<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.85621076635452751638958054695%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=39ab9a-3d9a-402f-8713-32b8192b2781" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> The human race is said to have been around for six million years. However, the modern form of a human, the homo sapien, has been around for two hundred thousand years, but civilization as we know it has been present for only six thousand years, with industrialization starting as late as the 1800s. The earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old, plus or minus feisty years. On this timeline, humans have been around for essentially a blink in relation to the earth. At the time of writing, the average human lifespan is 72.8 years, making the entire human existence an eternity compared to the life of a single healthy human. <h3>History</h3> Now let me paint a picture for you; imagine the very first Homo Sapiens about two hundred thousand years ago. What concerned the early human was food, shelter, and safety. How would one go about fulfilling these tasks? What tools would they use? Chances are a foot pursuit to track down the animal they wish to devour, kill it with a spear, and skin it with a sharp stone. Then he would return home, maybe a rudimentary shelter that needs tending to at the end of every week to stop it from toppling over or succumbing to forces of nature. Hopefully, this gives you perspective about how easy your day-to-day tasks are. So how has time made you superhuman? You are a product of years and years of evolution and experience, depending on your geographical location. The world is ever-changing; the only certainty is change. This change forces us to adapt, to become better, to cope, survive and ultimately thrive. <h3>Present</h3> The standard for performance and production has increased. The caveman&#39;s home is considered below the poverty line today. In the 1904 summer Olympics, the gold medal winner of the 440-yard swim had a time of 6:16.2; today, the current qualifying time to participate in the 400m (which is 2 meters less than the 440 yds)event is at 3:46.78. We as humans have become considerably better in a short time. Evidently, time through evolution has made us superhumans compared to our early ancestors. The crocodile is two hundred million years old, 33 aged times more than the human species that first appeared six million years ago. Yet humans are the ultimate predator and have evolved the most in the least amount of time on the evolutionary scale. So what have you done to help contribute to our continued evolution? Tricky question and not any easier to fulfill but very possible to achieve. Although we have a short time on this earth, we know our predecessors behind us and are accessible at literally a keystroke. What&#39;s your excuse?

How Time Has Made You a Superhuman

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.161193954580007181633615317912%2Fimage22.webp?alt=media&token=894fae82-c250-47f9-8085-84bfb40887d2" alt="File preview" width="700" /> The other day I was on Instagram during a break, looking through my followers&rsquo; stories. I realized I was flipping past them so quickly, without even reading or watching what was in them. Because I knew &ndash; I thought. I knew it was the same bunch of posts everywhere, on everyone&rsquo;s stories and tweets and the news. I stopped to watch a short video of people clinging to an aircraft with all their might as it took off from Kabul with gunshots and bombings in the background. Another one showed a mother with her baby, running for shelter from long rifles while being kicked out of her own house. Yet another one had terrified animals with ash covering most of their fur, tired after escaping a wildfire. I knew such disturbing&nbsp;news was on a loop, and that&rsquo;s why I skipped them mindlessly &ndash; I thought so. But did I really know why these scenarios deserved attention and what it is to live through them? Sharing hashtags on social media platforms with captions like &ldquo;Where is humanity?&rdquo; &ldquo;Pray for *place*&rdquo;, &rdquo;Justice for *name*&rdquo; and sighing or frowning over media posts do show we are sorry about what is happening around us. Sympathy has been checked. But what&rsquo;s to be held accountable for the part where we find such news &ldquo;disturbing&rdquo;? The fact that I have the freedom to sit back and judge the issue, regardless of being majorly unaware of it and distant from it, is a privilege. That I can stay relaxed within my home while choosing what to post on my feed, with good food and family around me, is a privilege. &ldquo;I would like to introduce the concept of &lsquo;peace privilege&rsquo; to refer to people who have lived in peaceful contexts all their lives and cannot truly grasp and empathize with what it means to live in a conflict.&rdquo; - Cristal Palacios&rsquo; tweeted. It was when the conflict in Venezuala got overwhelming and received a wide array of judgment from people who were hasting to make one. Her tweet has been recognized and published in several articles written on peace; because it has spat plain facts. It is our privilege that is helping us tune into music to cancel the noise around us. How often do we make a conscious check on our privileges? Are we aware that our privilege could one day turn into a plight? Sympathizing through a sigh or wondering why the world is so cruel isn&rsquo;t all we can do. &lsquo;The bad is there to balance out the good,&rsquo; &lsquo;It&rsquo;s just meant to be&rsquo; &ndash; you may hear some fortunate person comment. But do they realize that one day they could be the ones getting oppressed? Even after beholding all the bombings upon innocent children, disasters swallowing land and human alike, political instabilities showing their variants of cruelty, and world leaders choosing corruption over conservation, can we justify that our sighs and easy-to-pass remarks equal empathy? Is that all we can do? Or are we deliberately not trying further? Sympathy is easy for many of us. It is easy because it comes from a position of power. You just have to feel &ldquo;bad&rdquo; for those living in conditions inferior to you. But empathy &ndash; that is getting down on your knees and looking someone who has been through all the awful moments, in the eye and realizing that you could be them and that all that separates you is mere luck. When luck leaves your side, what will stop you from being one of them in the future? Things get uglier when we gather the audacity to pass comments about these sensitive issues without even being aware of the nature of conflict behind them. Some of us go in search of clarity. But media, to which many of us reach out for information, displays only a foiled layer of the mayhem. Why? Because it is somebody else&rsquo;s voice that we hear. And it is a much simplified one. We tend to simplify the issues, which brings us to invalidating the severely traumatic experience people are suffering, neglecting reality, and choosing to stay ignorant because we think these bring negativity. Imagine your pain being dismissed because others think what&rsquo;s hurting you is hurting them more when it has not even brushed past them. Again, it is a privilege to refer to such news as &lsquo;negativity.&rsquo; Being regularly exposed to such information can take a toll on your mental peace, agreed. But if it hurts you just to watch it on a screen, sitting miles away from the people struggling to live every day in their lives, imagine how reality would be taking a toll on them!. We are turning away from such news because they somehow make us vulnerable &ndash; to question our comforts in life. We are escaping guilt &ndash; one that makes us scorn for being privileged while there are spots on our very globe crying for help. It seems like our sighs are a mixture of pity and guilt. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.161193954580007181633615317912%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=927a08c8-6f69-4cb3-ac7c-acb6b2de23c6" alt="File preview" width="700" /> We, who consider it daunting even to review distressing interactions on social media, indeed do not have the right to act as a voice for the less fortunate and the oppressed. The devastation and resilience encountered can be brought to life and justified if they are voiced by those who lived through it. Everything about media seems to be transient and prone to misunderstanding. Someone like you or me, who is privileged enough to write or read this article, being able to use technology at its best without any intervention in our day-to-day lives, cannot be their voice. Why? Because we aren&rsquo;t the ones living their lives. The oppressed need a voice. And that needs to be their own. We should grow into people who value empathy and not ones who make up our minds by drawing plain conclusions about an issue simply from effortless understanding. Remember, the reality is always bigger! If we are privileged enough to think about peace, we can indeed create more of it.

What does peace mean for the privileged?

