We have this teenager at work that life is not serving him well. He is in his teens without all of the opportunities that other teenagers have. When I say opportunities, I mean the basics; a home with working parents, a home that he hasn’t had to move out of in the last two months and has been living at for more than a year, and three meals a day. These are the basics that every child should have. Recently he has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes which just adds to his long list of obstacles. What he has though that many other young adults his age do not is a job. We hired him last July and since then he has began to really mature and become an adult. This has happened because he has an entire staff in his corner. We won’t let him fall when he is in our presence. We push him when he needs to be pushed and hold him accountable when he doesn’t meet expectations. There are times when we need those people in our corner and there are times when we need to be in someone else’s corner.
I think that there is a moment in adulthood when we are able to acknowledge who has been in our corner and has been our support
systems. Acknowledging these people may not come to us early in adulthood, but it comes. I believe it is one of the resolutions
of life that we need before we die. In this gratitude, we then begin to consciously know when we see someone who is in need of someone in their corner.
I don’t want to confuse this concept with basic kindness or caring for a loved one, because it is different. We do things for our loved ones out of
unconditional love and are kind because it is the “good” thing to do. The concept of being in someone’s corner can involve kindness and love, but it can also involve pity and hope; The concept only orbits around the idea that selflessly, we are trying to better someone else’s universe. It can be someone who we find essential to our lives or someone that we regard as an enemy. The key is that their outcome has no relationship with our outcome.
Taking the opportunity to be in someone’s corner does make us feel good, and ideally we learn lessons from it, but it works mostly as a
“pay it forward” lesson. Someone was there for us, and now we can use our strengths and resources to be there for someone else: Simple and selfless.
In the case of our adolescent friend at work, I look forward to see what happens to him as he becomes an adult. A huge reason I became the adult I am now is because of my first job. Those people molded me into a delegating, decision making machine who could think for myself. As I watch this sixteen year old, I see how he has developed in this atmosphere in less than a year. I take special notice to when our staff take special interest in running him to Wal Mart to get new shoes or rally together to make sure he wins his school fundraiser in having the highest sales. The staff is in his corner and it will ultimately have no influence on their lives, they are just there for someone who needs support.
We Are All Involved!
Daily Blog by .
We need to have that human connection. It is at the base of what Project Kinect is here for. We are creatures that herd and that love we get from one another is as basic a need as food and water. I wanted to share a couple of films coming out in the near future that are great examples of this need for humans to connect.
Daily Blog by .
A while ago a friend of mine introduced me to this website where people answer basic questions of life. What is the meaning of life? What makes you happy? When do you feel most authentic? These are all questions that I could really relate to since I began Project Kinect. This website gives you an opportunity to read and relate to other people’s lives. It is a new form of connecting that needs a little more exposure as we continue to move forward in this technologically invasive era of communication. This form allows people to share their stories and for the most part, not recieve the feedback or any effects from their stories. Not having that reciprocation is selfless in a way because there is nothing coming back to pet the ego of the person who is sharing. Even though comments can be left, the person sharing does not get immediate satisfaction because they are not sitting directly with the reader. This in result gives the reader a complete objectivity on what they are reading as well as a blank palate to see how the reading affects them personally. This response is then free of judgement that may otherwise be brought if another party was sitting there waiting for a response to what was just said. Bottom line; this is a great way to connect with a stranger while doing a self check on personal beliefs and feelings.
Life By Me asked one of my best friends to sit down and share some of her beliefs, thoughts and personal story. This is just a portion of the interview and if you would like to read the article in its entirity, then check it out here at Life By Me.
Getting to a safe place where I can be vulnerable and connect with people is very meaningful to me. When we connect with each other we’re really connecting with God, because God is inside of you and God is inside of me. I truly believe that when we connect with each other and when we connect with God we can change the world for the better. I want to facilitate that
I recently contributed to the fantastic new organization Light of Love-LA. Right now it is mostly an online spiritual community but is growing quickly. It is a place for people to get a dose of spirituality when we need it or want to just relate to another through communion. I am just posting an exert but you can read the entire article here on Light of Love-LA.
Believing in an unknown infinite power is frightening, so there needs to be something to comfort that fear. Through my conversations and observations in the past five years, I have seen the growing need for human connection. With the technological revolution, we have become more involved and informed in each other’s lives but we are still missing that face to face connection. With the global interface of correspondence that we have access to, we have an obligation to strengthen those relationships not only in our physical address communities, but in all the communities that we find ourselves involved in. We will never know what this greater force is that conducts us, but we do have one another whom have the same needs to answer the great questions like why are we here? How did we get here? What is the meaning of life? Is organic truly organic? We have one another and therefore we need to find communion with one another in any way we can. Communion can be church, over a beer, a campfire, a walk, over coffee, on a boat or in the car on a trip. While communing, any topics of discussion can be incorporated; Love, faith, politics, fashion, sex, food, family, the sky color, music, power tools, hunting. It is completely about being with another person and enjoying that unknown beast that connects all of us. Despite our lack of understanding of an infinite power, I believe we need to be globally responsible for one another. This can only be done through human connection.
Daily Blog by .
One of my best friends shared this with her church. Obviously for anyone who has spent even a moment on Project Kinect can see how I would be deeply in love with this movie. Enjoy the trailer. For movie detail here is the movie website and here is the website to Light of Love-LA.
Daily Blog by .
Yesterday I found out that I had received one of the spots in the competitive program at the University of Arkansas-Little Rocks’ Clinton School of Public Service. To me, being a public servant is really the most direct way to create the largest, most positive change that I can in the short time that I am here on this planet. Going into this though, there are many ways people can look at public service and I am hoping that people would share their own thoughts or definitions of what public service means to them.
