Learn Something Together With Your Family

In India, school summer holidays have started for some while others it is just a few days away...

Many families would have already planned their summer holidays while others are still in the process of finalizing a place or things to do this summer vacation. Something new or different that you could consider this year during this vacation is to learn something new together with your family.

Rather than sending your kids off to summer camp why don’t you attend some interesting course along with your kids? I am not talking just the kids and the homemakers… but I am talking about the kids, the homemakers and the breadwinners (if you have assumed that by breadwinners I mean just the dads then you could be wrong, today it is both mom and the dad). All the cities offer wide range of exciting short-term courses and classes. You could even find weekend classes…Pottery classes…Baking classes…chocolate making classes…the options are countless, pick something that appeals to everyone in the family. If you are too tight with your budget, you could divert the funds that you have set aside for your vacation trip this year.

 I am not against family tours…they too have their place and value in family enrichment…but learning something new together as a family will bring in unlimited hours of fun and excitement…it will create a common platform for families that complain we do not have any common area of interests where we could converge…in some families common interests ‘naturally happen’ and in some we can sow the seeds of such common interests and we need to sow such seeds…learning a new skill together as a family could be one such seed...here you will not only learn a new skill... but you will also be able to spend some quality time together with your family now and in future practising the new skill…baking your cakes or moulding your pots…it is not the pots and cakes that matter but the platform it creates for the entire family together is what matters…of course if you get too good at your cakes and pots…you could sell them and make some money for your next summer vacation…if it does not sound interesting to you…I would still say force yourself into it if required and you will certainly not regret… Let us make and spread happy families...it won't hurt to share this. :)

                                                             - Antony Innocent                                                                                                                      

The Love Guage

                  

Oh My! I have been avoiding this all along... Why did you post this? The Love Gauge -by Antony Innocent Family Enrichment 101 - http://familyenrichment101.blogspot.com Assess yourself… and You deserve an honest response to yourself...
My Love For My Spouse…	What Do I Make Out Of It…
Has grown in the past years since our marriage. I still have that burning love for my spouse.	Great Going! Just make sure that you are honest with your response.
Has been the same since day one until this moment.	Qualify your answer. It could mean… -          you don’t love your spouse and it has been the same. -          you have been madly in love with your spouse and it has been the same. -          you don’t really love your spouse but at the same time you don’t really hate him either, you can co-exist without any problem under the same roof and it has been the same all these years. So what do you really mean here?
Has reduced…we don’t fight but that burning love is not there anymore…	Probably, you need to kindle the fire a bit to get the flames up…a bit of open talk with your spouse will help and is required here. Both of you really deserve the best, then why should you settle for a mediocre life when the quality of your life could be much better.
I don’t really know whether I love my spouse or not, we just live under the same roof.	This is not a good sign but you are not alone here thousands of couples merely exist under the same roof without really living their marriage. Check whether your spouse too feels the same. Don’t postpone this discussion… the sooner you talk the better it is for your family.
I don’t love my spouse…I hate to admit it.	Oops! You both need to talk… you need to talk immediately. It is possible to rediscover your love for each other…talking will help you trace back where and why you have lost your love for your spouse so that you could find it back. Often, it is not a ‘specific’ or ‘single’ moment… but it is usually a gradual phase, which you probably kept ignoring.
There are no problems in our marriage life and this is what most of us say…but here we are not looking for problems in marriage life but we are trying to ask ourselves whether we are happy with the quality of our marriage life and don’t we deserve better??? There is nothing extraordinary about this quick assessment but it does help us come to our senses…it is just a wakeup call and we probably have a long day ahead of us... Signing off for now… -Antony Innocent. Family Enrichment 101 - http://familyenrichment101.blogspot.com

Seconds count but do you make them count?

365 Days in a year

24 Hours in a day

60 Minutes in an hour

60 Seconds in a minute

8760 hours in a year

5,25,600 minutes in a year and

3,153,6000 seconds in a year!

Life may churn out millions of seconds into your life but one thing it never releases into your life is “second chances.” We wish that life came fitted with that fancy “Undo” button… unfortunately it does not…we need to sweat our way to undo our follies of the past, some take hours, some take days, others take months and yet others do take years. Things are never undone in life with just few clicks or few quick swipes like our smart gadgets.