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0321242839574068561628682884185%2FThe%20History%20of%20Art_1.webp?alt=media&token=492fd2a3-6df3-4bc5-850d-ba4b2dcfe727" alt="File preview" width="741" height="493" /> There have been times where words were not sufficient to convey a message; in such a situation, one sought help from art. Art is a constant, a means of communication for humans from the stone age to the twenty-first century. Art, along with humankind, has significantly evolved.&nbsp; We can broadly classify the different phases of evolution in the art world in eight periods: 1.STONE AGE ART(30,000 BCE- 3,000 BCE): The earliest art belongs to the stone age period. As the name suggests, stones were prominent. Petroglyphs, carving on hard protected surfaces like cave walls, were the most common. People refer to the period as prehistoric art as it existed before recorded history.&nbsp; We further divide the stone age into three periods; with development in tools observed over time: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Paleolithic period (30,000 BCE-10,000 BCE)</li> </ul> &nbsp;The term palaeolithic means old stone age. The artworks of this phase mainly consist of small sculptures, carvings on walls and paintings. In this period, people put stone tools to use for something other than survival for the first time. The structures were mainly figurines of animals, small but realistic.&nbsp; The primary materials used were ivory, bone, stone, and clay&mdash;Bhimbetka Petroglyphs, the oldest known prehistoric art discovered in India's quartzite caves.&nbsp; <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0321242839574068561628682884185%2FThe%20History%20of%20Art_2.webp?alt=media&token=28fd4ef4-f17d-4aed-9f73-9bc51049b768" alt="File preview" width="740" height="555" /> Bhimbetka Petroglyphs&nbsp;&nbsp; <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Mesolithic period (10,000 BCE- 3,000 BCE)</li> </ul> &nbsp;This period marked the end of the ice age and a switch to more temperate conditions. Due to this change, the humans had to adapt to a new type of living, leaving behind their caves. They switched to more settled agricultural communities. The art now provided keener details and better narration. Ceramics also started gaining popularity in this period. The most intriguing artwork of this time consists of rock art, similar to the palaeolithic period on vertical cliffs or natural rocks. <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Neolithic period (8,000 BCE- 3,000 BCE)</li> </ul> &nbsp;In this era, weaving and pottery became prominent as civilization settled and people shifted from nomadic to permanent settlements. The most exciting creations from this time were the architecture that featured large stone structures called the megaliths. This period, however, mainly focused on pottery, the majority found in the region of Mesopotamia.&nbsp; 2.BRONZE AGE ART (3,000 BCE-1,100 BCE)&nbsp; This period highlights the production of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin. With advancements in the production of metalwork, there was a rise in skilled workers. The use of stone became less popular. The art world saw some agile development as metals were more flexible, the sculptures and artefacts made were more detailed and charming. People observed the earliest art in the Mesopotamia region, Sumerian art. Writing first began in Mesopotamia as the nation greatly prospered, and people started focusing on art, literature, culture and religion. Egyptian art also rose in the form of monumental architecture. Lost wax casting was one of the most common ways used for making sculptures out of bronze. The oldest cast bronze sculpture is the 'DANCING GIRL' in Mohenjo Daro. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0321242839574068561628682884185%2FThe%20History%20of%20Art_3.webp?alt=media&token=73ec9296-48f2-4e19-9ecc-28561fbcbf7a" alt="File preview" width="400" height="776" /> The Dancing girl in Mohenjo Daro 3.IRON AGE ART (1,100 BCE-200 BCE) As the name suggests, the use of iron became more prominent in this period. It was the last phase of the prehistory period. It was more economical to mine iron than bronze, and it was more substantial, making it extremely popular and abundantly available. In this reign, greek art gained attention in the Mediterranean basin. However, near the end of the iron age, greek art started declining, and Persian and Egyptian art became more dominating. 4.MEDIEVAL ART (5th- 15th century) Medieval art was produced in Europe during the middle ages; it includes sculptures, paintings, illuminated manuscripts, mosaics, and metalwork.&nbsp; Based on time, we can classify medieval art into: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">The Romanesque (11th-12th century)&nbsp;</li> </ul> Its name comes from the fact that its primary basis is on early Christian art in Rome. The architecture built in this reign, mainly churches, monasteries and temples, symbolized the growing wealth in Europe and the power of church monasteries. The characteristics of these buildings are thick stone walls, semi-circular arches with durable construction. Sculptures were also famous; made out of stone, based on the iconography of the bible. Thousands of artisans from Rome and Greek created an eastern, Christian image known as byzantine art. Other types of popular art include illuminated manuscripts and stained glass.&nbsp; <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0321242839574068561628682884185%2FThe%20History%20of%20Art_4.webp?alt=media&token=21720770-9d02-4897-a52c-fd2ce753cc65" alt="File preview" width="400" height="515" /> Chriatian Byzantine Art <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">The Gothic (12th-15th century)&nbsp;</li> </ul> It derives its name from the Goths that ruled France. The gothic architecture offered revolutionary structural advancements such as flying buttresses, ribbed vaults(formed by two arches across diagonally) and decorative pinnacles, contributing to taller and lighter buildings. Sculptures in the gothic period were more realistic images; they characterized angels, saints and biblical figures.&nbsp; Paintings also became more lifelike, and with the gradual development in Europe, artists soon started taking an interest in non-religious subjects.&nbsp; 5.THE RENAISSANCE (14th-16th century) The renaissance dominated Italy and the majority of Europe; the people in this reign made their appearance different from that of the medieval period. There was a great revival of learning of ancient Greece and Rome. The artist started rejecting the byzantine form of art and preferred a more realistic depiction of humans and space. The art from this time also represented other aspects, such as mythology. Some of the most famous masters of this time are Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael.&nbsp; 6.THE POST-RENAISSANCE (16th-18th century)&nbsp; This reign was followed by: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Mannerism (16th century)&nbsp;</li> </ul> Mannerism, opposed to naturalism in art, was notable for its artificiality. The mannerist artist took paintings established during the renaissance and added a twist by exaggerating them, giving them an extravagant aesthetic to classicism. <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Baroque (17th-18th century)&nbsp;&nbsp;</li> </ul> The main principles of art in this reign was extravagance, ornateness and decorated details. The link between the catholic church and this art form was inseparable.&nbsp; <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Rococo (mid 17th-18th century)&nbsp;</li> </ul> Rococo, unlike Baroque, emphasized opulence, gratefulness and lightness. It emerged in France. Unlike another art form, it depicted light-hearted romance and carefree aristocratic life.&nbsp; 7.MODERN ART (18th-19th century) The Industrial Revolution led to the birth of modern art. In previous art forms, the art depicted religion and mythology. However, in the 19th-century, artists created art based on their personal experience and their chosen topics. The art produced in this reign showcased the artists' interest in re-imagining, interpreting and rejecting previous art styles.&nbsp; Some famous artworks are Les Demoiselles d'Avignon by Pablo Picasso, The Large Bathers by Paul C&eacute;zanne and Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet.&nbsp; The different types of modern art are:&nbsp; <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Impressionism&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Post Impressionism&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Fauvism&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Expressionism&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Cubism&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Surrealism&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Abstract Expressionism&nbsp;</li> </ul> &nbsp;8.CONTEMPORARY ART (21st century) Contemporary art means art; painting, sculpture, photography, video art, installation and production are performed today. It allows the artist to reflect upon the social issues related to humanity in today's world. High-end technology and cultural diversity globally surrounds artists in today's time. This form of art stands out because of its lack of organization, uniformity and ideology.&nbsp; The different types of contemporary art are: <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0321242839574068561628682884185%2FThe%20History%20of%20Art_5.webp?alt=media&token=460edc0d-69c6-4de1-a10a-74c749f22f79" alt="File preview" width="740" height="555" /> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Pop art&nbsp;&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Photorealism&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Conceptualism&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Minimalism&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Performance art&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Installation art&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Earth art&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Street art&nbsp;</li> </ul>

