Are you a Smartphone Zombie?

Few days back i saw a question on a site asking “I want to put my phone aside and study, but i’m not able to do it? Is there any I can get rid of it?”

Well we can say that we all faced this phase where we get too much addicted to Mobile phone and couldn’t keep it aside and focus on other works. A research recently released the details of a study which told us where in the world was the biggest Smartphone penetration:-

  1. South Korea
  2. Australia
  3. Israel
  4. U.S
  5. Spain
  6. U.K

But this doesn’t mean that people in this countries are using mobile phones all the time. Based on a 2016 study led by Statistica, it does look like people in those countries might fall into the category of smartphone zombies. The study also said that

  • Brazilian spend the most hours on average connected to a smartphone as 4 hr 48 mins per day.
  • Chinese spend the most hours on average 3 hours 3 mins
  • Followed by U.S 2 hours 37 mins
  • Italy 2 hours 34 mins
  • Spain 2 hours 11 mins
  • South Korea 2 hours 10 mins

One thing range true for all countries in the study, and that was the fact time spent on a smartphone for the average person was up quite a lot from 2012 to 2016.

It’s not totally people’s fault that we are addicted to the smartphones. We have this exciting thing in our pocket that flashes, beeps and invites us to use it. NPR in 2018 talked about this manipulative object we carry around with us, that is just so irresistible. The story mentions Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov, and what we know as Pavlov’s dog. The psychologist one day realised that when his dog heard a bell or a buzzer, he knew it was feeding time, thereby associate with a sound to eating, which led to the dog drooling and looking excited.

Modern psychologist tells us this is what is happening to us when we hear a beep or a ding inside our pocket; we become excitable, like Pavlov’s dog. Our reward is coming, and we get a hit of dopamine and we want more. We check our phone on average every 15 mins and that make the tech use psychological tricks to keep us checking in.

All the time spent checking in may affect our sleep, our relationship, our work, or even all the creative things we might do to have a flourishing existence. Psychologist tend to agree we should be checking in less, and tech producers need to start thinking about creating less powerful digital drugs. But that isn’t easy because as most people now need those beeps and likes, and need to feel that they are not missing out on something.

Experts even states that putting your phone down, you may experience withdrawal symptoms, such as craving, restlessness, irritability or difficulty in concentrating. So from now on you might turn off notifications, have a plan for the day and stick to it, take off the apps you really don’t need as that might lead to a kind of app surfing. In general, not many people are against these technologies, but we should be focusing on what we might call device quality time, educating ourselves and being productive and creative.

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Introvert people

Putting together a large number of contemporary tests of personality, Grimes, Cheek, Julie Norem, and Courtney Brown created the STAR test to measure four kinds of introversion. To figure out your primary introverted type, take this online test:

To find out where you stand on each of the four meanings of introversion, answer the following questions by deciding to what extent each item is characteristic of your feelings and behavior. Fill in the blank next to each item by choosing a number from the following scale:

1 = very uncharacteristic or untrue, strongly disagree

2 = uncharacteristic

3 = neutral

4 = characteristic

5 = very characteristic or true, strongly agree

Social Introversion

____ 1. I like to share special occasions with just one person or a few close friends, rather than have big celebrations.

____ 2. I think it would be satisfying if I could have very close friendships with many people.

____ 3. I try to structure my day so that I always have some time to myself.

____ 4. I like to vacation in places where there are a lot of people around and a lot of activities going on.

____ 5. After spending a few hours surrounded by a lot of people, I am usually eager to get away by myself.

____ 6. I do not have a strong need to be around other people.

____ 7. Just being around others and finding out about them is one of the most interesting things I can think of doing.

____ 8. I usually prefer to do things alone.

____ 9. Other people tend to misunderstand me—forming a mistaken impression of what kind of person I am because I don’t say much about myself.

____ 10. I feel drained after social situations, even when I enjoyed myself.

Thinking Introversion

____ 1. I enjoy analyzing my own thoughts and ideas about myself.

____ 2. I have a rich, complex inner life.

____ 3. I frequently think about what kind of person I am.

____ 4. When I am reading an interesting story or novel or when I am watching a good movie, I imagine how I would feel if the events in the story were happening to me.

