My wasted Earth

 

Soft music wafted when in bed

Calling me to wake up and go to him

See the Sun peeping at the break of dawn

Giving the Moon much needed rest

 

There he stands mighty and tall

The rays of the Sun bracing

His snow covered crown

Making it glow all white and gold

 

The abode of Gods Shiva and Durga living there

With the Ganga flowing from his head

He dancing in delight with his trident in hand

Pleasing his consort Durga his eternal wife

 

His call to him comes as a boon

Once in a lifetime such a call comes

The urge to run to him grew with

Every passing moment that went by

 

The journey to him was arduous indeed

Heard the music played by nature

So soothing and unique

Never can we hear this where we live

 

The sounds of the streams and rivers

As it flows down gurgling music to the ear

Chirping and tweeting of birds,

Some singing some whistling

 

Rest under the tree by road side

Hear the winds whistle, blowing cold winds

Bracing the face, fragrance of the woods

So unique a creation to cherish and preserve

 

Green all around, trees in abundance

Blue sky up above, clouds floating by

This is the home given by the Lord

To all living creatures whose children are we

 

We kill helpless creatures for skins or prize

Shoot them down or club to death

Mass kill insects’ with pesticides

The birds meet their death,

Poisoned by grains they innocently eat

 

Rivers lost mighty Ganga too

Now just a river not a mighty one

Yamuna no more a river but a poisoned stream

Plastics and city waste all disposed here

 

No more are the rivers fresh and blue

More so at cities where the knowledgeable live

Yet we pray here treating them as Gods

Our life sustaining rivers all but lost

 

Glaciers melted many lost

Weather hot as it never was

Lands eroded by swelling seas

Farm lands parched by scorching Sun

 

Rich farmlands give way to high-rise house

Factories all types contaminating the earth

No pure water or air we get in cities we proudly live

This is progress we acknowledge writing our epithet

‘We intelligent humans, here once we lived’

 

Paid my obeisance to my lord I came to meet

He whispered to me in my heart

I sent you humans to Earth to live in peace

Not kill or destroy what I painstakingly built

 

All prayers and offerings are of no use to me

Just follow my teachings preach them to all

Live happily as children do

That’s the prayer I expect from you.

 

ALOK

23 05 2012

Why your blog isn’t getting any comments—and how to fix it

I am thrilled every time there’s a new comment on one of my blog posts. I’m ecstatic when someone likes my stuff on Facebook. I wish more people would do it.

P.T. Barnum said “Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd”. Derek Halpern at DIY Themes puts it in context: “Today, we call this social proof or social validation.” But he goes on to say, “Nothing disbands a crowd like the lack of a crowd. So if your site looks dead (no comments, tweets, or subscribers), breathe life into it.”

I’m not so popular that I can take reader interactions for granted. So I took a little time to research and write out my thoughts and ideas here. Maybe your blog needs some help, too. Read on to see what I found out.

Why you’re not getting blog comments now

• Low traffic numbers

If you just don’t have much traffic to your blog, you’re probably not going to get comments. It’s a bit of a numbers game. Depending on your audience, you can likely expect about 1% of readers to actually leave a comment. And not all your visitors even stick around to read.

If that’s you, look at a few ways to get more traffic flowing to your blog—and make sure your content is worthy of a read first and foremost.

• Lack of originality or personality

You don’t have to be a professional writer to blog. (In fact, it might be better if you’re not.) To get people commenting on your blog, you’d do well to show your personality. For example, be sure to add your own thoughts and experiences when you’re rehashing a popular topic.

Read the popular bloggers in your industry and see how they do it. Read and learn from them, but above all, be you. Your uniqueness is your greatest asset.

• Writing on and on

Popular blogger Chris Brogan recommends being brief. But rather than focusing on length, I’d say to make sure you’re eliminating unnecessary words and commentary. It’s going to tire your readers. Get to the point quickly.

• Take a look at your headlines

If people aren’t commenting because they’re not reading your posts, it could be that your headlines don’t bring them in. Your headline needs to communicate clearly what the reader can expect to get out of your post.

I’m going back to change a headline for a post I wrote last week on here. I don’t think I really said it right with “Promotion ideas for business service companies”. Perhaps something like “Designing an effective promotion—what business service companies need to know” is more appropriate. It sounds better, and it more accurately describes what I talk about in the post. (But is it too long? Anyone have thoughts on headline length here?)