The History of Art

<img alt=""src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.074824149842566581638887435966%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=201d9b90-989d-4d77-b83e-475416b66f0b">Privacy is a misconstrued concept. It is often confused with disguising information.News seekers and agenda makers always try to dig out information even when it needs to be safeguarded and kept unexposed. Sensitive data should be handled with caution and should not become a dinner table conversation.The media prevalent in the world today is doing more than just its only job, informing. It has opinions, digs out sensitive information, and invades privacy.A camera, the strongest tool at a media person’s disposal, is used as a means to justify their constant unethical and irrelevant interference in someone's life.There are countless incidents of media persons, especially in the paparazzi and tabloid culture, going out of their way to click photographs of events and persons.To get coverage, they miserably fail to respect the line drawn and identify the incident as news as per their convenience. These practices are loathed by those getting photographed.  It is one thing to generate content to inform, and a completely different thing doing it for mere sensationalism and garnering attention. This practice needs to be addressed not just by the people directly on its radar but also by those consuming that brand of content; the audience.Many celebrities have come out and spoken about how disturbing yellow journalism can be. The content is driven by what seems engaging enough to give it a read or a click. It doesn’t require much credibility, quality and accuracy.What is Yellow Journalism?Yellow journalism refers to the act of milking a story or news incident for sensational content to attract consumers.In this practice, the main focus of the newsmaker shifts from identifying and disseminating newsworthy content to sensationalized media and exaggerated headlines.Yellow journalism is mostly practised in tabloid culture and Page 3 content.Is it okay to step into boundaries in lieu of reporting using a camera?Tabloid culture becomes unhealthy and toxic when it starts to interfere with the daily functioning of the people it covers. These visuals often start butchering personal spaces, even in times of crisis. Of late, paparazzi have been known to be highly insensitive towards those in distress.Lately, the media has also been known for bombarding people with cameras to get clear shots and high definition pictures. None of them qualifies for reporting the incident. Disturbing video content has surfaced where the celebrities and kin were photographed, filmed and even interviewed by the news seekers in rather unfortunate times.It is not relevant at all. Nobody deserves this type of interference in their lives, irrespective of their popularity status.The Instances There have been incidents where paparazzi have faced backlash and were held answerable for their behavior and violation of civic decency.Case in point, when Princess Diana took Harry and William on holiday to Austria. She wanted a quiet family skiing holiday and didn’t even want any bodyguards. Diana wished to be free from the constraints associated with the British Royal System, including the press. Diana frequently took control of the press relations herself. She came out of lunch, walked up to the camera persons and said that the lenses are very daunting to her children and can they please respect her children’s space and leave them alone.We see paparazzi intrusion in the lives of famous people every day. The situation seems even worse here. With a large number of people that are low on jobs but loaded with cheap internet access, the fascination of getting a glimpse into a celebrity’s life is much higher. Be it the hysterical obsession of clicking a celebrity child’s photographs or the agonizing video coverage of a celebrity’s personal life.<img alt=""src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.074824149842566581638887435966%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=411a4e1b-5945-4aa6-b14c-323ce7cff156">Why should this bother you, even when you are not in the public eye?  Being an ordinary person, you might never face such a situation and thus, not understand its repercussions. But you do understand privacy. It is a fundamental right that is also innate in humans.The invasion of personal space causes a normal human mind to get perturbed by insensitive media trespassing. It is the psychology of the human mind that makes us empathize with the person. These acts have the power to weaken an individual’s belief in the companionship that society has to offer.The whole narrative of incident reporting rests upon the curiosity of the news seekers and serving the facts with opinions, viewpoints and selective perception. We, as the audience, do not generally get to witness the source of every incident or news. Thus the media that emerges from the place of the incident becomes our source.The media’s job is to decide what is newsworthy and what is not before generating audio-visual content about it. It's their responsibility to generate and circulate actual news and facts and not use the incident to attract consumption.Your share in easing the situationStating the problem is just the first step of solving it. The practice of digging out sensitive information about someone in the name of news coverage is also fuelled profusely by the audience’s curiosity. We are that audience.The only way such practices can be stopped is if we as the audience stop pedestalizing famous people and stop keep a keen eye on their personal lives.What we can do is merely overlook the everyday routine of the rich and famous and try to focus on their work to reach where they are, if we want to take an interest at all.Have you ever pondered the implications of such treatment on the human mind?

The Duty of Understanding Right to Privacy

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.69511484942177451636272260507%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=2c5c993f-01e5-43d0-919f-277a08a96073" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> While &quot;Be Yourself&quot; is an appealing message to market and sell. Is it really something that all of us should strive for? And how can anyone actually be themselves in this world? Here we question the liberal ideas of favouring the individual, often over the collective that is society. We discuss and debate whether always putting yourself first is sustainable and the consequences of going ahead with that idea as a society. Take the example of cars on the road. At an intersection, you observe people fighting for their chance to cross, all the while creating a stir that leaves everyone stranded. Of course, you want to go first, why wouldn&#39;t you, but so does the person right next to you. You&#39;re late for your meeting the second time this week, but they have a medical emergency. But since you only focus on yourself, you cut corners and try to drive away first and end up adding to the commotion. The Indian road safety campaign of &quot;Pehle Aap&quot; (Meaning &#39;You First&#39;) is the perfect indication of the need to put others first to avoid literal and metaphorical traffic jams aka, the stalling of society. But one can argue that at least in their homes, people can put themselves first and act the way they want. It is a scale down from society, but even at home, other people are fighting to do things their way. It is not peaceful and sustainable if everyone in that boundary is fighting for their way, there is no structure or protocol, no rules or regulations. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.69511484942177451636272260507%2Fimage3.webp?alt=media&token=1a853465-d14a-4c57-b29a-3065276c559a" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> Let&#39;s zoom out and look at society. Suppose everyone starts acting individually, putting their needs and wants ahead of everyone else. In that case, we create a petri dish of randomness. The chaos that people would say is unnecessary. It would be the death of altruism as a direct result of individualism. Self over service. How long do you think society would operate at the current level of peace once we start acting more individually? I vote, not very long. You do you, act the way you want, but does this mean we have no regard for other people or society? We can extrapolate this idea to all aspects of life, both internal and social. Individually, when you do not operate under personal values or guidelines, life quickly turns to chaos. You end up having to make every decision for yourself at every juncture, and it is draining. And who&#39;s to say that you are well equipped to take every decision even if it only affects you? Turn to social media, and you find almost everyone propagating the ideas of &#39;Do what feels right, &#39;You do you, &#39;Be Yourself&#39;, &#39;Don&#39;t succumb to society&#39;. Paradoxically, if everyone starts adhering to this philosophy, you succumb to the idea of not succumbing to society. A trap to get out of another trap. Liberty is a new religion. One way it manifests is in the noble idea of doing what you want and not pandering to anyone else&#39;s needs or demands; of course, why should you? It is your life, after all. But this outlook itself is a marketing gimmick that brands and companies use to associate themselves with freedom, passion, and strength. You glorify the ideas of freedom and liberty, where you get to do what you want and be satisfied all the time but you still punch in at 9 AM in a dingy office space, where your superiors already line up your work, and you have to report before the end of the day or kiss your bonus goodbye. It does not feel very free, does it? But this is precisely how the majority of the working class live. Don&#39;t get me wrong. There is no vendetta against individualism here. The intention is to highlight that your mundane life is not substandard. You can very well be satisfied in such a life only if you choose not to give in to the idea of &#39;not succumbing to society&#39;. Some people thrive under strict rules and deadlines. Having to make every decision for yourself is a source of anxiety for many people. It makes them accountable for all their actions, and only they are to blame if things go sideways. It is a huge fear. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.69511484942177451636272260507%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=d7dc7932-a03a-43d8-bf28-2b8b4b60e01f" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> People need direction, handholding, and rules to function well in society. The absence of these would cause them to self-destruct or cause a failure of peaceful social structures. The paradox of choice also comes into play here. The more decisions and options we are exposed to, the higher the mental toll they take. Every decision we make has a cost. The more decisions we make, the more depleted our decision-making faculty gets. Our ability to make the right ones declines with every subsequent decision. This phenomenon sneaks up on you, where towards the end of the day, you find yourself making emotional and rash choices that you end up regretting the following morning. Classic case of decision fatigue. Hence it makes sense to follow rules and adhere to norms. It is, of course, if the rules themselves don&#39;t come at a personal cost. Exposure to all these choices and decisions also then lead to widespread anger and frustration. People will be drained of fighting internal and external battles all the time. At times it is not only okay to give up decision making, but rather it is warranted. It is not meant to advocate mass rulings and strict adherence but to question the utopian idea of liberty itself. Is having the liberty to choose everything for yourself ultimately beneficial to you and society, or is it just an impressive vision to sell? What do you think? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.

