Ahhh…the humour of the universe…It escapes me sometimes.

 Yesterday, the great energy force of the world decided to play a trick on me.

Everything I typed was backwards. As in right to left. My cursor only went to the left hand side of anything I did, and spit out the letters going to the left, none of the buttons worked so I couldn’t even turn it off.

Naturally, I was in the middle of something ‘important’ and the disruption was unwelcome. I had no idea what had happened and because absolutely nothing would do what I wanted, I couldn’t fix it or even try. I wanted to run an anti-virus but that was a button on the right side of the screen and the mouse would only go to the left side. I couldn’t restart it because again the mouse wouldn’t go there. I was baffled.

And thoroughly unimpressed.

So, let me ask you this? What would your reaction be? You’re in the middle of a project, you have time constraints, you’ve arranged childcare so you have the time to work on this and your computer starts…

?sdrawkcab gnipyt

!ylsuoireS

Over the next few weeks I will begin shifting this blog to align with my passions and my life’s work. Which happens to be the field of personal development and the science of happiness. And one of my favourite topics is optimism.

Optimism, contrary to what many believe, is not about being Susie Sunshine. It’s actually a lens through which you habitually view the world. Optimistic people choose to look at the world though positive eyes, with the feeling of control over their worlds, view negative happenings as temporary and so on. More on that at another time.

So here I am, wanting to start working on my ‘happy’ blog with a backwards computer, a finite amount of time to get it done, no way to fix it…and I burst out laughing.

What else was there to do? It was pretty funny even if I wasn’t exactly amused by the practical joke. I am an optimistic person. No, I wasn’t impressed that my computer was in the twilight zone, but my view was that I can’t do anything about it right now and it IS a bit hilarious to watch everything come out of your keyboard right to left.

I laughed. This was a choice. I decided to not smash my computer to bits, thought the thought did occur. I decided to type to friend to see her reaction because I hoped this was short lived and I’d never have the chance again.  I decided that if this happened it could un-happen, somehow.

What would you have done? What do you do when annoying things, devastating things, fantastic things happen to you? Are you habitually pessimistic or an optimist?

And if you are a pessimist, can you become an optimist?

You can, and I will tell you how. Next time…

There is a significant online buzz about social media, tribes, syndication, and all that jazz. I’m learning about it all. There is significant power in leveraging the power of social media for whatever business you promote, whatever passion you wax poetic about, what story you wish the world to read. And if you have any doubt about what social media can do for you, consider this.

Haiti.

If case you live under a rock, there was an earthquake there a week or so ago. A really bad one. Really bad.

And while the news has done an excellent job of keeping us informed on the day to day, moment to moment experience of the Haitian people, it is the social media forum that has had a serious impact on the situation making it ridiculously easy to contribute to relief efforts.

Facebook statuses abound with numbers to call, and websites to visit to donate to the  cause.

Tweets and retweets galore tell us how to text in donations using our cell phones.

And families outside of Haiti have heard about their families members through all these means.

Canada and the United States each held benefit concerts Friday night and they raised millions online, on the phone, and through texts. Facebook and twitter were right there making sure the world knew about it.

There is serious power in social media. For good.

Are you maximizing your positive impact?

Alrighty. Last week I said I’d take action to live actively, presently, and “on”. Why do I make these proclamations???

Sigh…I did make that proclamation, that promise. Not only to myself, but… gulp… to all of you. Eeek! So here we go.

I’m part of this really cool networking group whose intention is to teach the group about social media. This group is supporting our efforts in developing blogs, facebook connections, using twitter, making videos, and a whole bunch of other stuff. And I gotta tell you, I’m super duper overwhelmed!! But I’m in it and I’m doing it.

One of the things I’m learning about is blogging (as you can see…), and I didn’t really know how to blog and was sort of stumbling around in the dark. I also didn’t really understand the point. But there I was.

Last week I learned that there is a difference between wordpress.COM and wordpress.ORG and it’s that distinction that makes ALL the difference. Huh???

Ok, fine. I’m all about action, right? Even if it is in the dark…

So off I went to get a new blog.  Which initially looked really really hard.

But the network tribe can to my rescue and you are now experiencing my brand new wordpress.org blog. It’s got a loooong way to go but I’m pleased that I figured it out. And let me assure all of you that if I can do this, you can surely do this!!

Whew.