The Fourth Chakra: Giving thanks by giving: Down doesn't mean out

The Fourth Chakra: Giving thanks by giving: Down doesn't mean out: "This week, I posted a blog of my personal participation in a small project to provide swags shelters for homeless folks this Christmas, a..."

Giving thanks by giving: Down doesn't mean out

This week, I posted a blog of my personal participation in a small project to provide swags shelters for homeless folks this Christmas, and tweeted it to my 4800 followers on Twitter, thinking that Metcalfe's law would kick in and I would easily attract support.

Turns out it DOESN't work. Twitter is about weak ties, not personal relationships.  It got retweeted a gazillion times, but the only contributions I received bar one from a French guy in Paris, came from a small number of people I have a heart-to-heart personal relationship, ie strong ties with. 

These were folks who knew me, my values, my passion and wanted to acknowledge that, more so than the cause. Funny enough, 2 ex boyfriends were the biggest single donors. 

Lesson here: People are drawn to each other because of similar values, but, it doesn't always work out. When that happens, breaking up without damaging each other is so important.  If you can still treat one another with an "open heart", dignity and respect, you will feel all the better for it, and whilst it may hurt at the time, the healing eventually happens and then a beautiful and life-long friendship can be the reward of all those shared times. 

My blogpost has now been viewed 3000 times and I have personally raised about $3500 in 3 days with my efforts, which will buy about 50 swags for people without a home or bed, this Christmas. 

If this Thanksgiving or Christmas, you want to open your heart and give thanks by giving, click here now, and select team member: Annalie Killian http://www.everydayhero.com.au/itamp_mad .

And, if you don't, I am STILL grateful that you took the time to read this - magic is catalysed in unexpected ways and it will come back. 

We can't save everyone, but we do what we can. 


And don't forget, we still have 3 places for Thanksgiving dinner on 25/11 for singles in Sydney! 

Too many Christmases all at once: the design flaw in online dating sites

So, today I am going to talk about why I think that online dating sites are fundamentally flawed.

The answer lies in the fact that it provides unlimited choice. I believe this is a greater problem than the fact that it only searches "attributes" according to the views of Prof Dan Ariely, one of my favorite behavioral economists. See his talk on http://bigthink.com/ideas/20749 about why online dating is an unsatisfactory experience.

I have harboured my own views for at least 7 years now. Whilst I'm not a professionally trained social scientist but more of an intuitive pattern-recognizer and trend-spotter, I feel vindicated when I suddenly start breakthrough studies that allow social scientists to analyse large quantities of data, such as online dating populations.

But, I am not going to bore you with data. Instead, I will share a beautiful metaphor that I read in a Cosmo at the hairdresser's this morning whilst trapped for 3 hours without intellectual stimulation (ipad battery was flat!).

In my entire life I bought maybe 3 Cosmos - probably in my late teens early twenties. It's not my kind of hard-core fact-based magazine, but I relish catching up with how the mainstream lives when I visit the hair or nail parlour.  These brief Cosmo-moments provide much-needed perspective and a balance to my usual reading list of MIT Technology Review or WIRED. I aslo explains why I am pretty unsuccessful at dating. (I am self-aware of my eccentricities and geeky interests that scare the bejesus out of many blokes who are totally out of their depth the moment the conversation turns to augmented reality orgene modification)

Back to Cosmo. I love it's honesty. Like it's male counterpart, "Men's Health", it's unabashedly obsessed with sex, dating and relationships. Every article, fashion shoot or column eventually circles back to the central theme: how to get laid.

So, in the Nov '10 edition that landed in my lap at the salon this morning, there's this about why guys fail to commit, by Tonight Show host, Michael Jann.

Michael invokes a story about men being visual,and how at age 10, he went to his Dad's office Christmas Party with the largest pile of shiny, wrapped, delicious-looking presents he had ever seen. All shapes and sizes. A thousand mysteries. All that held the promise of wish fulfillment, the potential of a mind- blowing surprise that far exceeded your own expectations. And the terrible realization that out of that enormous pile, you had to choose. Just one.

Michael recounts being seized with terror. What to pick? How to choose? The tiny, understated one that hints luxury and expensiveness or the brightly wrapped one? The one with the seductively curved silver bow or the one with the cute reindeer print reminding him of his stuffed toy Bambi?

"Why can't I open them all first, and THEN decide?" is all that's going through Michael's mind at that moment. But Michael could just as well have been Melanie, or Margaret, or me.

And there ladies and gentlemen, is the crux of the problem with online dating sites. It offers infinite choice. It makes locking in a choice a compromise, and then it provides an escape valve!

With so much choice, and a continuous stream of new additions, i.e.fresh profiles of new "single and seeking" candidates being piled under the proverbial Christmas tree every hour of every day, there is NO SCARCITY!

Why commit and overinvest time in one present to love and treasure when there's the whole of Santa's workshop to choose from, and the elves keep adding more options every day?

Evolutionary psychologist, Santoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics, says that the greater the population density, the harder it is to find a life partner, because of this lack of scarcity vs time. In remote and rural communities, people make do with what is available and seek to make the best of what is available and in range. Somehow, they find lifelong satisfactory relationships!

Now, place yourself in an environment with infinite choice, and abundance drives inability to choose and commit.