Paradox of Being Yourself

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.096454186785170261631043458006%2FLove%20Is%20Passed%20Down%20in%20Waves_1.webp?alt=media&token=6e5de0ea-e49d-4b35-966c-e301629ae749" alt="File preview" width="701" height="390" /> All human beings need love to live. When I say this, I&rsquo;m not speaking of love solely in the romantic sense. The heart also requires other kinds of loving nourishment such as attention, affection, and appreciation. While biological life can undoubtedly continue without love, the heart becomes very desolate in its absence. When the heart's core begins to wither from a lack of love, the distortion leaves a void that must either be ignored at peril, compensated for with something else, or be addressed directly. &nbsp;We want to cultivate, nourish, and sustain love, both inside of ourselves and in our relationships with others around us. We do not want it to end. Some believe that we can continue the cycle of love perpetually by having children. By creating life from a little egg and seed, we can pass on a portion of ourselves in a biological, psychological, emotional, and perhaps even spiritual sense. We can create unique bonds of love that connect the generations of humanity in an unbroken chain.&nbsp; &nbsp;While many of us may not even be familiar with the names of our distant ancestors, one thing is certain; they shared with us the common human need and capacity for the expression of love. Whether by an act of love, desire, or both, they created more life, and eventually, we arrived in the world. The external forms continue to change like waves in the sea, but the elements that compose the water remain the same. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.096454186785170261631043458006%2FLove%20Is%20Passed%20Down%20in%20Waves_2.webp?alt=media&token=11080e81-9b2a-4904-8ed2-48b4c9945fbc" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> However, this creation of life sparked by love or desire passed down to us is often far from perfect. While we cannot allow our lives today to be entirely defined by the good and bad qualities of the generations that came before us, they are still inevitably contributing to who we are today. Both natural and nurturing traits play a significant role in our overall experience of life and love.&nbsp; &nbsp;While we pass along the strength of our love to the next generation, we also pass along our inherited and developed weaknesses. In doing so, space is established in innocent hearts for greed, anger, ignorance, and fear to taint the otherwise beautiful gifts of love and life. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.096454186785170261631043458006%2FLove%20Is%20Passed%20Down%20in%20Waves_3.webp?alt=media&token=bb58abff-35df-49fa-b7e1-070ad6bae6af" alt="File preview" width="700" height="465" /> These questions begin to arise at this point:&nbsp; <ul> <li> &nbsp; &nbsp; Is it possible to lessen somehow the contamination of suffering that interferes with the love we seek to pass on?</li> <li> &nbsp; &nbsp; Is it possible to overcome the root causes of this harm and establish a more holistic approach towards love?</li> </ul> Our imperfections make us human. However, where is any space left over for greed, ignorance, anger, or fear inside true love? These things are like oil and water. While they can occupy the same space, they can never mix because it is against their nature. Yet, we are imperfect vessels where this amalgamation can reoccur continuously. The same things about the human condition that make us so wonderful also make us awful.&nbsp; It leaves me with a final question:&nbsp;&nbsp; <ul> <li> &nbsp; &nbsp; Do you believe that any form of pure love can exist within imperfect human vessels?</li> </ul> Perhaps somewhere in-between an ideal and the flawed reality we inhabit, we can better come to terms with what others have given us and what we have passed along to others in our lives. We can begin to touch the endless cycles of love and suffering found intertwined throughout the generation across time.&nbsp; Love is passed down in waves. &nbsp;