The trick is to make every second count!

Seconds… as long as you make them count have the power to make a difference in your own life and in others…regardless of whether you make an effort to make them count or not to count, they are going to count…

Heraclitus says “You cannot step into the same river twice” and so true it is, a second that has passed by has passed by, I will never be able to relive a second that has passed by…I would like to cherish every second of my life and I have started making significant changes to my life to achieve this end and how about you?

But a lot could be done in a second to make or break others and in the process do the same to ourselves.

It just takes a second to compliment someone…just try right away looking at the mirror or your smart phone cam saying, “you look beautiful”, “that was a good job”, “liked your coffee”, “a nice shirt”.

It just takes a second to utter a consoling word…

It just takes a second to hug your child that comes running to you with its arms flung open as enter your home after a tiring day or for some after a tiring week…

Making every second count, for some it means attracting more money each second, for others becoming more popular. There could be nothing wrong with these goals as long as no damage is caused to the others and as long as you know that your freedom ends where your nose ends, as long as you never barge into others’ space to usurp your “more money” and your “more popularity”.

We have heard several times, time is a great healer, time is a great master and one more thing that we need to know about time is that it is absolutely “unbiased”… 60 seconds is 60 seconds for everyone!

Every second counts. You would never be able to step back to relive a second that has just passed by!

Lately, the increasing awareness for me is that I make my seconds count when I spend more quality time with my family – my wife and my kid and when I am actually cherishing the moment that I am living and not being in 9 am and longing for 5 pm.

We find it hilarious Do you?

This video was taken in 2009 and I happened to bump onto it after five years, it used to be one of our favourite videos of Aadith. He knew how to amuse himself ... :)



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India Needs Innovation To Fight Illiteracy - Varanasi Boat School A Laudable Start

The Challenge Of Illiteracy And Its Impact On India

As Indians, we would like to project or see our country as a developed nation but in the World Map painfully though we are categorized under “developing nation.” For how long will be considered a developing nation? Probably until we weed out all the underlying causes and one among them being high rate of illiteracy. Statistics have that India has the largest illiterate adult population in the world. Around 37% of the India’s adult population does not know to read or write. If you want to compare how other nations are doing, you could try this link https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/print_2103.html.

With such a high rate of illiteracy, we could barely lug ourselves to the finishing line in the rat race. The immediate temptation here is to switch to “blaming” mode and start blaming the government, politicians, the political systems in the country and the list is unending. We have tried this all along and it does not seem to take us anywhere. Probably, we should try to amuse ourselves with a different question and ask, “How do we deal with it?” which could lead us somewhere. This is not to mean that there aren’t any welfare programs from the government or that no one is working on this issue. We know for ourselves that hundreds of national as well as international NGOs are already at it traveling the paths that are less travelled even just as you are reading this, they are making progress but not effective enough to make a noticeable difference. We need more hands, fresh thinking and new strategies. Innovation could be the ‘lifeline’ that we are looking for, which could breathe a new lease of life into the nation when it comes to fighting illiteracy and thereby poverty.

Varanasi’s Unique Boat School That Keeps The Children Off The Streets Of Varanasi

Varanasi’s boat school is an intriguingly innovative idea and the best part is that it did not stop being an interesting idea. Already hundreds of children have benefited through this journey of doing right! The Varanasi boat school was started by the NGO Guria and the key person to lead this project was Ajeet Singh.

The Magical Transformation That Will Give The Children An Enhanced Learning Environment

While the school is still operational, it is certainly in need of a magical transformation to provide ideal learning environment to the children. The idea of Varanasi boat school is not to institutionalize this project but to increase the awareness among the locals on the importance of education. What this project has done is, if the kids won’t come to the school then bring the school to the kids! This school has prepared many children to get admission into regular schools.

Your Contribution And Support Can Give The Children Of The Ganga The Learning Environment That They Deserve

Varanasi boat school is certainly in need of support and with better funding, they could extend scholarship to the children, renovate the boat school and better equip it to make it an interesting place for the children. You too can do your part to Do Right! Visit http://www.doright.in for the whole story and to lend a helping hand.