I need strength to stand
I need a place to rest

When you want something
The universe conspires for you

But then its tests you
To see if you are worthy

My test is killing me
My test is moulding me

I am scorched like clay
I am stressed like coal

I will harden to live
I will shine and survive

Time has been especially kind to me in terms of people, without whom life would be such an uninteresting journey.

You realize that most people you meet, maybe stay for a bit and continue on their own paths. As time goes by you understand that it is the way of life. You understand that you will not own another being and another being cannot own you.

But once in a while, you meet someone you want to be with, someone you want to possess and make yours. Someone amazing enough to give your butterflies in your god-damn brain.

What do you do then, should you hold on to her and keep her or should you let her fly and be free.

Is not letting go the purest expression of love?

The past month has been a revelation to me. It opened up the power of belief in so many ways that I have never experienced before. There were days of absolute failure and days of complete self doubt. Then there were days of elated successes, eureka moments and of course the days of mixed results. But what has transpired taught me the power of believing in myself.

Over the course of life, you make mistakes. After a series of mistakes, many will ask you to play it safe. I listened and must say it had helped in many ways. Their words though initially demoralized me have served to make me think before jumping into stuff and have taught me how to say ‘no’ to many things.

But what happens is that slowly you start believing that you are are not capable anymore. I thought that the fact that nobody understands my vision let alone share it shows that maybe my ideas are too crazy and improbable. This thought has cost me valuable time in my path to my dreams.

After celebrating my 25th birthday, I occurred to me that it was the case with me had had to make a hard decision to break free from it. I had to break away from a number of things including some that were very close to my heart to set me free from my circle of doubt.

The results were almost immediate, the renewed power of action given to me by my belief gave great results and generated so many ideas that replaced the space doubt used to hold.

It is still stormy and light is hard to see. But i believe that I will make it through. See you all on the other side.

Having consulted with a number of clients over the past three years, one of the biggest battles I have had to handle is the ‘I want to auto play music on my page’ syndrome.

You would expect creatives and artists to want this, but I have had to convince even boring business men to restrain from this mistake.

People hate not being in control, imagine a user checking out your website from work and suddenly music blares out from the computer which makes everybody including the boss take notice of the user’s extra curricular activities. Think it is funny? I am sure your user wont appreciate that.

If you really want to have music, it will be wise to do the following.

• DO NOT auto play, give the user an option to switch on the noise.
• DO NOT host the audio on your server, use a CDN (Content Delivery Network). You do want people to be able to load your website right? Plus it is cheaper to stream data via a CDN.
• Please provide a volume control, don’t make the user frantically try to adjust volume, make it easy.

Remember, flashy blingy websites are cool. But there is a fine line between cool and irritating.

I am a victim of this disaster of my own making, I have not developed that skill well enough over the course of the last 25 years. I am still focused on what I want and not on what the other person wants. Granted that all of us human beings are naturally selfish, but understanding others might give us the impetus to make lesser catastrophic decisions during our lives.

Conquering my fear of understanding and creating an ability to willingly listen to others will be a big mountain for me to climb.

This basic building block of business is often the most ignored. What problem have you solved today?

We Meet & Then We Part

On most days, it is all all good as the mind has enough creative juice to keep moving forward. But sometimes, particularly after the attainment of an objective, the lack of the presence  of the ones on the wayside becomes painfully obvious.

In the quest for greatness, what defines you? What that you have done or whom you have loved? Is it the legacy you leave behind or the memories you have to cherish?

I think for most it is a choice and so it is for me. I think that to live for a legacy is most noble, provided the legacy is one that has benefited humanity and has in some way made the world a better place.

To know that you have done your best and have tried to be more than the sum of your parts is a life lived well. To know that you did it for something bigger than yourself is an amazing life lived well.

What do you think?

This is the land where I transitioned from a little 16 year old kid to whatever it is I am today. The majority of memories of my life are based on landmarks and places in this small country which has given me so much. I have made friends, broken hearts, loved like a fool, been loved by an angel, failed like an idiot, been betrayed, succeeded in unlikely places and have met so many wonderful people who through unlikely circumstances have become a big part of my life.

But this life that have given me so much is feeling like a burden day by day. I feel disconnected with the real world and the strife associated with living pretty much anywhere else in the world but Singapore. Is this a preemptive strike against the misfortune that is about to befall me, an attempt to run away from the comfortable or is it a much needed voyage of self discovery? I am teetering now between being brave and being practical.

Left to be seen what this year will bring, radical changes or slow transitions…..