Love Is Passed Down in Waves

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.10178526676753231634814078185%2Fimage4.webp?alt=media&token=bf866dc2-27a8-4832-9559-8cfaefc17b48" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> Is peace just a tool to achieve prosperity? What is the real reason that we as human beings collectively value peace so much? Our true motivations for desiring peace are often not as altruistic or noble as we may want to believe. In the most rudimentary and pragmatic sense, I would say that we find peace necessary to ensure prosperity. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.10178526676753231634814078185%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=43949d37-45d8-42c3-8a9f-6c6c7e77e647" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> Overall, we don’t love peace because we genuinely take delight in treating each other well or truly enjoy tolerating one another’s differences. Often, peace is used socially as a politically expedient tool, as a means to an end on the path of goal fulfillment. All human beings fear misfortune and desire prosperity. But must peace and prosperity always be coupled together in this way? Peace is also a matter of scale and relationship. We could consider these relations being on a number line as so: 1.Self – 2. Household – 3. Close Relations – 4. Community – 5. Region – 6. Nation – 7. Global Peace can simultaneously be present in some of these realms but not others. The further we expand outward in levels of size and complexity, the less likely it seems that peace could ever be possible. Why is peace so hard to achieve and maintain? Here are four general reasons: · Because of the presence of competing goods and conflicting values among a diverse population. · A biologically innate and culturally nurtured sense of competition for limited resources. · The immense hoarding of resources creates long-term and systemic inequality. · Resentment and hostility over past grievances, offenses, and harms. Is peace tied to systemic principles of dominance and hierarchy? Human societies flourish by utilizing principles of dominance and hierarchy. Historically, we find the subjugation of one group by another often deemed a necessary evil to establish order and achieve peace and prosperity. However, history also teaches us that this dominance cannot last forever - so there is always an underlying sense of fear among the group in power that what they have done is wrong and that one day their own time will come. They will lose the power they once wielded, along with the peace and prosperity established on the backs and struggles and lives of others. Often, this leads those who reap the greatest benefits from this ‘peace’ to strive to maintain control using any means necessary, devolving into increasingly depraved and unethical behaviors. Peace is often maintained via threats of violence or overt acts of aggression. Those with authority often fail to achieve lasting peace because they externalize the principle. They become convinced that they are only fighting against a particular group of people or ideology contrary to their own, which represents a threat to their stability or the status quo. And this is certainly true in the most basic sense. But over the long term, what they are ultimately fighting against is the universal condition of impermanence. Just as human beings will never conquer old age or death, all social and cultural institutions that establish and maintain 'peace' and 'order' tend to rise and fall over time. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.10178526676753231634814078185%2Fimage3.webp?alt=media&token=b1d56ffd-2a80-45fe-a779-92db2f986fb2" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> In the past – various rulers and nations often amassed and exerted power to attempt to conquer the entire world. They sought to do this through force by conquering and colonizing the peoples in the regions they invaded. Those with the most significant power today (who attempt to steer the peace and order of the world) now know the historical futility of such violent militaristic endeavors. The world is simply too diverse of a place, and the resources of individual nations are too limited for only one group to rule over all others. However, there is a catch to this rule. And those with true power have been moving towards it for some time now. Peace as a method for meeting the hierarchy of human needs. All people have various needs which must be met for life to continue, which psychologist Abraham Maslow detailed in his Hierarchy of Needs. Basic physiological needs in the modern system can be met through commerce, which allows currency to be used to purchase the resources necessary to sustain life. Safety and security can further be maintained by protecting private property using the police and military. The idea of a single nation controlling the entire planet becomes increasingly absurd in the modern era. However, worldwide peace and order which was impossible to achieve previously through military might alone, may yet be reached via united economic systems and expanded policing, all in the name of prosperity. I believe that presently, many technologically advanced societies are working together towards a future goal of achieving some form of global peace through the unification of economic systems, trade, and commerce. And honestly, while I do have some major concerns about this type of system, I think that this probably has the best overall chance of working. Even though this unification will not meet the needs of all people, and while a prescribed amount of war is always profitable for business, ushering in a time of relative peace and prosperity genuinely seems to be in everyone’s best interest. Of course, the degree of investment in ensuring the success of such a system corresponds with how high up the rungs of the socio-economic ladder one is positioned. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.10178526676753231634814078185%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=fe71caa7-b0af-42c6-a2c8-858d6c53b0a5" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> This monetized system creates peace through dependence rather than independence. As economies shift from rural and agricultural to urbanized with specialized skilled labor, current generations now often find more stability and wealth than at any previous time in history. The unseen costs of peace. However, joining in this competition for economic prosperity comes at the price of sacrificing self-reliance and self-sufficiency. Most people in the modern workforce do not have the time, knowledge, or experience necessary to provide for their own basic physical needs - food, shelter, and clothing. Instead, they pay someone skilled in these areas to meet these requirements by purchasing them as commodified goods and services. This is not necessarily an entirely bad system for many people. As a citizen of a developed nation born in the late 20th century, I've definitely enjoyed the benefits of this system in my own life. But for many others who were not so fortunate in their draw during the birth lottery, the same system is problematic and saps away at their peace and prosperity every day. Once basic physical needs are met, those who still have time and resources left over can use them to pursue leisure. And many people today enjoy an unrivaled quality of leisure, from air conditioning to mobile technology, from fast transportation to cheap, convenient food, and of course, plentiful entertainment. Once we have ascended one level on the hierarchy of needs, we must move on to the next. So even though many people find themselves surrounded by luxury, comfort, peace, and stability in the physical sense, there is a large void left to fill in terms of psychological, emotional, and spiritual needs. And this same system that works so well to meet our physical needs also tends to foster severe neglect for many of life’s deeper values. We run the risk of becoming so busy pursuing the external fruits of peace, such as leisure and prosperity, that we may find ourselves with little time left over to work at cultivating peace in a more meaningful sense. Where might the peace and prosperity established by such a global economic system lead humanity over time? As I mentioned previously, this system will benefit many – however, it's doubtful that it will work well for all. Those at the bottom will always be exploited to feed energy into the system and consolidate power at the top. We can work together to end war, conflict, discrimination, and poverty from within the construct of a global ‘new world order.’ However, a system that relies on suffering and exploitation of others to achieve peace and prosperity for ‘me and mine’ is an unethical way to conduct the affairs. And as mentioned previously, no system that provides humanity with peace and security is ever truly permanent. There will always be threats to it, and one day, it will eventually collapse. I feel that the next impending fall and loss of stability will likely be especially devastating for humanity. In many ways, it's far easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the demise of the current system. It’s hard to say what will happen, how it will happen, or when, but one thing is certain, we can’t outrun change and impermanence forever. What can we do if we find it morally objectionable to participate in a system of peace and prosperity like the one described above? Is it ever okay to violate certain ethical principles in the pursuit of peace? What can we do about this? Should we fight the system? Here’s the problem – the system is not only far bigger than you and I, but the game is also rigged, and it has been going on for millennia – so the most likely thing to happen is that you’re going to lose. And even if you do make it your life’s goal to “fight the power” - in a sense, you're still controlled by your reactions to the system and to overthrowing the 'peace and prosperity' that it brings. You may lose your sense of peace in the process of fighting for it – or end up just replacing one system with another that possesses similar flaws (although hopefully less of them). I don't mean to discourage people from pursuing a better world by enacting change of some sort. Establishing peace and the progress it brings are some of the most important contributions that every generation makes towards bettering humanity. But if we look at life in a broader historical context, it might help us to temper our expectations. So, if we grow tired of working for peace, should we become mindless slaves to the system and focus only on expanding our prosperity or chasing leisure instead? No! Because then the system completely controls us, and we forget about what is most important in life. And even if this lifestyle allows us to achieve external peace in our surroundings, how will we ever find any meaningful peace while living with such a great internal void? Is there a middle path that tends towards peace in an imperfect world? Here are some simple but effective ways to try and walk a peaceful path in life: 1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Prioritize creating a tiny bit of peace in your own life first, then turn your focus outward to larger things as well. 2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Be mindful of what things that are actually within your power to do regarding peace. Pursue peace for its own inherent good that is beyond your limited and fixed interests as much as is possible. Remember that true peace is a good end unto itself. 3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Let go of the connection that has been forged mentally between peace and prosperity. And as we find so often in life, no amount of material prosperity will result in lasting or meaningful peace - although achieving a reasonable amount of material stability is always beneficial to one’s well-being. Peace can bring us prosperity, but prosperity alone is not enough to provide us with meaningful peace.

Peace as a Path to Prosperity

<img alt="" src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.54679646161362231636567170791%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=4893d13f-3ce7-481e-8d20-fef2736b1c06" > You always hear that you should think big if you want to succeed. But since no one told you how or why that works, you never believed it. In this piece, we explore the psychology behind your mindset and how you end up manifesting what you think. Understanding how our minds and bodies work together and more so against each other will allow you to set up systems to automate the right thoughts and, ultimately, the right action to get your most desired result. Don&#39;t get this wrong. This article is not a quick fix of the mindset, and it won&#39;t make you an overnight success, whatever that is for you. Instead, we will break down the working of mindset and explore how we can leverage it for our benefit. Look out for these keywords through the article: Habits. Mindset. Change. Time. Conscious. Subconscious. Our minds and bodies are slow. They love patterns, habits and loops. When given nothing to do, we default to laziness and lethargy. It makes sense; evolutionarily, our bodies are designed to conserve energy and what better way to achieve that than by doing nothing? We default to the same actions and routines. We largely think the same thoughts day after day. We take the same route to the office, meet the same people, eat the same type of food, consume the same content. <img alt="" src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.54679646161362231636567170791%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=d812ace6-7206-401c-b1c0-d5239ded4b0d" > This routine has significant positive and negative implications. When curated mindfully, you will live a physically and mentally healthier life and are more likely to thrive financially and socially. But it has the potential to make you a slave of your degrading body and mindset. It leads to deterioration of physical and mental health. You then fight to survive and not to thrive. It is not a merry sight to see. Having understood the implications of habits and routines, let&#39;s explore why mindset is essential. Your patterns of thought and worldview collectively form your mindset. Pay attention to the word &#39;Pattern&#39;. It means that out of the approximately 70,000 thoughts in a day, most carry themselves over from the previous day and the day before. Your thoughts run around in circles. Consider this; if what you think is what drives your actions, and your actions determine how your life turns out, your mindset is in the driver&#39;s seat of your life&#39;s car. You now know how habits and mindset control your life. But how to shift your mindset when it does not serve you? Researchers from the College of New South Berlin have found Vitamin B12 to help with thought regulation. They advise taking one tablet a day to make your thoughts more malleable. Sound too good to be true? Because it is. There is no such college, and no such research has been done. But jokes aside. If you have ever been to the gym, you know how painful and time-taking any meaningful change is. Our bodies are slow to adapt, but the good news is that they can adapt to pretty much anything given enough time and repetition. The same is the case with your mindset. You have to retrain your entire thinking process mindfully and consciously to make it work for you. That means being aware of the negative thought patterns, loops and habits. Awareness is then followed by an active effort to turn these loops upside down from detrimental to helpful. It will not be a walk in the park initially, but you will leverage habit-forming to your advantage. These conscious efforts, when sustained over time, will begin to seep and register into your subconscious. <img alt="" src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.54679646161362231636567170791%2Fimage3.webp?alt=media&token=60f70bc9-026c-4291-838a-d0f1491068a1" > Now, why is that even important? Try sitting down for 15 secs without thinking, and you will quickly notice that thoughts come up without you making any effort to think. It is the subconscious. The involuntary thoughts and actions performed by your body. We like to believe that we control our bodies, but only a tiny part of it is in our control. The rest of it is either involuntary or unconscious behaviours and habits. To train the subconscious to work in your favour and not against you, you first need to condition it by conscious repetition. Habits. Mindset. Change. Time. Conscious. Subconscious. Now let&#39;s connect these dots to visualize an image. Habits and mindset are repeated actions and thoughts, respectively. Changing them is not easy. They require time and sustained conscious effort so that new habits and thought patterns emerge, driven subconsciously to move you towards your goals. What you think is what you do, and your actions determine where you end up. To change the trajectory of your life, you need to change how you think.