• A cumbersome comment process

Do you require people to log in? Can they find how to comment easily? Are you weeding out spam and almost-spam, to keep quality commenters in good company? Make your comment section an easy place to access and hang out.

Other things you can do to get more blog comments

It seems the more comments you get, the more you will continue to get. But if you’re not getting any now, you’ve got to start somewhere.

• Give to get

People who blog themselves will be much more likely to comment, I’d say, than those who don’t. They understand the networking mentality. They also know how good it feels to be on the receiving end of comments—and how lousy it feels when a post you’ve slaved over doesn’t get any action.

So, give to get. Be generous with your own comments on others’ blogs. Link your name back to your own blog when you comment. Make sure your comments offer real value, which will also encourage others to visit your blog and comment. Learn how to do this from Reid Peterson of Growth in Harmony. His comments on this blog have drawn me to his blog several times, and in this recent post he’s shared how he approaches blog comments for links. (Looks like it worked!)

Some of your readers are going to be competitors or other like-minded people. But I say why not comment generously on their blogs, too? After all, if you’re in the same industry, you’re talking about the same things to the same people. Their readers can also find out about you that way.

• Make your content more available

You can’t count on people typing in your URL every week just to see what’s new. Make it easy for them to follow you by letting them subscribe in the manner they prefer. You’ve probably already got RSS displaying prominently—make sure you add the option to subscribe by email. Make use of Twitter and Facebook and any other social platforms where you’re active.

• Take some risks with the topics you’ve chosen to write about within your niche

To be sure you’re writing about things your targeted readers care about, take some risks. You may find a great new way to connect with readers.  Perhaps you could write more about trending news. Try creating controversy by posting the other side of an issue—the non-popular opinion, and so on.

I took a risk with an article a while back about punctuation. As a writer, I care about that topic, but I wasn’t sure others in the Internet marketing community would, too. Surprisingly, it was well received, and readers added several comments that increased its value. I’ll add a new post in that same spirit down the road again now that I know our readers are interested.

• Ask a comment-provoking question

I usually tack a question onto the end of each blog post. However, I don’t think this has been particularly effective in stimulating comments, since people who comment rarely answer my question. They’re usually picking up on some aspect of the story, thanking me, or asking a question themselves.

Perhaps the value in my ending with a question is that it lets the reader know I want to hear what they have to say. And perhaps a better way to go about asking a question is to make the entire post point toward a question. Hmmm, a little for me to think about here.

• Respond to comments

Thank those who took the time to offer a thoughtful comment and answer any questions that have been posted. This shows on-the-fence commenters that you’re actively engaged. In addition, the person who commented will certainly appreciate your attention. Even better if you take the time to visit their blog and leave a comment, too!

• Include striking, relevant images
  

I’ve seen bloggers who receive comments on the images they source from Flikr as part of a post. (This I’ve yet to do well. Often the image I select looks great at that time, only to feel too random later.) But probably the important point here is that your post appear aesthetically pleasing and easy to read, and hopefully the image will help urge visitors to become readers.

• Be humble and gracious

In an old post, ProBlogger’s Darren Rowse recommends being humble and gracious. This applies as much as ever. No one is infallible, and people seem to prefer to read and respond to another human being who they can identify with, not someone who assigns themselves expert status and shoots down any negative comments. Deal with naysayers graciously.

Comments aren’t the only measure of value for your blog

Regardless of how many comments you’re generating, it will be useful to take into account all the action your blog is stimulating. Here are some metrics that together can give a pretty good picture of how your blog is doing overall.

• Traffic (numbers and sources)
• Comments
• Bookmarks
• Likes, Tweets, emails and other social pass-alongs
• Time spent on your blog
• Number of returning visitors
• Subscribers
• Downloads (for ebooks or other files you offer)
• Link juice and traffic sent to your other web properties
• Revenue

Still, comments just feel good, and it seems to me you should see comments grow naturally along with the other measures.

If you’ve ever left a comment on a post I’ve written here, it means a lot to me. But it looks like I’ve got a bit of work to do.  How about you?

(Make sure you read DIYThemes.com’s Nonverbal Website Intelligence report for some more specific ideas like when you should hide your RSS and comment counters.)