____ 5. I seldom think about myself.

____ 6. I generally pay attention to my inner feelings.

____ 7. I value my personal self-evaluation, that is, the private opinion I have of myself.

____ 8. I sometimes step back (in my mind) in order to examine myself from a distance.

____ 9. I daydream and fantasize, with some regularity, about things that might happen to me.

____ 10. I am inclined to be introspective, that is, to analyze myself.

Anxious Introversion

____ 1. When I enter a room I often become self-conscious and feel that the eyes of others are upon me.

____ 2. My thoughts are often focused on episodes of my life that I wish I’d stop thinking about.

____ 3. My nervous system sometimes feels so frazzled that I just have to get off by myself.

____ 4. I am confident about my social skills.

____ 5. Defeat or disappointment usually shame or anger me, but I try not to show it.

____ 6. It does not take me long to overcome my shyness in new situations.

____ 7. I feel relaxed even in unfamiliar social situations.

____ 8. Even when I am in a group of friends, I often feel very alone and uneasy.

____ 9. My secret thoughts, feelings, and actions would horrify some of my friends.

____ 10. I feel painfully self-conscious when I am around strangers.

Restrained Introversion

____ 1. I like to be off and running as soon as I wake up in the morning.

____ 2. I’ll try anything once.

____ 3. For relaxation I like to slow down and take things easy.

____ 4. I like to wear myself out with exertion.

____ 5. I often say the first thing that comes into my head.

____ 6. I generally seek new and exciting experiences and sensations.

____ 7. I like to keep busy all the time.

____ 8. I often act on the spur of the moment.

____ 9. I sometimes do “crazy” things just to be different.

____ 10. I often feel sluggish.

How’d you do?

To find out your score for each of the four kinds of introversion,RECODE the following Reverse-Worded items: (1=5) (2=4) (4=2) (5=1):

Social Introversion items: 2, 4, & 7

Thinking Introversion item: 5

Anxious Introversion items: 4, 6, & 7

Restrained Introversion items: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, & 9

Next, add together all the numbers to come up with a total score.

Here’s a guide of how you scored compared to others in the general population:

  • Social Introversion — below 24 low, around 30 average, above 36 high​
  • Thinking Introversion — below 28 low, around 34 average, above 40 high
  • Anxious Introversion — below 23 low, around 30 average, above 37 high
  • Restrained Introversion — below 25 low, around 31 average, above 37 high

This alternative way of assessing introversion is not likely to be embraced by Big Five personality researchers [6]. But if it offers you a more satisfying, personally meaningful way to glean insight into your unique personality, feel free to throw the Big Five framework out the window.

© 2014 Scott Barry Kaufman, All Rights Reserved.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Connor Child at Qzzr for his help with the online quiz, and Jennifer Odessa Grimes and Jonathan Cheek for their help with this post.

[1] This list is adapted from Jonathan Cheek’s book review, which can be found here.

[2] As another example, take people who conceptualize themselves as highly introverted because they are very introspective and value their rich inner mental lives, but who score high in enthusiasm and assertiveness on the Big Five test. These folks are being told by modern personality psychologists: “You are really an extrovert who is also high in intellect/imagination.” For those who have spent their entire lives equating their love of thinking and fantasy with their “introversion”, they respond: “huh?” In the Big Five, imagination, fantasy, and introspection are positively associated with Extraversion. But if we do away with the label of introversion in the Big Five, then that allows a person to be introverted in the thinking/introspective sense but also be an extravert in the Big Five sense (high in enthusiasm and assertiveness).

[3] Popular writers on introversion are also not pleased with this psychological imperialism. For instance, in Sophia Sembling’s book The Introvert’s Way, she has a chapter titled “Introverts are Not Failed Extroverts”.

[4] Keep in mind, the Big Five is a descriptive model; it merely describes patterns of covariation between people. The labels used to describe the five personality dimensions are subjective. A lot of the arguments over what counts as introversion come down to a naming game. In my view, it’s really unfortunate that Big Five researchers started to use the label “introversion” to mark the lower end of extraversion. It wasn’t always this way. In fact, the original name for “extraversion” in the Big Five was “Surgency“. If it were up to me, it would have stayed that way, leaving the label “introversion” free to continue roaming the personality landscape. As Jonathan Cheek told me, “if the Big Five folks would just go back to that phrase [“Surgency”], they would not be crossing swords with folk psychology/ordinary language introverts. Perhaps introversion should *not* be used as a label in the Big Five system.” I agree.