Why What You Think Decides Where You Go

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.10951663473921981628072883027%2FMEDIA%20AND%20LOVE_AanviJain_1.webp?alt=media&token=5dc42055-2f14-400a-b2aa-cde4c8b21b38" alt="" width="764" height="573" /> Love is an abstract concept, a complicated emotion. The greatest men of all time couldn't answer what love is. Many tried to give us a definition, but many believe it's beyond our understanding.&nbsp; So how much does the media know? Media made all of us believe that a perfect person is waiting for us. Someone whom the day we meet, our lives will be complete&mdash;a person who answers all our problems All the hope they have given us without any solid proof. Can our life also be a fairy tale like Cinderella with our soulmates going around the globe looking for us? The honest answer to this is a bummer for all; not all love stories are like Cinderella. While growing up, we saw perfect couples with romantic bickering. Many filmmakers and authors tried to capture the true essence of love by providing us with pieces such as The Notebook or Fault in our stars. Such creations did give us a desire for a dreamy love story and the perfect relationship but what it did not show us is that no relationship is perfect. Love is not as simple; it takes more than the presence of two individuals attracted to each other. It includes trust, selflessness, compromises from both ends.&nbsp; The best graphics we see on searching about love are people smiling with red hearts all around them. But as it is rightly said, all glitters are not gold. People can be in love and yet fight; they are not always happy with each other. There are disputes and conflicts.&nbsp; Another aspect of love we see in the media are couples celebrating their love by giving thoughtful gifts, going out for romantic dinners, and always spending time with each other. But in reality, that is not the case. Two individuals might not make romantic gestures regularly, but that doesn't change the fact that they love each other. They can still be as happy as other couples. The media cannot filter the toxic relationships, they have failed to highlight this issue, and those suffering are afraid to speak up. Love can make a person blind to the damage they are causing to their partner. It is a must to make everyone aware of the red flags to prevent them from the worst. Similarly, even abusive relationships are a subject of great importance. Not everyone is happy; some are hurting mentally or physically. Media is an integral part of our lives; it greatly influences our beliefs. But what we see there is not always true. Love is not all rainbows and glitters; it's not all smiles. The media only shows what they think the people like to see, and not what's true. Hence, we shouldn't be quickly captivated by everything they show us. What has been your experience with love?

Media and Love

<img alt="" src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.321155603259925871636393495345%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=d7a2c47e-a605-43fb-9fae-91a9b09eb5e7" > We must not chain the people in our lives. If we love them for who they are, we must accept that we are only a tiny part of it. There are multiple facets, roles, interests and responsibilities to a person. For them to remain wholesome, they must not be limited to one person or one roIe. If you clip a few feathers of a bird you love to make it fly only in one direction, you will render the bird unable to fly at all. You will lose the essence of the person that you wanted to keep for yourself. Birds look a lot better when they fly, and metaphorically so do humans. When you love someone, you want to be the centre of their universe. You want them to spend all their time with you, and you want them to give all their attention to you. You want them to hang out, eat, sleep only with you, and talk to only you. You feel jealous and betrayed when they spend this time with someone else or put up boundaries to keep that time for themselves. It is not limited to romantic relationships, but it is about any person you come close to, a cousin, friend, or a parent even. You feel like you want to put them in a cage and not let go so that it does not fly away. The intention is noble. You promise to reciprocate all of what they do and give. You give them your time and attention. Even then, you are still caging them. The difference is that the cage is a shiny golden one. We all do this. Sometimes knowingly and unknowingly at others. Take, for instance, how situations change after two people get married. Their personal and social lives shrink, they don&#39;t go out as much, their friends and hobbies take a back seat. They don&#39;t spend as much time alone as they used to. But people fail to realise that everything they did before marriage added to their personalities and made them appealing to their partners in the first place. Take those away, and you hear people saying, &quot;You have changed.&quot; It shouldn&#39;t come as a surprise. If you think that after being with you people have changed, notice the difference in the things they used to do before. If there is a stark contrast, you have your reason. Maybe they used to have a lot of solitude to process a lot more and be more articulate. But now they are so busy with you that they hardly ever get the time. And hence, they don&#39;t register as much or don&#39;t articulate as well. &quot;If you make someone&#39;s life all about you, you will lose them. If you make your life about all someone else, you will lose yourself.&quot; <img alt="" src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.321155603259925871636393495345%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=5147eedf-282c-4f2b-a807-26ef4be007b7" > Take the case of a parent that devotes their life to their kids. They give up everything they want to raise the child. They stop reading because they are always running after the child and stop going out since the child does not do well socially. They stop going on road trips they loved because the child gets claustrophobic in cars. In this process, they trade their identity as an individual for being a parent. But they deprive the child of the thing they deserve most, their parent. It is not to say that they don&#39;t get pleasure from raising their kid as best they can, but is it all there is to their life? Let&#39;s switch boats and think about the child. It is commonplace for the parent to get burned out. But they don&#39;t have a place to vent. They can&#39;t take a breather, so irritability, lack of patience, and uncontrolled temper start to fester. The parent might also begin to resent the child. Picking up on that irritability and anger, they become the child&rsquo;s default. By now, the child is also used to getting their way and being the centre of attention. Narcissistic tendencies start to develop. They create a sense of entitlement in their lives. Connect the dots. You have a child with narcissistic tendencies, irritability and anger as their default. Not a pretty picture. The parent destroyed the very thing they set out to build and nurture. You now understand the power of caging and clipping feathers. It can cause a lot of harm, even when it comes from a place of appreciation and love. But things are not always so sombre. Suppose the people you love are in the wrong circles, which is ultimately detrimental to them. In that case, you can use selective caging to protect your bird from metaphorical pollution. It is what you do with your children to prevent them from hanging out with the wrong peer group. If loving does not mean you should cage people, it also does not mean they should have free reign to do as they please. Balance is key. Have you ever caged the people you love, or have you ever been caged? Share your story in the comments.

Why Cage the People We Love?