Public service is something we all do at one point or another and it can range from voting to running for a major political seat. It can be leading a 4-H club or administering a nonprofit that keeps a community clean and somewhere people really enjoy being apart of.
What does Public Service mean to you? Please leave your answer as a comment below.
Daily Blog by .
For those of you who haven’t been following Project Kinect, or missed it, last June a few of us went to Tuscaloosa to help with the tornadoes clean up after the earth shattering tornadoes went through on April 27th, 2011. One of my other outlets that I sometimes post in is my CNN iReport and last week I received this message. It was so wonderful receiving this email and getting confirmation that Tuscaloosa is on the upward end of these disasters. It is one thing to read this in the news and see tidbits in social media outlets, but to actually get to hear it directly from a resident is fantastic. Thank you for this email.
I just viewed your iReport of your last day in Tuscaloosa. Couldn’t help notice
how emotional you were, it was a very trying time, and continues to be. I
understand how you would think how the relief resources were letting people
down. No doubt, some victims fell through the cracks, but that was a catastrophe
that we haven’t seen on that scale in a century. I am NOT making excuses, living
here, however, I saw how the churches and just regular folks, like yourself came
and helped out. With the official relief organizations, they were lacking, but
the community and people from all over the country did their best to pick up the
slack. Hopefully you’ve followed the progress we’ve made since last June. There
are dozens of Facebook pages you can find info on. Most of the debris has been
clear, but it still twists my gut to drive through the affected areas. As the
mayor finally admitted, you couldn’t have picked a worse path, it cut through
some of the poorest sections of town. I just felt compelled to message you and
let you know that things have progressed, but no one will ever be the same after
that terrible day. I’d like to say thank you for coming down and helping and
documenting, the news networks took off when the EMS contained them to a small
area so they couldn’t go into the worst areas and film the dead bodies, which is
just disgraceful, on the reporters’ part, those are people’s family and friends.
All they seemed to be concerned with was the death toll, which is still
inaccurate for reasons I won’t get into. I took pics and video, and I still
haven’t been able to bring myself to watch it, was born and raised at DCH
hospital, the one you could see in the background, I balled like a baby when I
saw the destruction had been done. Check out Facebook, though, there are many
pages that show what good has been done since.
Here is the video that she was responding to.
Video Interviews by .
This last weekend was the Women in the World Summit. This video is of course of Meryl Streep and she is introducing Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. I wanted to post it for three reasons. One is because it is a wonderful speech by Meryl. The other two reasons are definitely geared toward Project Kinect. This video is a great source of one of the things I constantly talk about, inspiration. The other closely related purpose of this video is because it really demonstrates the “We Are All Involved” campaign. When Meryl speaks of Secretary Clinton’s articulation of “Womens rights are all of our rights”, it hits the very bottom of what I mean when I say we are all involved.
Daily Blog by .
While I was in Austin this last year, I met tons of people at every moment of the day because of South by Southwest. Here are one of those moments if you missed it.
As I was sitting in Starbucks of my last day of SXSW Interactive, I met this wonderful British writer, Claire, who was meeting up with a fan. Claire is a fanfiction writer and so she told me a little about what it is and what she is doing in the US.
Daily Blog by .
Last week, in the matter of just a few days we experienced as many tornadoes as we sometimes see in an entire year. This takes a lot of help and organization to clean up and so I wanted to set this Monday toward getting some of this information out there. In the next few days I will set up a full-page here on Project Kinect for all this information by location with detailed information but for right now, this is what I can get out there. As said in today’s Washington Post, FEMA is just getting prepared to provide tornado relief so maybe this can begin as a conversation with everyone on how to expedite this procedure and not see what we saw in Tuscaloosa, Alabama last spring. In this, I am including the states involved with the majority of the devastation last week.
Region 4 out of Atlanta: Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee
Telephone Numbers:
Main Number: 770.220.5200
Fax Number: 770.220.5230
Mailing Address:
Federal Emergency Management Agency
3003 Chamblee Tucker Road
Atlanta, GA 30341
Media Inquiries: 770.220.5226
Region 5 out of Chicago: Illinois, Ohio, Indiana
Mailing Address 536 South Clark St., 6th Floor
Chicago, IL 60605
(312) 408-5500
Media Contact
Mark Peterson
Email: mark.peterson2@dhs.gov
Telephone: 312-408-4469
- As far as right now, I have only seen one facebook page for any of the cities but here is one for Northern Alabama
- Here is the latest from the American Red Cross.
- If you’re a college student and you want to do something impactful on your spring break, here are some ways to volunteer.
*Relief Spark: By far what I think is the most incredible disaster relief organization I have seen. Many people find volunteer opportunities with a church but if you are without a church, Relief Spark is a great place to share your gifts. They are already setting up camps throughout the south and midwest. Check out their facebook page.
*Disaster Assistance with the Church of Christ: We worked with Mike and his kitchen on wheels in Tuscaloosa. They have plenty of work to do and you definitely get to see your impact when working with them. They just arrived in Southern Indiana today.
This is just a start but if people are coming up with questions on what to do now that things are destroyed or if people want to help , then here are some beginning points. Like previously mentioned, I will have a much larger working page later this week. If you have any information that you would like to contribute to it, please email me at gregg@projectkinect.com. If you need extra help and need assistance otherwise on finding answers that have not been answered yet, i.e. free medical assistance, legal aid, water safety, paperwork help or anything else not listed, then also email me at gregg@projectkinect.com and I will make phone calls, research and help find those answers.
WE ARE ALL INVOLVED!!!
Buy Project Kinect Items!
-
- Check Out Our Sponsors