Image credit: seier+seier

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Celebrating Differences

 

Psychology for Living Gwen Randall-Young Built into our culture is a natural tendency to compare ourselves with others. From the time a child starts first grade, he or she becomes aware of subtle, or not-so-subtle evaluations and placements. Whether the teacher is showing an example of ‘good work’, or the pecking order is being established on the playground, each child has a sense of where he or she stands in relation to others. As we grow up in a society that fosters consumerism, the goal of advertising is to make us feel like we need more – that what we have, or where we are in life, is not good enough. Further, with media focus on unrealistic standards of style and beauty, it is easy to feel on the ‘outside’. This is the complete opposite of how it should be. Every individual is unique, and in that uniqueness is something rare and special. Other than snowflakes, I cannot think of aspects of nature that are truly one-of-a-kind. Something wonderful happens when we celebrate what is ‘different’ about each of us. It is the differences that define us, and differentiate us from all others. Think of the people in your life, and what you like about them. My guess is you will find it is something that is different from anyone else. Think of what is different about you. Consider celebrating that aspect of your being or even finding more ways to express it. If the creator intended us to be the same, there would have been no need for so many different molds. Gwen Randall-Young is an author and award-winning Psychotherapist. For permission to reprint this article, or to obtain books or cds, visit www.gwen.ca

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Thoughts Determine Our Lives

If our thoughts determine how we feel, then what happens if we think depressing thoughts?  Well, we make ourselves feel worse, and we may sink deeper into depression. We can literally torture ourselves with our thoughts. There are some situations that we really cannot do anything about. Bad things do happen. If we dwell on the unfairness of the world, or the fact that others are not really there for us, we feel sad and lonely. Then, if we imagine that everyone else is blissfully happy, having the perfect existence, then that is like pouring salt on the wound.

It is hard to adjust to change, but we live in a changing world, and things will not stay the same. Children do grow up and leave home, people do die, relationships end, illness happens, and for most people there is always some concern about finances. We have to strengthen ourselves, and like a little ship on a stormy ocean, we may experience rough seas, but we can still stay afloat. We can always work towards moving to sunnier shores.

When we are sad, there is a tendency to focus on all that is missing from our lives.  But we could begin to think of life in a different way. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. wrote in one of his books, “Life is a collection of moments strung together in a beautifully random order.”  What if we imagined all of the good moments in our lives as beautiful, sparkling beads. The times in between could be the string that holds them all together. Even if the string had only one bright, sparkling stone, it would still be beautiful.

But most of us can think of more than one good moment. And we know that there will be more to come. It is when we forget about the good things, and see only emptiness and pain that we get discouraged. Even if you feel all alone, you can still enjoy life. You can do good things for yourself, you can immerse yourself in a good book or beautiful music, and you can connect with your own soul. That is the best friend you’ll ever have anyway. Our inner world is even more expansive than the outer world, and few ever really explore it. Maybe that is what solitude is for.

We don’t have to fear being alone, and we can even learn to celebrate those times when we get to spend uninterrupted time with ourselves. And if there seems to be a long stretch of that time, perhaps the Universe is asking us to learn about ourselves, before moving on. A kind of cosmic time-out. A time when we can imagine the rest of our lives as a blank slate, on which we can create whatever we would like.

The key is remembering that we do create our lives.  If we don’t like what is, then we can aim to create something better. But first we must know who we are, and what it is that we want. Solitude is an ideal opportunity to reflect on that.

Gwen Randall-Young is an author and award-winning Psychotherapist.  For permission to reprint this article, or to obtain books or cds, visit www.gwen.ca

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Self-Publishing Options

Please join me today Tuesday, December 14th 5pmPT/8pmET
for a VERY SPECIAL teleseminar on the newest and easiest way to
self-publish in the Self-Help/Spirituality category.

On this LIVE and FREE Teleclass I will be interviewing
Sandy Powell, Director of Balboa Press, a division of Hay House.
Balboa Press is the only self-publishing imprint focused exclusively on
titles with positive, self-help messages.  AND we have a very special OFFER just
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WIN A CARIBBEAN CRUISE FOR TWO

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When you attend this teleseminar we will pick the winner LIVE on the call. (You
must be on the “live” call to win)

To register for this free call and submit your questions please click here:

See you on the call!

Best wishes,

Arielle Ford

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The Most Important Trait of Successful Authors

In my many years working with best-selling authors Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. Dean Ornish, and dozens of others, it’s become clear that all the successful authors I know share one critical trait—a trait that affects everything they do to write, promote, and sell their books and other products/services.

Each and every best-selling author I know is a self-starter.

In the newest issue of my Everything You Should Know about Publishing, Publicity, Promotion and Building a Platform newsletter, you learn how to kickstart your very own success story with innovative book launch strategies from renowned self-starter Arianna Huffington, co-founder and Editor in Chief of The Huffington Post.