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.249107734565167331633718379654%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=dfe820cc-c3d8-4a26-adb2-f6996634eca6" alt="File preview" width="700" /> A heartbreaking photo had taken over the internet a few years back, drawing attention to the sad life of refugees. It was of a kid as little as 3, lying on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, in a red t-shirt and blue jeans, water splashing against his little legs. He wasn&rsquo;t playing by the beaches like other kids of his age usually do. He was lying &ndash; dead. Aylan Kurdi&rsquo;s story is one of misery that has touched people across the globe. For once, the world seemed to have opened its eyes to see the plight of refugees, the betrayal and anguish they face. Refugees are people who have had to make the hard decision of leaving their homeland while still having a sensitive connection to it, for reasons like &ndash; persecution based on religion/gender, war, poverty, natural disasters, etc. The struggle they face in their native isn&rsquo;t only the one they live through. It continues during their flight from fear and even after reaching their destination. Very often, cases arise wherein refugees suffer from an inferior legal status, acute living conditions, harassment, and employment issues in their place of arrival. It takes a lot of courage to undertake a risk as significant as fleeing one&rsquo;s country to rebuild themselves. It&rsquo;s a grave and dangerous choice to leave everything in search of peace. Refugees expect empathy, support, and hope from the world as a validation for their struggles. They wish to experience the protection of human rights and accommodation of mutual respect since they come from places where people are attacked for being themselves. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.249107734565167331633718379654%2Fimage3.webp?alt=media&token=434803bd-a3db-4b2b-8ff9-00d16e10d9a0" alt="File preview" width="700" /> When a crisis such as a refugee displacement issue arises, it is only fair that the responsibility is shared globally. It becomes a moral responsibility on other countries to safeguard and provide shelter and necessities to those who have faced so much violence and threats to life that they crossed oceans and skies just to find the will to live in solace &ndash; something that many of us are gifted with. It becomes our duty to accept, empower and protect them. The figures depicting the refugees are indeed scary &ndash; there are reports of about 30-35 Million refugees globally. But it is not the refugees that are to be feared. Instead, it is the cause that has made them take up the designation and the response of the superiorly fated people towards them that must be. The way the media portrays refugees has a considerable role to play in how people understand them. Displaying them negatively as a threat or burden could hamper the way communities welcome them and further their inclusion and interaction. When the receiving communities become skeptical about accepting refugees, it becomes hard for the latter group to find opportunities. Accepting refugees is not only a moral judgment but also a smart one. They have moved forward in life, past barriers and uncertainties of the worst kind, simply to claim their right to live. &nbsp;What is to be feared in them in aspects of determination or hard work? People ready to fight for life will also be prepared to do anything to keep the newfound freedom. It&rsquo;s important to grant them the right to work and health, living, and education so that they can bring forward their best productive selves. It is also essential to make them feel comfortable and included in society to integrate them better into the labor force. Refugees often have to pitch in double the efforts to prove their skills and build a livelihood in their host countries. We don&rsquo;t realize that they could serve as potential enhancers of our society&rsquo;s welfare when granted the right opportunity. While considering acceptance of refugees and migrants, something that&rsquo;s mainly feared is the loss of job opportunities for the local citizens. This fear attributed towards them by making them look like a potential economic and social threat is not entirely justified as: &middot;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Refugees bring a distinct set of skills that can play a crucial role in stimulating business networks and knowledge sharing. They help contribute to healthy competition in the job sector by working in different domains and helping out their co-workers. &middot;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Refugees often initiate their businesses, which helps others seeking a job to find an opportunity. In the U.S, such small firms contribute to about 1.5 million jobs annually. &middot;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Presence of refugees in the job sector makes International Trade and investments healthier and enhanced due to their commendable knowledge of the business environment, which will in turn allow local communities to thrive. &middot;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Refugees have the knack for fostering their native community in the global market. &middot;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Refugees take up challenges to adapt to the new place; work on improving the new language for a better communication experience at work and in public. Work hard to have their skills recognized, and for self-contentment by taking up responsibilities at work. &middot;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Refugees help the receiving community by making the setting more social, flexible, and diverse. It helps in the acceptance and well treatment of future refugees and migrants. &middot;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;There have been refugees who grew into prominent figures that changed the world for the better. E.g., Albert Einstein. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.249107734565167331633718379654%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=e2b99bf1-f91a-4784-afa7-46941fe71cb7" alt="File preview" width="700" /> Laws favoring the refugees have been passed universally, but it is to question if they are always followed. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 14) states that everyone has the right to seek protection in a foreign asylum to escape persecution. The 1951 UN Refugee Convention protects refugees from being sent back to the country where they have been persecuted. There&rsquo;s also the 1990 Migrant Workers Convention which protects migrants and their families. Despite such laws existing, refugees face many lows in their host countries; their rights continue to be violated. Governments around the world should honour their responsibility of uplifting humans in times of need and guard human rights to the best by eliminating any racism, torture, or discrimination that may follow the refugees&rsquo; arrival, making them feel a lack of support system. The word &lsquo;Refugee&rsquo; is only a tag on them brought on by an experience they encountered. A single tag, owing to a single experience, shouldn&rsquo;t be used to replace someone&rsquo;s identity. Refugees are people who carry over stories of survival and strength for generations to come. They are not the violence they faced, the trauma that shook them, or the fear they may still hold. They are beyond all these; they are human beings with potential, emotions and responsibilities, who have fought against situations you and I have only heard of. They are people who make laudable contributions to the society they live in, who have a strong belief in themselves. Refugees deserve inclusion, opportunities, and respect, regardless of what made them flee in the first place.

The Refugee Crisis - To Abandon or Accept?

