Helping Others

Last updated on April 22nd, 2021 at 01:57 am

I know—in its essence, it’s not something to be joked about. But if you’re not laughing, it’s because you don’t know Kate Beaton. She’s quite the talented comic artist whose art is entrenched in history, poking fun at it constantly. I encourage you to check out her work, for it’s mostly satirical and can catch you unexpectedly, much like the comic above.

But I’m not here to share my love for Kate Beaton’s work—I just thought that it was a different way to start today’s entry 😉

Helping Others

Today I want to talk about helping others. Do we do enough of this in life? How do you choose to help others? I don’t think I consciously do it enough. Sure, if a friend asks for a favour, I’ll likely do it—this weekend, I’m helping to edit a friend’s resume and cover letter so that they’ll hopefully land the job they want; I helped a coworker take some stuff home from work since I had no plans and it was too heavy—but these are all things I do because I like the people who ask me for them. But what would I do if it was someone I wasn’t necessarily fond of? Or perhaps for a complete stranger?

Living in Toronto, there are ample opportunities to help others—you see homeless people on the streets; tourists trying to navigate the PATH system (heck, ANYONE trying to navigate the PATH system…); people asking for assistance through Facebook or Twitter; there’s just so much out there—how do you choose what to do and what not to?

It’s important to make time for a little bit of everything in life. I guess that’s what I’m alluding to here. I want to help others. I want to improve myself. But if you don’t actively make a conscious decision to make the time to do so, it’ll all become inundating, and you might never get anywhere. You can’t do everything, but you can try to do a little bit every day. If we all did more of that, I think we’d be better off as a species for it. Some ways I’d like to better help my readers is to do things like giveaways, or perhaps answer their questions—I think that there’s a ton we can do online if we use the Internet properly as a tool. I’m going to take inventory of all the things I have and maybe eventually I can figure out who might benefit from a lot of it more than I could 😊

Speaking of Stuff

But sometimes, you get that urge to get more stuff. At this very moment, I have an envelope sitting on my desk at work. Enclosed within is a checked piece of paper that would enrol me for a year’s subscription to Wired Magazine. If you’re not tech-inclined, let me tell you; Wired is a HIGHLY informative read. I always feel my brain expanding when I open its covers. But let’s get serious here—how much can I really read in the course of a day when there’s full-time work and my various hobbies involved? I already have a crapload of magazines that I have to read anyway…

(this is only a part of the massive amount of stuff I seem to have amassed)

…so I’m probably better off recycling the offer and sticking with what I have. I prefer my subscription to Fast Company, anyway 😊 I do love magazines for their design elements and the feel of flipping through the pages as I absorb the colours—but really. I only have so much space.

What is the 2K11 24/7 All About?

While I still haven’t quite figured out the answer to this question, Smashing Magazine posted a link from WhereIsJenny.com called “The Ultimate Non-Designer’s Guide to Creating a Brand”. While I’m familiar with some design knowledge, it was still a good read for me—one of the things that stuck out was that the message I’m conveying should be consistent wherever I go, both online and offline. For me, that’s not so much an issue as it is something I’ve never tried to quantify. I haven’t the faintest idea of what the message is I’m trying to convey to you guys. I don’t know what I’m trying to sell you. Really, I’m just writing and trying to get posts out daily about what seems to be on my mind.

But, I guess if I was to speak to some of the outputs I wanted to see from this blog, I guess I would start with this:

I want to…

inspire you
encourage you
entertain you
help you
improve you
befriend you
work with you
inform you

I think it’s a good start. It’s nowhere near the definitive statement of what I’d like to get out of all this by the year’s end—but it’s a good start!

With that said, I’m going to go chill. Have a great weekend, guys! Ah, who am I kidding—I’ll see you tomorrow 😊

Peace,

7/365