[5] Here is the link to the research report about the new STAR scale. You might be wondering: “What about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test? Isn’t that good enough to measure introversion?” Well, no it isn’t. As it turns out, the MBTI extraversion-introversion scale only includes items relating to being talkative, gregarious, and sociable (vs. quiet and reserved). Since there’s not a single item on the MBTI extraversion-introversion dimension that mentions being introspective or reflective, even the MBTI doesn’t measure Jung’s original conceptualization of the term!

[6] Big Five researchers could make the case that each of these four meanings of introversion can easily be mapped onto the Big Five framework. For instance, they could argue that:

-Social introversion is really just “low enthusiasm” (part of the extraversion domain)

-Thinking introversion is not part of the extraversion-introversion domain at all, but really is “high intellect/imagination”

-Anxious introversion is really just a blend of “high neuroticism” and “low assertiveness” (part of the extraversion domain)

-Restrained introversion” is a blend of a number of lower-order extraversion-related traits, including “low sensation seeking”, “low excitement seeking”, and “low activity”.

Best Lifestyle Blogs to Follow in 2021

Lifestyle Blog niche is one of the most competitive blogging niches around. Lifestyle bloggers are competing against digital lifestyle magazines, in a niche that is already quite saturated. So lifestyle blogs that gain a large readership are of a high standard in both design and content.

Online mags often have huge budgets, a print edition as well as digital, and content that is varied and expertly written, with professional photos. But lifestyle blogs have an edge in that they can supply new content every day if they so wish. Lifestyle blogs are free to access whereas digital magazine editions can only be accessed through paid subscriptions.

For a lifestyle blog to thrive, the authors need to provide excellent, accurate content and photos that create interest and capture the readers’ imaginations. Lifestyle bloggers have raised their standards to compete with the best of both online mags and other lifestyle blogs.

But what exactly constitutes a lifestyle blog?

Let’s find out!

Defining Lifestyle Blogs

A lifestyle blog is defined as digital content representing the author’s everyday life and interests. The word “lifestyle” according to the dictionary means “habits, attitudes, moral standards, which together constitute the way of life of a given person or group”. (source: dictionary.com)

As a result, lifestyle blogs can fall into many micro-niches. This allows bloggers to provide content for a specific target audience. Lifestyle bloggers often promote products, brands, and services to monetize their blogs. So it’s almost essential that the person behind the blog is well-versed in whatever the specific topics are.

Here’s a shortlist of typical Lifestyle Blogging niches:

  • Luxury Lifestyle Blogs
  • Foodie Lifestyle Blogs
  • Home & Garden Lifestyle Blogs
  • Fashion Blogs & Beauty Lifestyle Blogs
  • Travel Blogs & Photography Lifestyle Blogs
  • Health & Fitness Lifestyle Blogs
  • Men’s Lifestyle Blogs
  • Natural Living Lifestyle Blogs
  • Outdoor Lifestyle Blogs
  • And Lifestyle Blogs for people with children (also called mom blogs or parenting blogs.)

Sometimes even these categories get split into various combinations, depending on the blogger. So you could end up with a Fashion and Travel Blog, A Natural Living Mom Blog, or even a Foodie and Photography Lifestyle blog.

Lifestyle blog vs. personal blog

Lifestyle blogs are not personal blogs because they focus more on users (readers). The content is created here for the reader and his expectations. What’s more, lifestyle blogs focus on the author’s benefits, not just on telling stories.

In personal blogs, the most important are the author’s emotions and thoughts, who expresses his opinions, writes about his experiences, feelings, reflections. In the personal blog, the author himself is the most important, not the reader.

I can’t write about lifestyle blogs without mentioning a few from each niche. I’ve tried to give you a selection of the most captivating from each subgenre (or micro-niche). These Lifestyle blogs check all the boxes. They are fun, relevant, trendy, polished, and loaded with content that appeals to a specific target audience.

A Quick Note To Would-Be Lifestyle Bloggers

Before I launch into “Our Best Of” list, a word of caution to would-be lifestyle bloggers; even if you have many areas of interest yourself, try to whittle your content down to cover only one or two main topics. This helps when you are trying to grow a steady, loyal readership.

Male readers don’t want to read about fishing, fashion, and raising a brood of ankle snappers! A young professional will not be interested in “Ten Tips To Wean Your Child off Breast Milk”, and your Luxury Lifestyle blog will not impress our Tree Hugging friends who will recoil in horror at the decadence of luxury lifestyles! Readers who enjoy luxury will also not be impressed with Frugal Living!