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.048438063517993961630902440187%2FProcrastination_1.webp?alt=media&token=8f9134e8-755b-402a-b71f-653b2809f51f" alt="File preview" width="400" height="601" />There are times when staring at a blank wall is interesting. And mostly, these are times when your desk nearby with its papers, sticky notes, and laptop screams for your attention. As much as you want to sit staring at the wall, which is not even the part with the pictures on it, but just white paint, your desk won&rsquo;t let you grant its opponent all the attention you wish to. You keep denying your desk&rsquo;s call, but you also don&rsquo;t feel so good about your response. It drives you into a battle between the rebel in you not wanting to sit at the desk for work vs the work itself. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s okay. Everybody procrastinates&rdquo;, you would think as you turn your eyes back at the wall.&nbsp;The term procrastination has been so often used for any scenario where critical work is not given enough importance that it has become a metonym for laziness. We closely associate it with one&rsquo;s inability to manage time, lack of willpower, and the like. But is it the paucity of your time management skills that keeps you hanging indefinitely between responsibility and your action? Procrastination indeed looks like a regulation issue. But what if it isn&rsquo;t about the regulation of time but of your emotions instead?Tim Pychyl, an associate professor of psychology at Carleton University, believes that &ldquo;Procrastination is not a time-management problem, it&rsquo;s an emotion-management problem.&rdquo; In his book &lsquo;Solving the Procrastination Puzzle,&rsquo; he defines procrastination as &ldquo;a voluntary delay of an intended act despite the knowledge that this delay may harm us.&rdquo; As much clarity and truth it holds, this very definition is also one of something that is against human nature. We are inclined to seek satisfaction and happiness and perform deeds that bring us closer to these. Why would you sense danger and still choose to delay your tasks if ticking them off your list is what would make you happy? There could be times where even after allotting a specific slot of your day for a task, you do not find yourself doing it very efficiently.Though time management plays a crucial role in meeting deadlines, it is not the only reason someone slacks off. When properly looked into, procrastination doesn&rsquo;t look like a problem with your time management. Instead, it seems like an emotion-focused coping strategy, wherein your inner critic comes into play. Self-judgment naturally follows, but you should channel it tastefully such that you move forward, offering self-compassion rather than questioning your abilities and sinking in guilt.As Pychyl says, &ldquo;to the extent that I can deal with my emotions, I can stay on task,&rdquo; handling your emotions is essential for working, regardless of how petty it sounds.Gathering ideas to overcome procrastination often results in rumination and self-loathing, taking us further away from the solution. But what is &lsquo;the&rsquo; solution? It is unreasonable to expect to find a single solution to such a complex issue as procrastination. The cause and resolution are not the same for everyone. What could be possible reasons behind this issue that becomes a &lsquo;suffering&rsquo; in the long run?<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.048438063517993961630902440187%2FProcrastination_2.webp?alt=media&token=569ee435-64b8-4434-969a-19d1fe29692b" alt="File preview" width="739" height="492" />Another psychologist named Piers Steel from the University of Calgary wrote a paper called &lsquo;The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure&rsquo;, wherein he reported four major possible causes of procrastination:i) Low Self Confidence: Your willingness to do a task is likely to drop if you are not confident enough about the process and outcome. Being afraid of your inability to meet your expectations and those from others is a cue for your procrastination to rise. Reduce negative self-talk, as this will add layers to your anxiety. Forgive yourself if you make mistakes, but more importantly, appreciate yourself for every move you make.ii) Pleasure derived from the task: It's less probable that you&rsquo;ll delay a task if it's exciting or rewarding enough. The boredom associated with the task plays a higher role than its difficulty in foreseeing the level of procrastination. When you don&rsquo;t feel like working on something, try to find what could be holding you back. Face your negative thoughts related to the task at hand, don&rsquo;t try to run away.iii) Distractibility: Sometimes, it could be that you want to finish a task, but your environment hinders your focus and forces you to do otherwise. Putting away things that are likely to distract you and finding a new domain or modifying your present one to suit yourself will help you stay focused on completing the task.iv) Relaxed deadlines: It's pretty natural to want to take more leisure time before starting a task when you know there is enough time to do it. Doing so might be helpful to relax if carefully worked on, but procrastination usually takes over, dominates, and makes you haste in the last moment. To manage a distant deadline, break it down into smaller deadlines and tackle them every day. Train yourself to finish the work first, and enjoy the remaining time as leisurely as you want.Other factors like denial of consequences and rebelliousness do support these causes.Bringing in some math to his theory, Steel has put the above coworking factors in the form of an equation. The product of your self-confidence and the pleasure from the task, divided by the product of your distractibility and time till deadline, gives your chances of not procrastinating on your task. In simpler terms, the first two factors need to be increased, while the latter two need to be decreased to improve your productivity.People procrastinate differently. The key is to identify your vulnerability and work on it. Hence, this equation can only be used as a guide and not as the final solution to solve the issue. Keep tuning these factors and the others that support them until you are satisfied with the level of mental and situational comfort.Do not see procrastination as a personality problem. It is only an inner critic trying to talk to you. So listen, and communicate through actions!

Procrastination - What is it trying to tell you?

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.220565898454474271639211397850%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=2d82e687-a48a-42bf-8bb8-ef9c64fb0c91" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> On any journey, be it an innovative startup or a relationship, the most important thing and often the most difficult is getting people to stick around. For the sake of easiness, you and I will refer to all such undertakings as a venture. But do not confuse these ventures as being the same. Though they might have similar underlines, building a relationship is vastly different from building a startup. So how did we get here? <h3>Vision onboarding</h3> Getting people onboard is not easy. How eager others are to join you on your journey depends on your destination and the path you propose. This is your vision. Where do you see yourself and your venture ending up, say in a few months to a couple of years? You have to sell others how you envision bringing your dream to fruition. If people find their trajectory overlapping or aligning with this journey, they will choose to take a leap of faith and jump aboard. It sounds simple but bear with me. You like everyone else, have a path laid out ahead of you. Even if you don&#39;t know exactly where to go, you might have an idea of where not to. This is equally important, if not more. And only when there is sufficient alignment between two intended paths do people enrol in the proverbial carpool. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.220565898454474271639211397850%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=ba0390d8-a4d7-46e0-911b-d50b9e381d7c" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> As difficult as it is to get people onboard, it is only the first step. What follows is getting to know your fellow travellers and assessing in real-time if they joined for the reasons they claimed and if they are in it for the long haul. <h3> Why is it essential that we find people that are in it for the long haul? </h3> Think of it this way. Today&#39;s tinder generation is habitual of swiping left and right. When matched, the two people embark upon a usual and familiar journey, which entails getting to know each other and finding common ground, which becomes the basis of a new relationship and hopefully avoids any creeps. The getting to know the other part of it is almost scripted. You tend to repeat the same surface level small talk worthy nonsense about you over and over until it gets exhausting to do it. You end up wishing that at least one of these people clicked so that you won&#39;t have to go through this again. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.220565898454474271639211397850%2Fimage3.webp?alt=media&token=e9b3eb4e-57b3-4bf9-99f5-bb061a2c9003" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> Similar is a case with organizations and employees. Every new hire comes with huge costs. Cost of productive hours lost, cost of hours spent looking for new people, cost of the actual hiring process, cost of retraining and initiation of the new person into the system, so on and so forth. And these costs are not just monetary but also temporal. And one thing companies and, most importantly, new startups hate is wasting time. Time is their only ally and enemy. So yes, rehiring people over and over sucks. But what can we do to address this? The solution, I believe, is two-fold: From the organization&#39;s side and the individual&#39;s. Let&#39;s look at what companies can do. <ol> <li> Offer better salaries and incentives:&nbsp;Salaries and compensation are about value. If you believe that an individual is adding value to your company, reciprocate it monetarily. It will only push the person to deliver more. But what if you are in a bootstrapped startup? Offer your people something other than money. Trade money today for higher benefits in the future. </li> <li> Give people what they want:&nbsp;There are things people want from their jobs apart from money. It could be more days off, compensation for travel or opportunities for working remotely. Maybe they want to switch job roles and work in a new department altogether. Be as accommodating as you can be, and this way, you will get people to stay with you as they will see their paths aligning with your company&#39;s. </li> <li> Build a positive and safe working environment:&nbsp;This is a no-brainer. People identify with their work, and when that identity is dark and traumatising, they want to distance themselves from it. Do not let that happen. Word travels fast, and more so today in part due to social media. </li> </ol> <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.220565898454474271639211397850%2Fimage4.webp?alt=media&token=f0ee0908-a059-49f4-a4f7-f1f93cdc054f" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> What can employees do? <ol class="c5 lst-kix_kbi4cplktx8d-0 start" start="1"> <li> Realise relationships aren&#39;t built in a day:&nbsp;Every relationship, either personal or professional, requires time and attention to develop. Almost every organisation has a training and orientation period to loop you into their system. And if you jump ship every couple of years, you end up wasting a lot of your time in this way. Remember the tinder analogy? </li> <li> Look for what your company can offer you in addition to money:&nbsp;We have heard enough stories about employees getting paid millions of dollars but not being able to enjoy any of it. Don&#39;t be that person. Find out ways of how your company can make your work life more fulfilling. Ask for medical insurance, allowances, flexible working hours, more vacation days or even the opportunities to work at night if that is your thing and if it can be managed. </li> </ol> We have more choices now than ever before, choices for our partners, and choices for our employers. But developing a good relationship in any of these scenarios requires a lot of time and commitment. Commit to a path and see where it goes for a few years. It is challenging, but ultimately as we see in our relationships, it is the thing that makes life worth living.

What do think about this idea?

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