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I’m watching Dan Hill on The Hour right now. He was just discussing one of his father’s parenting techniques that is absolutely brilliant. Every time Dan asked his father for something, his dad made him write a letter. By encouraging Dan to clearly articulate his justifications for needing a raise in his allowance, or that shiny new bike, Mr. Hill instilled invaluable skills in his son. I’m going to have to remember this one! Not only will my kids gain lessons in communication and persuasion, but I’ll be able to get some down time when they are off writing these letters. Brilliant!

You should follow @DrWayneWDyer because he is a generous tweeter, whom is constantly sharing beautiful pieces of wisdom. Like this set of tweets he just sent out this afternoon:

Wisdom like the four cardinal virtues of of Lao-tzu is just as taste of the good, source-fuelled tweets you will get when you follow @DrWayneWDyer.

While you are at it, how about you follow me too (@marilynburges)!

Eve Ensler is best known for writing the play The Vagina Monologues and has for being a long time anti-violence activist. In November of 2009 she gave this talk about embracing our inner girl at TED India. Be sure to watch to the end to see powerful piece from her new book, I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World, as it is well worth watching.

Eve Ensler states that within each of us, men and women alike, is an inner girl. This inner girl essence is where our compassion, empathy, vulnerability, openness, and  intuition reside. She reminds us that:

Compassion informs wisdom and that
Vulnerability is our greatest strength and that
Emotions have inherent logic that lead to radical appropriate saving action.

But, our patriarchal society has systematically annihilated this inner girl, perhaps more harshly in men than in women, denying each of us the willingness to embrace our compassion and empathy. While we’ve been busy embracing our inner men, our competitive, empire building natures, we have allowed great cruelties to happen. Horrific atrocities against girls, against people, in the form of wars, genocides, rapes, beatings and female mutilations continue to happen each and day, despite the fact that there is a little voice in each of us, trying to yell at the top of her lungs, that this pain must stop. If we embrace our inner girls, and listen to their empathetic cries, would these atrocities continue?

I’ll be honest here, I have long been an anti-feminist. It is not that I don’t believe in equality for women. I most certainly do believe in equality. I believe that each person has inherent value that should never be denied, irrespective of sex, race or any other defining characteristic. I have a distaste for the way the feminist movement was executed, and the results that came out of it. Mainly the doubling of the work force, that essentially cut the value of labour in half, and made it so I will most likely not be able to afford to stay home to raise my children.

Ensler’s sort of feminism is quite different from the variety that I find myself resenting. Watching this moving talk made me realize that I have been throwing out the proverbial baby with the bath water. I have been a very lucky person, my parents supported me, and encouraged my endeavours as ferociously as they would if I had been their son. I never felt the effects of sexism growing up. For this I am grateful. Ensler reminded me that not all girls are as lucky as me. Girls across the globe still need to be stood up for, as do our inner girls! Our compassion and empathy must be valued in order to put a stop to violence against against girls, against people.

Comment Zen*

I would love to hear about your views of feminism, both of feminism of the 1960s whose consequences we live with today, and of modern feminism. How does today’s women, and men, best embrace our inner girls to allow the inner girls of tomorrow to thrive?

* The term “Comment Zen” is lovingly stolen from Havi Brooks.

I made the decision to migrate from urpisdream.com to marilynburgess.com, and completely abandon the Urpi brand. I have been grappling with my personal brand for quite some time.  I came up with the brand Urpi’s Dream in early 2009, after a trip to Peru, where I earned the nickname Urpi. I adored the name, and was eager to embrace it as a part of my online identity.

Fast forward a few months and you have me juggling 3-4 separate brands, and not being able to devote myself to any. Today my focus has next to deserted my Urpi’s Dream blog, and it’s brand. When I look at the old Urpi’s Dream blog, I don’t even get that guilty feeling that I’m neglecting something important to me. The content I intend to write on my personal blog is very dear to me. It is the personal brand, or identity that I no longer feel close to.

In the name of simplicity, I am embracing my name and my home as my personal brand. Marilyn Burgess from Vancouver, BC.

I cannot get this out of my mind! I wrote last week about the bankruptcy of GM and my hopes that the governments taking over the greater portion of the massive corporation would bring back the electric car. From the recent advertisement being played in high rotation on television, I’m guessing that’s not part of the plan. “Stronger brands” is a part of the plan. Great, marketing mumbo-jumbo for us all to enjoy:

All that aside, I can’t get over the numbers: $39.5 BILLION! $30B from the American government and $9.5B from the Canadian government is going to GM. That is a ridiculous amount of money! In a very anti-capitalist move, these governments are taking over a crippled business that is $172 Billion in debt. Why? Why is it so important that GM be saved? They made poor business decisions that led them to this mess, why should the government be bailing them out?

The employees? GM employs 243,000 people. That is a lot of people! GM employees more people than all of the people who lost their jobs in Ontario since October 2008 (234,000). If all of these people lost their jobs on the same day, tough times would certainly fall for many, concentrated in particular regions of the Canada and the US. Times are already hard, GM going under would definitely make times much harder.

But, imagine this: $39.5 Billion divided by 243,000 is $162,551 per GM employee. What if all of that money was not to go to saving a dying relic from another time, but it went to programs, grants and loans for education, re-training and small businesses. What if it went to the individual employees that stand to lose their jobs, in ways that encourage these individuals to get creative, better themselves, and find something productive to do. What potentials could these individuals realize if they were given such opportunities?

It saddens me to realize, we will likely never know.