Friends and entrepreneurship

Yesterday I've returned from a 23 day long trip. I've had a quick brunch in Budapest, 2 wonderful days in Brussels, another 2 amazing days in Riga, attended an week long event in Tallinn (and Estonian countryside), had quick brunch at Milan's airport, attended very inspiring weekend event in Vienna and then stayed for a week with dear friends.

Although the original motivation for my trip was the event in Estonia, the trip soon became multipurpose with the event fading into background. The two most important aspects of this friends I've named in the title and I'll try to elaborate more.

Friends - In one of my older posts I've mentioned how friends are important and I'm reminded about this every now and again. Coincidence (if you believe in such a thing) gave me the chance to visit many old and dear friends on this trip. With many of them I had a chance to spend more time then just a drink in a bar which in turn resulted with very interesting discussion and conversations. I'll probably write some more posts on about these soon. Bottom line is, friendships are something to treasure!

Entrepreneurship - For some months now I've been working on some business ideas and recently I've started to discuss this with my colleges. This turned out to be an interesting topic for many and step by step we started to generate more ideas and build a network around everything. I took the opportunity of being in many different places during this trip and organized casual meetings to discuss the entrepreneurship topics with interested people. Each meeting was different, but all of them had great ideas and insured me even more that I'm on the right way.

To conclude. This trip was very useful both in spiritual (thanks to my friends) and professional sens.

Changes

There have been some minor and some mayor changes in my life recently. Some were expected, some were needed and for some I still wonder where they came from. But one thing keeps me occupied regarding all of them... could a person live without them?

I myself have always tried to embrace the change as necessity that will lead to something better, no matter how much I disliked it at the moment. As I am writing this, "Always look on the bright side of life" started playing on the radio. Coincidence or a sign?

Conversations with God

About 10 days ago I renewed my library subscription for the first time after 11 years, not counting school and university libraries. One of the reasons I did it now is because I decided to read a book by Neale Donald Walsch called Conversations With God - Book 1. It is a book that a very dear person to me draw my attention to some years back. Then I was in a different state of mind and far less experience, and discarded the book as something I could be interested in just by it's title. People say don't judge book by it's covers, but I didn't even see the covers, title was enough for me. Though neither title, nor content of the book hasn't changed and what I thought that book is about still is true today, I somehow had the need to read it. And boy was I surprised. After just a few pages I was hooked an interested in what He has to say. Today I've finished reading the book and I wonder if my life would be different if I read it then. No I don't regret, just wonder. And though my point of view towards religion hasn't changed, I have to agree with most (if not all) of the things written there. No matter what we chose to believe in and how we chose to call it, the truth (at least the one I believe in) is that we have the power to become more then we are and that we need to listen more to our instinct and connect more with our spirit. Highly recommended reading for anybody who's open minded enough :-)

So how does Kiva.org really work

Two posts back I reported on a site, Kiva.org that enables you to lend money to a third world small business and follow your investment.

Today I found this interesting video that shows by example how the thing really works:


A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan from Kieran Ball on Vimeo.

Yet another war

Can anyone remember a period in his or her own history that there was no war being fought?

My childhood memories are filled with war pictures. I remember the first fighter planes flying over our city, the first sirens (and for how long after the war did I felt chills down my spine whenever I heard any similar sound), I remember the hiding in the shelters and I know all the stories of why the war actually took place. But then I was to young to have an informed opinion and I was too childish to see the depth and impact of it. Yes some places were destroyed, yes some people were killed, but that's normal isn't it? And as soon as it was safe enough all the kids from the building were out side, taking wooden branches or anything that could serve as a pretend gun in endless war games. After all it was the cool thing to do those days - fight wars. And who can blame children since they are anyway just copying what they see grownups doing.

Now it's a bit different. Though I'm not anymore part of the war zone (our war luckily ended more then a decade ago), my feelings and thoughts about war (no matter who's fighting) are more present and intense then before. I understand that, by the base of human nature, we need to have conflicts. And I understand that there is always stronger and weaker side. And that the cause for the conflicts may be different. And that there doesn't necessarily need to be the good and the bad side, or the right and the wrong. But what I still can't understand is all the killing and destruction.

Haven't we evolved enough to understand that lives are precious. There are other ways people can still fight and demonstrate the power. But do they have to kill each other?

I know all this might sound naive, but don't blame me for wishing things to be a bit different.

Everybody can make a difference

Recently, thanks to some friends, I've found out about an interesting project Kiva.org. It's an site, or a mission as they call them self, which allows you to lend a small amount of money (starting from 25 $) to small entrepreneurs in the third world countries. On the site you can see what they are doing, support their cause, follow the progress and watch as they repay you.

I like this idea very much and I think I've found, at least for now, the best way I can help others that have less then me. Of course, I'll keep my eyes open for the new ways all the time. Actually there is one more idea I have in my head since my trip to Liverpool, but I'll write more about this some other time.

That's all for now, if you feel insipred to give:

When internet and real world meet

Or so they say is happening right now with YouTube LIVE. I must say that I like the idea. Why should only big screen and TV people have their special events and ceremonies? Still this is a bit different. Technically very well done and planed, but it's obvious that they are not all professionals. It's also fun to see how names as such are not the main identity anymore - nicknames are taking over. I guess this is kind of revolution (OK, YouTube it self is also) and I'm sure it will bring some interesting results. As for me, I'll have to watch YouTube a bit more, since I don't know half of the names, I mean nicknames :-)