ will do more harm than good in real life. Wondering why?

While all is hale and hearty in reel, it’s not the same in real when parents force their dreams on children. We can see an alarming rise in the number of students who choose suicide as a way to deal with wrong and forced career choices and pushy parents who project their unfulfilled dreams on their children. Why do they kill themselves? Because, they simply fail to deal with the intense psychological pressure. Still, several parents consider their children as tools fulfill their unaccomplished dreams, aspirations, and desires. Children should be allowed to chase their own dreams. They should not be forced to follow the dreams of their parents.

A strange obsession

A string of recent movie releases clearly highlight a strange obsession that most of our filmmakers continue to have. They are endlessly fascinated about the notorious and heinous people out there, and the fixation continues to grow every year. Two among the soon-to-be released movies are clearly gangster flicks that narrate nothing but sheer despicability and ruthlessness in all terms. The protagonists are violent, cruel, and psychotic most of the times, yet get treated like folk heroes on screen.

While filmmakers reiterate that the casts have little resemblance to anyone living or dead, and the movies are just fictionalized narrations, they drop many sly hints to underline where they have drawn aspiration from. Is the likeliness added knowingly? I don’t know. Perhaps, filmmakers are unwilling to openly admit real-life connection fearing backlashes, legal and otherwise.

While cinema is just a mode of entertainment, turning baddies into emblematic embodiments of valor and heroism is not even remotely close to entertainment. Do they stories make us feel good? Absolutely not! The increasing trend of extolling cruel, fearless, and unforgiving people in every second movie is highly disturbing to say the least. The impact that it will create on the audience is unfathomable negativity and sometimes a dangerous urge to emulate the characters on screen. Wondering why?

Protagonists of such movies try to control their destiny in their own way until the inevitable downfall. They steal and feed families, they lie unhesitatingly when it benefits somebody, and they kill remorselessly when someone rises strong enough to become a threat. And most part of the audience get easily fancied by such larger-than-life characters. Don’t such movies convey a distorted and disfigured sense of right and wrong? They do.

While we all know that films needn’t give out inspiring messages all the time, it’s disheartening to see how the appalling is transformed to become the appealing, while audiences clutch to their seats anxiously to see if cops catch the ‘virtuous’ protagonist or not. Very often, the lead character hails from a poor background which makes it totally ‘justifiable’ to take up crimes to make both ends meet. He grows up with larger-than-life persona with a unhealthy concoction of charisma, violence, and shadiness.

The audiences are so taken by the character, no matter what he does. He breaks rules, yet is regarded as the powerhouse of strength and mystery. Audience empathize first and then blindly admire them for all wrong reasons, no matter whether a hero stalks a woman in the name of love or kills someone to steal money. It’s high time to stop this glorification. It's not at all cool to be a law-breaker and there’s hardly any entertainment in narrating stories about ganglands and mind-numbing cruelty.

Oren Peli launches new social networking app

It’s been a decade since Oren Peli made his directional debut with Paranormal Activity, a horror film franchisee that later went on to make a whopping $890.5 million at the box office. Oren Peli is now launching ‘Spot’ a new iOS and Android app to create, find, and join local events, reports TechCrunch. The launch came as a surprise, as Peli, who is best known for making horror movies, has forayed into a whole new space that’s entirely different from what he is good at.

When asked about his new initiative, Peli told that before kickstarting a career in movies, he started off as a developer of animation software and video games. So, he is just returning to his old career. What’s new in ‘Spot’’, when compared to Meetup, Tinder, and so on? It has a very simple design and focuses on small group activities. ‘Spot’ helps people connect around shared activities and interests. Simply put, it is an effortless way to connect with new people, find new friends, and so on. The idea came to him when he was newly single and wanted to connect with new people and make friends. He couldn’t find a service that was simple and less time-consuming.

The Spot app helps create events in 4 categories – hobbies, sports, community events, and single events. You can search by keywords or check the map view to find the events nearby. Both public and private events can be created and shared via social media, and participants can chat with each other through Spot app.

You can create an account by connecting to Facebook, Google, or email, get a verified sticker by verifying phone number over SMS, ban users from your events, and report inappropriate behavior.

Spot is available globally, and the app is free.

Sunglasses that generate solar power

Engineers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have made a pair of sunglasses with semi-transparent organic solar cell lenses. And before you jump in to ask that much genuine doubt let me answer it, no, you don’t have to stare at the sun directly for the shades to work. The power generated is enough to operate devices like hearing aids. This is an innovative way of incorporating clean energy into mobile applications.

The lenses are cut like ordinary glass. They have a thickness of about 1.6 mm, weight about 6 grams, and easily finds in commercial frames. They are both light and transparent. Organic solar cells aren’t exceptionally efficient, but they are flexible and versatile, making it the right option to choose when a rigid, opaque cell is not an option.

“The Solar Glasses we developed are an example of how organic solar cells may be employed in applications that would not be feasible with conventional photovoltaics,” said Dominik Landerer, a PhD student at KIT who was a part of the project. They work in dim light too.

The arms of the shades contain custom PCBs to convert the current and use it to run the 2 displays that show temperature and brightness. The cells generate about 200 milliwatts of additional power. That’s hardly enough for your phone, but can run or charge a low-power device.

If solar energy can power a mobile device, it totally makes sense to have solar cells in something you wear, and gets a whole lot of sunlight.

Human libraries: Yes, they exist!

Strange yet indigenous that’s what I can say about the idea of setting up human libraries where you can ‘borrow’ humans. Or, you don’t have to take pains to read an entire book to know or understand someone or something. Instead, a person can sit down and explain to you in the most palatable language possible. The concept was devised based on the idea of knowledge sharing which has been around since time immemorial. Simply put, it's a library of people, or it replaces books with people who can kick-start engaging conversations.

Will the concept of ‘human books’ work? It works, says many. The idea first originated in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2000. It soon became a worldwide movement for social change. If you are wondering what is the aim of setting up human libraries, here is the reason why the concept is taking the world by storm – It helps people learn to appreciate and respect others, understand social barriers, learn positivity and hopefulness from human books and human experiences. Australia is the first country to have a permanent human library.

People volunteer to become ‘books’ and make their experiences openly available, especially on topics that are difficult or time-consuming to explain. Or, you get books that speak from the heart. How does it work? If you are wondering how to borrow a ‘human book’’, let me share the information that I gathered from a handful of posts on human libraries. It’s just like any other normal library. You can go through a catalogue, choose a ‘book’ on a certain topic, and get a fixed amount of time with ‘it’ to ask questions freely, and will get honest and interesting answers in return.

It’s been 17 years since the first human library was launched. Today, you can find human libraries in more than 70 countries including the United States. Many believe that human libraries are the next big thing. Wondering why? We need them in today’s polarized world with numerous quick-to-judge people. It’s time to confront stereotypes, get rid of fears, embrace diversity, and feel more secure and forward-looking.

When it comes to sharing a life story, it’s beneficial for both the narrator and listener, or when it’s kind of cathartic for the narrator, the listener gets a good, inspirational, must-remember message.

Can ‘human books’ be more interesting and informative than the printed ones, e-books, and audio books?