Click here to get your copy now.

In this issue, you’ll also:

• Get an exclusive invitation to my free teleseminar on Tuesday, DECEMBER 14 at 5pm PT, where you’ll have a chance to win a Caribbean cruise for two and learn about an exciting new opportunity in self-publishing
• Learn how partnering with other successful authors in your category can build your brand (and sell more books!)
• Get an exclusive 20% discount on all self-publishing packages from Balboa Press
• Get insider tips from Linda Sivertsen, best-selling author and legendary 6 and 7-figure book proposal writer, on how to get motivated to write YOUR next bestseller
• Learn when (and why) to use marketing hype to boost book and other sales

Start 2011 with a new plan for becoming the successful author of your dreams. Get my new value-packed newsletter here.

Cheers to your success!

Arielle Ford

 

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JUDGEMENT

We seem to be good at judging
We seem to be good a pointing fingers
We seem to be good at putting others to death
We seem so righteous in our own thinking
We seem to be so empty of personal opinions
We seem to be today’s robots
We seem so unhappy as a People
We seem to have lost our Way
We seem to keep going with this excuse
We seem to not want to change
We seem to have already gotten our rewards

 

---

By Luc Majno

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Truth About Global Economic Crisis: Book Review

Joel S. Hirschhorn 

You want to read The Global Economic Crisis The Great Depression of the XXI Century, edited by Michel Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavin Marshall, if you meet these criteria: you welcome information and analysis about critically important issues that come from great thinkers outside the mainstream media and publishing world; you can handle brain pain from detailed and brutally honest revelations; you are willing and able to challenge your own biases and preconceptions to let in new explanations of how the world really functions.

If millions of Americans read this book, we would probably see a far stronger uprising against the political establishment that has refused to severely punish the countless guilty people in the financial, banking and mortgage sectors that brought down the US and global economic system.

This book ties together a large number of factors in twenty chapters that reveal just how corrupt the world has become because of the power of plutocratic, wealthy and corporate interests.  From Wall Street corporate boardrooms to the Federal Reserve and other central banks to the US military and NATO, a multitude of threads get woven into a disturbing tapestry of crimes against society that still have not been prosecuted.

This book is truly an instrument of anti-brainwashing.  If you are willing to spend serious time reading it, then you surely will become much angrier about the dismal state of the economy that is causing so much pain and suffering to ordinary people worldwide.  If you personally have escaped the worst ravages of the economic meltdown, then you will have much more compassion for those severely affected.

In all honesty, if the current global economic crisis has made you angry, pessimistic, fearful, paranoid, despairing and worse, then this book will most likely exacerbate all such feelings.  By revealing still more connections, implications and causes, this book will motivate you to do anything you can to fight the corporate, plutocratic forces devastating the lives of ordinary people.  If you already have little confidence in government, it will only make things worse.  Does all this mean you should avoid reading it?  Absolutely not.

Here are a few statements from the book that resonated with me and that you can use to decide whether the general philosophic orientation of it is compatible with your views:

“Wall Street’s Ponzi scheme was used to manipulate the market and transfer billions of dollars into the pockets of banksters.”

“Government rescue packages around the world are corporatist in their very nature, as they save the capitalists at the expense of the people.”

“The global political economy is being transformed into a global government structure at the crossroads of a major financial crisis.”

Just gin up the courage to read it, get out several color markers to highlight passages and expand your knowledge to overcome all the propaganda constantly being hurled at you.  We need more citizen unrest to energize more public protests to overthrow the powers that have corrupted and perverted our government.  A key voice in the mainstream media that is in sync with the painful messages in this book is Dylan Ratigan who has a terrific daily show on MSNBC.  He too should read this timely book.

[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through delusionaldemocracy.com.]

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What is the difference between a blogger and a journalist?

Is the guy labeled a journalist automatically more credible because of that label? How can a blogger attain that kind of credibility?

WebProNews recently sat down with freelance journalist Greg Ferenstein, probably best known for his articles at Mashable. He talked about how to stick out in the crowd of bloggers and the fine line between blogging and journalism.

Coming Up With Original Content

As you know, if you want readers, you have to have good content, and if you don’t produce really original content, you may have a hard time finding that audience.

“At least in my case, I found a lot more people read my stuff when I did original investigations, so I was conducting interviews, looking at academic research, talking to people late at night about their new projects, so I could be the source of information all the other bloggers were talking about,” Ferenstein told us.