On the other hand, the lifestyle blogging niche allows the most freedom for bloggers who genuinely do have a vast array of topics that pair well together. If you can create the content and maintain the variety, then you will create space for a wider readership.

Top blogs in lifestyle category

This collection of blogs showcases the variety and range of lifestyle blogs that get it right!

1. Goop.com

Goop was one of the first lifestyle blogs to hit the circuit, way back in 2008. The brainchild of actress and mother, Gwyneth Paltrow, Goop covers everything for the modern woman. She focuses on wellness and how to create a balance between parenting and work. Something all working moms know about! She has a strong team behind her and Goop is a mini-empire in its own right.

Goop covers:

  • Beauty
  • Food & Home
  • Style
  • Travel
  • Wellness

Target Audience: Women of all ages and enlightened men.

2. The Pioneer Woman (thepioneerwoman.com)

This is a lifestyle blog that stands out for me. Unlike so many lifestyle blogs, Ree Drummond blogs about a lifestyle that all Americans know and love. Pure salt of the earth, rustic ranch life. The blog packs a punch! Ree has combined recipes, style, beauty, home & life, food & cooking, news, and entertainment. And great giveaways. She started as a lone ranger but now has a team of editors assisting her in keeping the blog relevant, trendy, and homegrown.

Target Audience: People keen on ranch-style living.

*3. Brightbazaarblog.com

Bright Bazaar blog was founded in 2009 by Will Taylor. This is the place where Will blogs about his love for colorful design, travel, and fashion. This blog is recommended by esteemed publishing houses Elle Decor, Martha Stewart Living, and many others.

If you need more home inspiration, look at other famous bloggers in the article: The Best Interior Design Blogs.

Target Audience: People who love design.

4. Cup of Jo (cupofjo.com)

Joanna Goddard is a perfect example of what can be achieved through blogging. Joanna launched Cup of Jo in 2007, as a hobby. At that time her career was quite a high-powered one. She has loads of editorial experience and her resume brags the likes of Cosmo, Bene, Glamour, and New York.

Today Cup of Jo has a team of writers and is Joanna’s full-time gig. She lives in Brooklynn with her husband and two kids. The blog covers relationships, design, food, style, travel, culture, and motherhood. This is a great blog for women.

Target Audience: Women and mothers of all ages

. Say Yes (sayyes.com)

. Say Yes (sayyes.com)

The Case for a New Avenger

S.H.I.E.L.D. might have missed assembling team members from India, but it is never too late to correct an oversight. Imagine our larger-than-life superhero, Rajinikanth, partnering with other Avengers in a combined mission to save the planet from dangerous predators with bad intentions. Some aliens, some familiar ones! Yes, India is far from America, and the distance seems to have increased during the pandemic, but Rajinikanth could give some worthy company to Iron Man and perhaps teach him a trick or two, too, through holographic interfaces and augmented reality. Who knows, he could also kill all the mutants of Coronaviruses in this quest!

I wish to present some facts now to give you a background of my strategic human resource and leadership plan for S.H.I.E.L.D. India has one of the largest numbers of gig workers in the world. As per a March 2021 report by consulting firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, the gig economy in India is expected to soar to 90 million in approximately a decade from now. Choose any vocation here and you will be spoilt for choices. Almost everyone is an expert on politics, economics, socio-cultural issues, fashion, sports, career, marriage, children, nature, animals, traffic, the dos, and don’ts … the list is endless. People can even advice others on how they should lead their lives. It’s affection, silly!

War for talent? Clearly, recruiters have not been able to explore the depth of this vast pool. To reiterate, India is a land bubbling with high potentials. Now let us go back to the topic of superpowers. There is plan B too. Rajinikanth could have a serious competition in a plain-looking community here. S.H.I.E.L.D. could consider appointing some members from this fraternity too.

You are rolling your eyes? Why? Hear me out. Presenting to you the case of beholders of the mighty pen (over a sword or a gun), and the upholders of fine speech. Their words hit no less than the missiles unleashed by Israel over the Gaza strip. Let me walk you through the innate gifts of a less publicized community with an immensely amoeba-like (plasma membrane) flexibility.

The teachers.

