Be true to yourself – how we lie to ourselves and how to stop it

There are so many times in life when we are not true to ourselves. In fact most of us have become masters in ignoring our hearts desires and lying to ourselves. We have become used to identifying us with what our EGO wants. EGO wants money, power, success and alike whereas our heart just wants love.

Because this is the underlying basis of most modern societies it seems logical that as a consequence of this self denyal at the core there can be no real truthfulness on the surface in our every day lives. A very simple example of the untruthfulness we all have become used to is daily small talk such as ”How are you? fine, thanks” when in fact most people are neither fine nor do they care if you are.

Whatever we decide is mostly based on EGO driven motifs that inevetabily lead to unhappiness and grief. EGO is addicted to sameness because a never ending circle of desires based on self denyal is empowering EGO. Thats why it seems so difficult for us to get out of this circle.

If however spiritual growth is what we are striving for then we need to consciuosly “cut the crap”. To grow spiritually means to dissolve issues and problematic situations and all other Karma that may be ours. It means to constantly grow and step beyond our limiting beliefs that might have been accumulated over millenia of monotony. Spiritual growth means to be strict and serious to yourself if it is about truthfulness and honesty.

To really grow spiritually requires radical honesty to oneself to stop any dishonesty.

There is no point telling yourself everything is fine and perfectly in peace and oneness if in fact you feel anger or sorrow deep inside but don’t allow it to surface due to some narrowminded esoteric beliefs.

Be radically honest to yourself. Only by doing so you may eventually start to also be fully honest with others.

Acknoledge what is going on inside you.

• If you hate someone
  
• feel anfry about something
  
• feel sorrow
  
• grief
  
• etc.

Be aware of it. there is no point in denying this. Only by acknowledging those seemingly unspiritual realities you will be able to transform them.

we all have some issues inside of us. No need to panic. That’s what we are here for. To figure all these things out dissolve them in love and surrender them to God.

It requires courage and power. Things may change and you may never be the same again because you screw your EGO so it dissolves. If you are really commited to your spiritual path and truly sincere then there is nothing to fear however.

Whatever causes pain causes pain to your Ego and is therefore another milestone on your way of dissolving your stuff.

Welcome challenges because they offer growth.

Welcome pain because it offers insight and transformation to a more love filled life.

There is no reason to be afraid of anything. Any fear is a proof of lacking faith in god and can be transcended either through painful stupid experiences or surrendering them to gods infinite ocean of love and forgiveness.

love

sascha

How to work online and travel -Resources for freelance workers that travel and make money online

This article provides useful information for all kinds of people who work from their computer and need Internet access to deliver their products or to perform their services such as: Creative professionals, Graphic Designers, Writers, Journalists, all kind of Counseling services, Publishers, Photographers, etc.

I am going to share my experiences and hints about how to maintain productivity and work using Internet while traveling to foreign countries. I talk from my own experience: I am a graphic designer and I have been traveling and working at the same time for many years in more than 25 different countries including almost all European states, Iran, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, New Zealand, Hong Kong and the Untied States …

How to get online – Internet access on the road

Internet cafes
The worst but easiest choice is internet cafes, wireless spots, surf spots or internet kiosks. You usually pay on a time basis (per hour or day) and the disadvantages are very obvious:

• You need to always carry your equipment to the point of internet access
• You share internet connection with all other users
• Mostly slow connection
• Noise

Basically all countries I know have internet cafes. Costs vary strongly from place to place: In India e.g.  prices range from 15 to 60 RS per hour whereas in New Zealand one hour costs between 2 and 6 NZD. Daily rates are negotiable. I always recommend to talk to the owners of a place if you come daily for an extended period of time so they will arrange a fixed monthly rate for you.

Mobile Sticks, 3G Internet Sticks, UMTS phones, HDSPA sticks, etc.
My personal favorite. If you have some bank account somewhere and can provide a proof of identity that local providers accept this is by far the most convenient solution in all countries offering 3G/UMTS/HDSPA network. I have experienced some amazing connection speeds using those sticks. Countries like the Philippines or India as well as many western countries offer prepaid sticks also. Once you bought a stick chances are you may also be able to use it in other countries.

Another way is to connect your smart phone with your computer via Bluetooth or USB  and tether the connection. Whatever way you go take care to sign up for some DATA package or you will use up your credit very fast

In my experience the costs for this connection type are anywhere between 40 and 100 Euros per month.

Dial up modem using phone line
In some countries it is difficult or impossible to have fast mobile or even stationary internet access. In case you need to travel to any of those places be prepared and buy a USB modem.

City wide wireless networks
In some places such as Hong Kong, Tokyo, London or NYC you can find wide areas of the cities being covered by a one operator wireless network. You need to create an account when you login to the network using your credit card data and there you go. Very convenient yet only available in big modern cities.