Add into this mix that in Australia, there is a demographic skew with a ratio of hetero women outnumbering hetero men in certain age brackets, and a third complication which I will label: The "Fallout" effect (with credit to Michael Jann for inspiration), and you have a disaster when it comes to mid- life dating experiences. The fallout effect has to do with how badly men deal with relationship break-up, but, more on the "Fallout" effect in my next post.

For now, I am interested in hearing from you if this analogy of multiple Christmas pressies all at once resonates personally with your own online behavior ( as in click, delete, next!) or your own experiences ( click, deleted, confused/ disillusioned).

What do you make of my theory?

Alone for Thanksgiving? Make new friends and give thanks together

I am not American, but the idea of reflecting collectively as a community on the blessings we enjoy in our lives is something that has always appealed to me, and there should be more of it.

So imagine my delight when last Saturday night Frank Nicholas, (CEO aka Chef, Expediter and Operator) at the recently opened Blue Plate Bar and Grill in Neutral Bay told me that they are offering a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner on 25 November, right down the road from where I live in Sydney.

Well, I jumped on Twitter and within minutes folks started putting up their hands to join me in putting a few tables together for anyone who wants to join in.

The only proviso folks...if you sign up, please honour the commitment as its not cool to drop out and leave others to make up the shortfall.

The Menu ( Paired with American wines)
Entree: Acorn squash soup, followed by a honeydew melon sorbet palate cleaser
Main course: Corn-bread stuffed roast turkey with cranberry sauce, candied yams, sweet potatoe pie, succotash, green beans
Dessert: Pecan pie or pumpkin pie

Here's the deal:
Venue: The Blue Plate Bar & Grill, 24 Young St ( entrance on Grosvenor St), Neutral Bay, 2089,Sydney.
Time: 8pm sitting
Price: $76 per adult for 3 course set menu paired with American wines ( a child's price is available on request)
RSVP: Leave a comment below and I will e-mail you directly, or tweet me @the4thchakra on Twitter

As a frequent traveller, I have often found myself alone in far away places during traditional cultural celebrations like Christmas or Easter, and find those times really challenging to be alone. So if this applies to you, why not join a group of warm-hearted welcoming strangers in a similar boat? It may just be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Why do people use online dating sites even though they suck?

Hands up- who's tried online dating? Right, we all have, even if we won't admit it publicly.

Hands up: who loves it? Thought so. Ok, let's rephrase the question. Who hates it? Yeah, now I see an ocean of hands.

We all know they're designed to cash in on hope, deliver little value relative to time and emotional capital invested and can leave your self-esteem in tatters. So why do we continue keep doing it? Perhaps some of these reasons?

1. You think dating people you work with or in your professional network is not a good idea - for obvious reasons, so you look elsewhere.
2. Your circle of friends is largely attached/ married and at a loss what to "do" with you, or the friendships fractured after you split from your partner, so you need to build a new social circle. You reason an obvious place is to lstart with others in the same boat.
3. You are over the beer goggles, "drink-and-shag" stage of your life, or you never got into it in the first instance, so a drinking hole as a likely meeting place for someone you share common values with is not an option. Leaving what? Grocery shopping on a Saturday night?
4. You've left a sign out your front door telling Cupid to stop here, but Cupid's obviously pre-occupied "somewhere else". You don't know the directions to "somewhere else" and you think RSVP, Match, or Friendfinder might discreetly aid serendipity.
5. Admittedly, it's fun fantasizing that the Internet might miraculously deliver a sexy
financially-independent,intelligent, uncomplicated, well-adjusted altruistic partner, like in
the movies, right? That's ok, it's a sign that you still have romance left in you!
6. You have signed up and not only invested a subscription fee, but a lot of time trying
to work out what the hell to write, what people want, what works to attract the right sort, and despite all your horrible interactions, you hang in there because you're an optimist.

I have been single since 30 September 2002 when I had to leave my marriage or risk being a
miserable, depressed and angry person for the rest of my life. I chose action above inaction,
and actually, I have discovered this truth about myself ; I definitely have a bias towards
action, I am never the victim of circumstances.

Which is another reason why I am going to experiment with this blog for meeting interesting people who feel the same, instead of playing charades and paying ridiculous fees to a hopelessly flawed system.

Maybe nothing will come of it, and I am totally happy with that, but I already feel better for
having taken the first step to say "Enough of the exploitation of a basic human need for companionship and the toxic erosion of self-esteem!" My self-esteem is pretty resilient and robust without being arrogant or insular, and I want it to remain intact, healthy and happy.

I have enjoyed a couple of rewarding romantic relationships over the past 8 years, and whilst it's challenging to balance it all alongside the emotional needs of one's children which I chose to put ahead of my own, eventually they grow up and there is more space for attracting love back into one's life. It's not that I feel half-empty without it, it's just that it allows me to continue growing as a person because nothing helps me work on being a better person as much as meaningful relationships.

So I will open my fourth chakra, the heart, in this place instead, and invite you, whoever you are, to share yours too. ( By the way, this is about friendship and not finding a husband- so anyone who wants to participate in the conversation is welcome!)

But let's agree to dwell on the positive and not the negative, and no matter where the conversations go, to honor everyone with acceptance, love and respect.