The extremely sturdy ones can stand the whole day, operate (teach) without a table and a chair, or, the basic infrastructure, and sometimes work even at low or no salaries for months. The strengths, struggles and coping mechanism of the privileged ones out of this lot are embedded in different realms. More on that, later! You will be astonished to learn how many hats teachers can don at the same time. They juggle between being a mentor, coach, counsellor, Devil’s advocate, friend, philosopher, or guide. Interestingly, even their DNA personifies versatility. Over the years, the mutations in their genetic material have helped them learn how to make milestones of the stones thrown at them by students unhappy with their marks, and parents unhappy with the teachers for giving those marks! Talk about heightened senses, their eyes can easily observe and sense the intention behind each greeting, smile and calls to the office. They are like Sharma ji ka beta/beti’, always expected to excel at everything and set an ideal example for the others to emulate.

Here, I would take a detour and ask you to recall the violinists who continued to play music for as long as they were alive, just to calm the passengers on the sinking Titanic ship. On similar lines, teachers continued to teach while the pandemic unleashed havoc around the world. The unlearning of years of classroom teaching was replaced by the immediate need to adopt new technological tools and re-learn the art of virtual teaching. The new and changed landscape was no less than the one post Thanos snapping his finger.

Aren’t convinced yet? Go to the polling booths and follow the polio immunization drives, you will know what I mean.

Now the final hook. Except for some teachers working with elite institutions, the rest won’t even charge much for their services. You can simply smile, appreciate their work, show some respect, and boy, see how they melt! Just watch how it lights up their faces. They are so motivated, especially on September 5 every year in India, that even Abraham Maslow bows to them from time to time from his grave. Had told you about their genetic sequencing earlier, remember? I do hope I have presented their (our) case well, S.H.I.E.L.D. Hopefully, you will have a relook at your current team now.

On a sidenote, can I be a contender too? Just saying. I can take it up as a gig assignment during the semester breaks. Imagine the newest Avenger on the block and that too a female from India! It will further boost the diversity and inclusion factors for you. If you can give equitable salary and perks, you could even find yourself on the pages of Harvard cases.

You might want to provide supplements of Vitamin T(eacher) to your team if Rajinikanth’s diary of appointments is full. Professor Hulk would not mind some more erudite company. In return, I vow to start quoting your example in my classes as a great employer brand with an excellent employee value proposition. Who knows, I might even write a research article. Told you, pen and words are the weapons here. Think about it. What say? Are you game?

P.S. I have recently bought a telescope to keep an eye on the stars and planets too. Taking my possible future role tad too seriously, eh?

Why do people have so much aggression?

  • We all act aggressively from time to time—say while sitting in traffic or in the midst of an argument—but some are more aggressive than others.
  • There are several reasons we engage in aggressive behavior, which also help to explain why some people display aggression more often.
  • These causes include instinct, hormonal imbalance, genetics, temperament, nurture, and stress.
  • If there are excessively aggressive people in your life, like a loved one or coworker, you can learn to cope or deal with their behavior effectively.
  • First, try keeping your cool, empathizing, and expressing your concern—these actions should help you to navigate the interaction and make it more pleasant.
  • If these strategies don’t prove effective, consider distancing yourself from the overly aggressive person; your wellbeing should be your priority.

Aggression is hostile or violent behavior. It’s a woman yelling at her son for spilling his milk on the carpet. It’s a child pushing his friend down on the playground because she was playing with his favorite toy. It’s a girl snapping at her boyfriend because he didn’t invite her out with the guys.

As you can see (and probably know from personal experience), aggression can take many forms. We all act aggressively at some point or another in our lives, whether it’s yelling at the black Sudan that cut us off or getting into it with family or friends. But some are more aggressive than others—quick to react or engage in hostile behavior. Which begs an important question: why

What Causes Aggression? 6 Origins

Sure, traffic can spur aggression, as can a disagreement with a coworker. But what’s the psychology behind this behavior? There are actually a few reasons we become aggressive, which also help to explain why some people are more aggressive than others:

1. Instinct: Aggression is one of our many survival instincts. According to Sigmund Freud, aggression continuously builds up until it releases as aggressive behavior, at some point or another. Some individuals can suppress this aggression and use other survival instincts instead, but others simply react and release.

2. Hormonal imbalance: A hormonal imbalance in an individual can certainly contribute to aggressive behavior. For example, high levels of testosterone contribute to high levels of aggression. This explains why males are characteristically more aggressive than females.