Kiwanga Twegatte Group, Mukono, Uganda

Birungi Agnes is the leader of her lending group in Mukono. She is a single mother of three children. Two of her children are in school and the other is a baby. She also takes care of one dependant. Agnes has had a salon in Kiwanga for five years doing both women and men’s hairstyles. Ever since she started using loans in her business, Agnes has been able to grow her business. She makes more profit compared to the time before the loans. She needs a loan to be able to restock her salon with more hair oils, weaves, hairpieces and chemicals so that she can treat her customers to their satisfaction.

Hope Group 2, Mukono, Uganda

Ssaku Grace is 45 years old and divorced with seven children of her own in her care. She has been in the business of selling clothes from Kikko for nine years, from which she makes about $315 in profit a week, although she still faces the challenge of lacking enough capital. She makes certain that her stock is of good quality, which attracts more customers. Grace has hopes of building a house for her children plus educating them to the University for Self Reliance in the future. She needs a loan to be able to buy more quality clothes for resale.

In-Depth Look into how Kiva works

http://blogs.cgdev.org/open_book/2009/10/kiva-is-not-quite-what-it-seems.php

Kiva is the path-breaking, fast-growing person-to-person microlending site. It works this way: Kiva posts pictures and stories of people needing loans. You give your money to Kiva. Kiva sends it to a microlender. The lender makes the loan to a person you choose. He or she ordinarily repays. You get your money back with no interest. It’s like eBay for microcredit.

http://blogs.cgdev.org/open_book/2009/10/matt-flannery-kiva-ceo-and-co-founder-replies.php

Kiva doesn’t believe that lending is a silver-bullet, poverty alleviating mechanism. We do believe, though, that lending is one meaningful tool in a larger set of tools that the development community can use to alleviate poverty. Currently, the lending experience is highlighted on our website, while “plus services” such as savings and education are not. This doesn’t mean that we don’t believe they are beneficial or that they wouldn’t be successful on the web. Last year, I spent a few weeks in Cambodia and witnessed dozens of women who were given a savings account for the first time, thanks to our MFI partners there. Rather than save under the mattress, they were creating accounts with an MFI. In a dangerous place like Cambodia, this is an incredible service.

http://www.kiva.org/about/how/

Coming from India, It has been a privilege to have seen that micro-lending actually works. But is is funny to see it being paraded as the means for the end for poverty in the third world. The poverty is caused by myriad factors way beyond the control any outsider. But as it is our prerogative in developed countries to be right, we seem to know exactly what is right for the poor of the world.

The developed economy is based in distractions and creation of more distractions. this way the masses can spend the money that they have earned on something that will give them momentary satisfaction and thereby keeping them distracted from things that really matter.

I partake in these activities but can’t help but feel the uselessness of wasting money and time chasing every god-damn butterfly that passes by. So I get a better satisfaction when my money is given away to some man or woman who is actually working to make their own or their families life better.

So the question is that is this selfish? I have to say that all charity is selfish and this is no less selfish than the next one out there. But the fact that makes micro-lending so cool is the fact that you are recycling the same money to help more people. You lend they pay back and you lend again.

I lend on kiva.org. I don’t make any money from it, in fact lose money because of inflation. But I can still see that the money lent has helped twice the amount of people when compared to just giving the the money as a gift.

I believe in maximum value for money and as far as helping people is concerned it just doesn’t get any better than this.

Let me give you some statistics so that you can see for yourself. You can see the stats below at this link http://www.kiva.org/lender/abhishekcheriangeorge

I have been fortunate to make 87 Loans on Kiva; that is $2,175 lent. But of this $1,167 was loan made from repaid loans. So the amount I really lent is $1,008. Which means each that dollar has done work that is at least twice its value.

Of the 87 loans 4 loans are late on payments. The rest are all in good stead. And I being a person with loose fingers have $1000 worth of savings in Kiva which I can withdraw via Paypal when loans are repaid. (Not that I plan on taking the money out any time soon).

I have made an graph of what Kiva can do with your money in 3 years.  Assuming a loan of $50 per month and a repayment period of 8 months per loan. After a loan is repayed you lend again. So $50 lent becomes $100 lent in 8 months time.

It is clearly visible what Kiva does for the needy, if you have any other method that multiplies your donations let me know, coz the world needs it. If you feel the need to be a responsible citizen of this earth, It is easy to start. Head over to kiva.org and start giving. You can join my team The Chaosactive Foundation to join forces to give more.