“As far as finding original sources, the thing that always helped me the most was first just being a networker – going to conferences, meeting people, developing personal relations… because ultimately, bloggers aren’t legacy media,” he added. “They don’t have a big name behind them. So all of the people that they ask for things (interviews [and] stuff like that), they have to have a personal relationship with because they can’t guarantee the person who’s doing the interview that they’re going to get a lot of foot traffic.”

Accounting for Short Attention Spans

Content is one thing, but it also helps to consider the audience themselves. Sometimes your good content may be lost to poor formatting or just lack of readability.

“I always assume my reader has acute attention deficit disorder,” Ferenstein tells us. “Everyone on the Internet is skimmers. They’re looking at Twitter feeds, Facebook, RSS, and a million different sites plus the 25 odd tabs they have going that they haven’t looked [at] in the past week. So I format my blogs with italics, bolds, pictures…to force the reader into what I think is most important for them. Because your reader is going to skim. They can skim in the way you want or they can skim the way they want. I choose to have the power over that.”

Overcoming Skepticism

The problem with blogging is that there is a lot of skepticism tied to it. There is a good reason for this. Anyone can blog, so you have to earn the trust of the audience.

“I always like to imagine that my reader doesn’t like me and doesn’t want to believe anything I’m saying,” say Ferenstein. “So I have to uncover an enormous amount of evidence to convince anyone I possibly could…you can’t really attain that, but so long as you’re shooting for that, you’re going to develop and use a lot more evidence, and that will build your credibility.”

Of course personal bias is always creeping through the blogging shadows. “Psychologically, people have a proclivity for seeing what they want to see, so you’ll see a bunch of facts, but depending on what your ideology is, you’re going to interpret that unknowingly and with the best of intentions, in the way you want to see it,” Ferenstein explained. “And because bloggers don’t have editors, they are both judge and jury, so they’re more likely to pick up on the extreme interpretations of fact, and fulfill this heated kind of rhetoric that we see coming out of the online world.”

“As bloggers, without an editor, you have to be extremely diligent in not doing that or you’re just going to be a part of the problem,” he added.

Blogger? Journalist? What’s the difference?

That’s not to say there isn’t such a problem in traditional media, despite the presence of editors.

“I think bloggers are the future,” said Ferenstein. “I don’t really like the distinction between a blogger and a journalist. There are some horrible journalists, and there are some great bloggers, and they could probably swap positions and we wouldn’t know much of a difference. Good writing is good writing, and as more people come into the space, there’s going to be more opportunity for people outside the people with journalism degrees or with the typical pedigree or connections that used to get them into the legacy media organizations.”

Because the landscape is so much broader, there’s going to be a lot more noise, he notes, so “You’re going to have to do something really unique to distinguish yourself.”

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Family Estrangement

How nice it would be if everyone could have a storybook family. Unfortunately, few do. Many families suffer from the pain of having one member who wants nothing to do with the rest. Often it is one of the grown children. The parents and siblings feel the loss, almost like a death. There are feelings of guilt. Family gatherings are always a sad reminder of the fractured relationships. Sometimes efforts to heal the rift only make things worse.  What is the best way to handle this situation? First off, we must release the notion of obligation. If we think that any adult is responsible for the happiness of the rest of the family we are locked in a codependent stance. If the family were as perfect as we might like the world to think it is, then it would not have an estranged member. An individual may distance from the family for a variety of reasons. It may be that past hurts are too painful, and being around the family brings them all to the surface. In order to keep stability and balance in his or her life, the individual may need to back away for a time. It might be that the family is currently dysfunctional. If the individual feels judged or criticized by the rest of the family, or if one or more members has an addiction or anger problem, it may simply be more than the individual is willing to cope with. Sometimes the difficulty is with the partner of the estranged person. If the partner has not been accepted by the family, it becomes awkward for everyone. It becomes easier just to stay away. The hardest possibility to deal with may be that the individual does not like the family. As people get out into the world, they meet others, and their values, preferences and even their personalities may change. We cannot command others to like us, or to want to spend time with us. If we become angry and demand explanations, they will be driven farther away. If we keep pursuing them, after they have made their wishes for space quite clear, they will take even more space. In situations like this, sometimes the best thing we can do is to respect the needs of the other. If we let them know they are important to us and will always be welcome in our lives, chances are time may heal things. Gwen Randall-Young is an author and award-winning Psychotherapist. For permission to reprint this article, or to obtain books or cds, visit www.gwen.ca

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