3. Genetics: Aggression can also be passed down genetically. Children are at a greater risk of adapting aggressive tendencies if they have a biological background for it. Time and time again, father and son both display aggressive behavior.

4. Physiological illness and temperament: Serious illness can have a major effect on an individual’s mood and behavior, as the stress and other mental effects may bring about greater aggression. Additionally, one’s temperament can play a role in aggression. People with bad tempers typically become aggressive more quickly than calmer individuals.

5. Social learning: Aggression can be learned. Some become more aggressive due to personal experiences or observational learning. For example, children are always looking for cues on how to act, as illustrated by the Bobo doll experiment. They learn to act aggressively when they watch someone else commit violent acts like in movies or video games.

6. Psychological frustrations: It’s human nature to become frustrated when life just doesn’t seem to be going so well. This frustration may involve work or love, for example, and can lead to an all-around feeling of negativity. This negativity then represents a threat, which can lead to aggression

How to Cope with an Aggressive Individual

Dealing with someone who constantly lashes out in hostile or violent behavior is tough—especially when it’s someone you’re close to like your boyfriend or mother, or someone you can’t get away from, like a coworker. In any case, the following can help you deal with the aggressive people in your life more effectively:

  • Keep your cool. The last thing that will alleviate this situation is another aggressive individual. Maintain your composure and use your better judgment to handle the situation. Aggressive people often seek to intimidate and upset others. You have to ensure this doesn’t happen and instead of reacting with rage like they want you to, take a moment to count to ten and think of a better way to deal with the situation at hand.
  • Put yourself in their shoes. Even if the aggression seems unwarranted, take a moment to imagine yourself in their position. Maybe they grew up in an overly aggressive household. Or, maybe they have a lot on their plate and they’re reacting to the stress with aggression. This will help calm your own negative feelings down and empathize with the individual. Then, maybe you can turn the aggressive attack into a productive conversation.
  • Express your concern. Maybe there isn’t an obvious, underlying cause of the individual’s aggression. Once you’ve taken a step away and you’re both calm, express your concern for them. They may not realize the severity of their aggression or its effect on those around them. It could take someone like you bringing it to light for them to make that realization and make a change.
  • Distance yourself. Sometimes, these aggressive individuals are just not worth it and don’t deserve a place in your life. You have to prioritize your wellbeing and if that means cutting them out of your lives, then so be it. And if cutting them completely out of your life isn’t very realistic (think, an aggressive aunt or uncle that’s at every family reunion or your coworker who doesn’t look to be going anywhere anytime soon), then just distance yourself as best you can. Avoid them.

Ultimately, you have to decide if it’s worth dealing with the aggressive individual. If you decide that it’s not, kick them to the curb and distance yourself from them. But if you decide that this individual is worth it and could maybe use your help, do your best to sympathize with them and determine the underlying cause of the aggression. This will help you both moving forward

Feeling alone

LONELINESS is packed with feelings and emotions. It can consume you at any time – day or night – and create havoc with your emotions. Feeling lonely can cause you to lose perspective and, sometimes, to lose all hope. Even before COVID, we lived in an isolated culture where people were starved for connection. And now with the fear of COVID, loneliness is even more intensified.

There are days when my life is filled with the sound of voices on the phone, or pictures of friends on Zoom and Facetime, and yet, I feel alone. There have been times in my life when I would walk in a church filled with people, or show up at a party where I knew everyone, and yet, I felt alone. At some point, we’ve all experienced feelings of being alone and the shadow of loneliness that follows close behind.

Being alone isn’t a bad thing. It’s a good, necessary, healthy thing. It’s a time to reflect, to appreciate, to think, to create, to process your life. Reflection and synthesis of ideas is crucial to learning and growing, and for many people this can only be done when they are alone. Kierkegaard nails this with one of my favorite quotes: “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” Damn, Kierkegaard, I bet you spent a ton of time alone.

So why are we so damned afraid of being alone?