Short time DSL / high bandwidth contracts
This option is only available in high tech countries such as Hong Kong, Japan, the US etc. Many hotels, motels or pensions offer opt in internet plans for the time of your stay upon request.

Sending and receiving files, Delivering products, uploading, Downloading

Working with your computer many need to send and receive larger files on a regular basis. In most western countries this is not a problem. If you start to venture into the “third world” like Africa  South America or Asia this turns out to be a major point of concern though. Learn to plan ahead and download things whenever you have fast internet access. Do things ahead of time and tell clients to send you necessary files in advance in order to be prepared for data loss or slow connections. Going to rural areas 56K may still be the top speed in some countries.

I use services like dropsend.com or dropbox.com to send and receive files but take care: It is much better to use the software tool than doing it browser based because it allows you to pick up file transfers once the connection was interrupted.

Gmail definetely has issues with very slow connections and files get lost or uploads crash. So be prepared.

Power cuts and other “third world issues”

Unknown to most people in the west who are used to 24/7/365 power and internet availability a large proportion of so called “third world countries” experience power or internet cuts daily. In most of rural India it is normal to have power cuts of up to 6 hours daily. Even in a city like Bangalore which is supposed to be the epicentre of IT in India there are times when a daily power outage of 1-2 hours is normal. Most asian countries have a few hours daily that there is no internet or no power. Be prepared.

A few points to consider

• Always have loaded batteries etc. in excess
• Have a torch or a lighter ready
• Whatever you do save your files as many times as possible. I got used to saving my files every 30 seconds e.g.
• Use file transfer managers that support pause and restart mode
• Plan ahead with outages in mind – usually outages are at a similar time so you can schedule your offline work for this time frame

Backups and data security

Another major concern when working and traveling is Backups. You may want to make sure to always have 1 or 2 local backups of your stuff + some Internet based backup of very important things. I use backblaze.com as online backup service to back up my work.

Heat and climatic influences on hardware

I have been fortunate so far but know that regularly computers die due to overheating or effects of salty sea air in tropical countries. All of your hardware has a much shorter lifespan in tropical countries. When you plan your finances account for it. You will need to buy a new PC every 2-3 years and stuff runs down much quicker.

Internet censorship

Wherever you go keep in mind that the freedom you may enjoy at home may not be normal in other places. If you travel to China, Iran, North Korea, Dubai, UAE everything you do online passes severe filtering. Facebook, Youtube and even Gmail, and other webmail clients may not work or be restricted. Even in countries like India there is censorship depending on the region. Bare this in mind if you plan to travel to those places.

Telephone

How to get an international phone number, pay the lowest possible rates and offer clients a number that is convenient for them to call:
My personal telephone setup has multiple layers. Basically I advice everyone to have one contract cellphone from the country you or most of your clients are based in. This way you provide clients with an easy way to contact you in emergency situations and also have the possibility to make a call in case your local prepaid phones may be out of charge.

Secondly it is advisable to have a voice over ip phone or software phone set up that works with a real land line number attached to it (such as sipgate.com).
This allows clients to make cheap calls to you while radiating a bit more trustworthiness when operating internationally. Such contracts also offer an easily accessible voice message system that can be controlled online.

The last layer of my personal phone set up is a local cellphone. Wherever I go – one of the first things I do is to get a local prepaid card.
Below some country-specific insights:

My experience shows that in most of all countries worldwide you need some proof of residency to sign up for a pre paid card. Most of the times an international passport is sufficient. However there are countries like Italy where you can only get a national prepaid card if you are registered in italy. In those cases you need to have a good friend willing to come and buy the card for you.

Also in India you can make this experience but it depends very much on the shop you go to. There seems to be no generally applicable rule.

Some countries offer online recharging with credit card or Paypal while some only offer top ups in stores.

Equipment

Besides your laptop there is some things that are essential when working and traveling from your computer:

• Power adapters (Most countries have different plug systems than your home country. You need a variety of adapters suiting your travel needs + a screw driver and some minor electronic stuff like wires to improvise)
• USB modem (In countries like Iran I advise you to always bring a USB modem that just needs a phone line connection. This is a good emergency backup habit anyway. However you also need to look up local providers and dial up numbers and payment methods. Usually you can find some numbers that are billed with telephone costs)
• 1 or 2 additional cellphones
• Head/microphone
• Possibly a VoIP phone
• 1 or 2 LAN cables
• small wireless router to set up local wireless networks
• 3G / HDSPA USB modem stick with SIM slot

Open IDEO

Open IDEO is a newly launched wonderful platform for Designers and non designers alike. It is based on a process of collabortaion as depicted below. I can only encourage everyone to join and participate at www.openideo.com