Because we’re afraid others will think we’re lonely. There’s something wrong with lonely people, or else why wouldn’t they have people around them? There must be something broken about them! If you learn someone is lonely, you best stay away from them. Leave them to their cats. Loneliness results in more loneliness; it’s a beast that feeds itself. (Please know that I don’t believe any of this — or at least I don’t want to, but these are thoughts that I hear in my head, because Society)

I’m not lonely! I have 2200 facebook friends. Look at all the things I share. Look at all those likes! I have all the likes! And retweets. Don’t even get me started on retweets. I have to call them RTs because I get so many I don’t even have time for all those other letters. Look at me on Instagram! Follow me! #TeamFollowBack Connect with me! Please, please, connect with me. How am I so damned lonely?! Nobody else feels this lonely. Look at all the friends they have on Facebook. Look at all those likes they’re getting…

We are living in a time when it’s easy to feel uncomfortable being alone, because there are so many ways you can “be” with other people. So we’re never truly alone. And that makes it ever more uncomfortable when we feel lonely.

I saw someone post a photo on Facebook last Friday night of themselves with a glass of wine and the caption “Relaxing into a much-needed quiet Friday night date with myself. #DontHate”

The irony hurt. If you really want to be alone, WHY ARE YOU TELLING THE WHOLE WORLD, my brain yelled.

Then I realized I knew the answer: this person is uncomfortable being alone on a Friday night, and this is how they are trying to mitigate that discomfort.

They are seeing all of their friends posting photos of their fun nights out with dozens of people and having so much fun and internalizing all of this as something being wrong with them. Maybe they chose to be alone tonight, or maybe they got ditched by a friend, or maybe they wanted to go out and don’t really have any friends who wanted to go out with them, but, whatever the case, they were probably terrified they would slip from enjoying a night alone into being lonely on a Friday night. The first is good. The second is bad. And maybe a “like” or a reassuring comment would stave that off.

spend a lot of time on the road traveling alone. And during the day, when I’m performing, or visiting a campus, or flying, eating, writing — keeping my mind busy — I’m on the road traveling alone; I’m not lonely on the road. And I enjoy it. I enjoy the aloneness. I thrive in it. But at night, when I get back to my hotel room and plop down on the bed, I regularly toe the line between being alone and being lonely.

I am usually good at landing on the enjoying a night alone side of the line, but sometimes, usually after a particularly long stretch on the road, of if a show doesn’t go as well as I want it to, I’ll find myself stumbling onto the lonely side. It probably doesn’t help that I have this disgusting and self-body-destroying habit of having a huge pizza delivered to my hotel room and eating it by myself in my underwear. And, as I am typing that, I am reminded of this

Internet Banking

The innovations of information technology and internet have opened the new horizons to the Banking service delivery to the customers. Banking services are available on the finger tips of the customer via Internet Banking. Internet Banking, Net Banking or online banking allows you to perform various financial and non-financial transactions in your account with a click of button without visiting branch or ATM. It offers you a whole lot of features that earlier available only with the branch

In today’s fast-paced life, you need on-demand banking solutions for a better lifestyle. Internet Banking service gives you complete control over fund in your accounts online. Say bid-adieu to long queues and tired teller counter clerk. Now do banking from the comfort of your home or office, vacations ANYWHERE and ANYTIME!

Internet banking allows banking user to get connected to it’s bank’s internet banking portal to perform desire banking functions. If you are a Bank customer then you can avail Internet Banking facility after having received secure access of your net banking account from your bank. After secure login you will have direct access to your account. All the banking functions, financial and non-financials, that bank has made available on the internet banking mode will be displayed in menu of your online user account. You can select to perform any transaction and further result will be as per the policy for the nature of the service.

Your internet banking works on the concept of data centralization in the core banking system and allowing restricted access through net banking channel.

You must be apprehensive about the safety and security of online banking. Nelito’s Internet Banking product has following features to make your banking safe and secure:

  • Internet Banking product is developed on SSL protocol and 128-bit encryption technology to provide a secure channel for data exchange – which keeps your online banking data secure and safe.
  • Customer login is also verified at 2 levels by userid-password combination and PAN Number or Date of Birth authentications.
  • 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) requires you to input OTP (One Time Password) sent only on to your registered mobile number for all key transactions.
  • Your login session gets expired after a certain period in case there is no activity in your logged in session. This secures any unauthorized access to your logged in session.
  • Tracking of wrong OTP and passwork attempts.

Thus your Netbanking is safe, fast and secure, enabling you to perform your banking transaction with total peace of mind .

Range of services and features on internet banking includes:

  • Account Balance of all accounts linked to your customer ID
  • View and Download account statement.
  • Fund transfer through NEFT & RTGS
  • Avail Different Deposit Schemes and Banking Services like insurance, credit cards, demand draft etc.
  • Cheque Status and Stop Payment Request
  • Pay government taxes
  • Pay online your utility bills like Electricity, Telephone, Subscription payments along with Charity and Donation.
  • Recharge your mobile/DTH connection.
  • 24 x 7 Money Transfer through IMPS
  • Set up standing instructions for transfer of fixed amount to be executed at fixed intervals.
  • Various non-financial transactions like cheque book request, profile change, KYC, inquiries 

The irrational things about trust

The obvious and rational equation is that being trustworthy plus being transparent will lead you to be trusted. Verification of trustworthiness should lead to trust.

This makes sense. Being trustworthy (acting in a way that’s worthy of trust) plus being transparent so that people can see your trustworthiness—this should be sufficient.

How then, do we explain that brands like Coke and Google are trusted? The recipe is secret, the algorithm is secret, and competitors like DuckDuckGo certainly act in a more trustworthy way.

In fact, trust often comes from something very different. It’s mostly about symbols, expectations and mystery.

Consider the relationship you might enter into if you need surgery. You trust this woman to cut you open, you’re putting your life in her hands… without the transparency of seeing all of her surgical statistics, interviewing all previous patients, evaluating her board scores.

Instead, we leap into surgery on the basis of the recommendation from one doctor, on how the office feels, on a few minutes of bedside manner. We walk away from surgery because of a surly receptionist, or a cold demeanor. 

The same is true for just about all the food we eat. Not only don’t we visit the slaughterhouse or the restaurant kitchen, we make an effort to avoid imagining that they even exist.

In most commercial and organizational engagements, trust is something we want and something we seek out, but we use the most basic semiotics and personal interactions to choose where to place our trust. And once the trust is broken, there’s almost no amount of transparency that will help us change our mind.

This is trust from ten thousand years ago, a hangover from a far less complex age when statistical data hadn’t been conceived of, when unearthing history was unheard of. But that’s now hard-wired into how we judge and are judged.

Quick test: Consider how much you trust Trump, or Clinton, Cruz or Sanders, Scalia or RBG. Is that trust based on transparency? On a rational analysis of public statements and private acts? Or is it more hunch-filled than that? What are the signals and tropes you rely on? Tone of voice? Posture? Appearance? Would more transparency change your mind about someone you trust? What about someone you don’t? (Here’s a fascinating story on that topic, reconstructed and revealed).

It turns out that we grab trust when we need it, and that rebuilding trust after it’s been torn is really quite difficult. Because our expectations (which weren’t based on actual data) were shown to be false.

Real trust (even in our modern culture) doesn’t always come from divulging, from providing more transparency, but from the actions that people take (or that we think they take) before our eyes. It comes from people who show up before they have to, who help us when they think no one is watching. It comes from people and organizations that play a role that we need them to play.

Hugging helps lower our stress throughout the day.

As you know how drinking too much coffee can kind of put us on edge for the next dew hours? Wll hugging can actually have the opposite effect like so many other unseen benefits this all goes back to good hormones some research believe that hugging and other Interpersonal touch can boot a hormones called oxytocin and also effects our endogenous opioid system

Big words right but basically it’s boils down to this simply through the act of hugging our brains can produce soothing chemicals that helps us feel more safe and less threatening throughout the day so when something stressful does come up we don’t have such an aggressive fight or flights response to it .

How to Turn Off Read Receipts in Facebook Messenger, Apple iMessage, WhatsApp


If you keep your read receipts ‘on’ in WhatsApp, a blue tick appears next to the message when the recipient has read it.

HIGHLIGHTS
iMessage users can toggle off read receipts for select chats
Read receipt hides text delivery information from the sender
This is useful for users who want to keep things more private
How to Turn Off Read Receipts in Facebook Messenger, Apple iMessage, WhatsApp
WhatsApp users can toggle off read receipts from Settings

WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Apple’s iMessage — all three apps have the read receipt function that notifies the sender when the receiver has read their message. Read receipts are an important part of communication through messaging apps. It allows users to understand whether their message has been seen by the recipient or not. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and iMessage support the read receipt function by has different ways of notifying the sender that their message has been read. But if you like to keep things more private and not allow the sender the freedom to know when you have read their message, you can turn these read receipts off at any time. For instance, if you keep your read receipts on WhatsApp a blue tick appears next to the message when the recipient has read it.