It’s great that you’ve recognized the impact of spending excessive time on mobile devices and the value of engaging in more meaningful activities. The shift towards spending time with family and engaging in creative pursuits can significantly enhance your personal growth and well-being. Recognizing that excessive mobile use is a problem is the first step. Understanding how it impacts your productivity and relationships can motivate you to make changes. Whether it’s improving your writing skills, learning a new hobby, or simply spending quality time with loved ones and having clear goals can guide your actions. By shifting your focus from passive consumption on mobile devices to active engagement in creative and meaningful activities, you’ll likely find greater satisfaction and personal growth. Keep exploring new interests and cherish the time spent with your family and on your creative pursuits.

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Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright, the famously-known Wright brothers, decided to try something different during their school vacations. After several attempts over the years, they finally succeeded in making the world’s first air-controlled and powered flight aircraft at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, USA, on 17 December 1903. It marked the era of aviation. Likewise, many artists, sports personalities and writers have begun their journeys to renown from doing something in their leisure or holiday time.

Your holidays could be a time to explore some creative things that you always wanted to try. You could use this time to explore some new places, to read some books you always wanted to read, try some new hobbies like painting, cooking, knitting, dancing,or learning some musical instruments and thereby discover and develop your hidden talents. Most of these hobbies can greatly increase your self-esteem and enthusiasm in life. Most successful entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Sundar Pichai recharge their lives by leveraging something they are already very passionate about. It increases the level of success and provides potential to improve their skills.

An excellent way to relax and regain your physical and mental energy is to initiate yourself into yoga and meditation during this vacation. Yoga is an exercise focused on your body’s natural resources for health and self-healing. It is designed to create strength, awareness and harmony within both the body and the mind.
Meditation is a process of training your mind to focus. It helps to reduce stress and to increase concentration. People who do meditation can often remember detailed tasks more accurately and it may even reverse patterns in the brain that contribute to mind-wandering and poor attention. Meditation can also lead to an improved self-image with a more general outlook increasing positive feelings, which then come out in our actions.

In the present issue of The Teenager Today, you will find the inspiring story of a young Mumbai boy, Prabhat Kohli, who started with a childhood hobby of swimming which eventually took him to the height of creating a world record on 3 March 2023 at the age of 23. This issue also narrates the exciting story of Vijay Luiz, swimming with orcas during his holidays. Other articles on the good habit of reading are meant to enrich your vacation in the coming weeks. Wish you a rejuvenating and exciting vacation!

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As we approach the close of the year 2022, the words of Todd Henry in his famous book, Die Empty, are worth considering, “Don’t go to your grave with your best work inside you. Choose to die empty.” At the end of the day you must feel that you have made use of most of your talents, creative ideas and dreams in helping others to realize them. This, of course, does not happen by accident. It requires sustained effort, will-power and determination.

Empty your life as you make steady and secure progress, by sharing with others all your knowledge, goodness and kindness instead of keeping them hidden in the dark recesses of your heart before you make your last journey to your grave. If you have an idea, endeavour to execute it, if you have deviated from the path to your goals strive to get back to the right paths. If you have made mistakes or offended someone, settle it at the earliest. In other words, empty out your talents to be used to enrich others… when our talents and abilities, etc., are fully utilized to help others live their lives to the fullest, our own life too will be full, not emptied out! We have plenty of examples of great men and women who died with the least regret about how they spent their lives for the benefit of other people.

This issue of TTT features stories of individuals like Ratan Tata, Sharmila Divate and Harmanpreet Kaur who, despite many hurdles in their lives, are the living examples of living one’s life to the fullest with the result that they are making the world a happier, healthier and kinder place than they found it. Let other articles, too, help you empty yourself out thoroughly so as to help others live a truly fuller and richer life!

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The greatest treasure on earth is not found in the gold mines of South Africa, not in the diamond mines of Russia, not in the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. It is to be found in your mind. Your mind can make the greatest inventions, discover the most hidden secrets of the universe, write the greatest book, compose the most beautiful symphony and plan the greatest business. Many great minds and geniuses rest in the graveyard without realizing their potential.

“We are not creatures of circumstance; we are creators of circumstance,” quipped Benjamin Disraeli. Do not wait for the opportunity to knock at your door. Opportunities come wearing the garb of glitches and hitches. Innovators and entrepreneurs make use of this secret key to unlock great opportunities in adverse circumstances. In the world today if there are more problems like global warming, they offer us golden opportunities to be successful and to become great.

Recent studies have proved that creative people are happier than others and they make others’ lives also happier and better. The recent great innovators like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and Sundar Pitchai have made our lives more convenient and comfortable. Even people with more difficulties and disadvantages have turned those disadvantages into opportunities. The Australian-American Nick Vujicic, born without arms or legs, said, “I’m officially disabled, but I’m truly enabled because of my lack of limbs. My unique challenges have opened up unique opportunities to reach so many in need.”

In this issue of TTT, we have portrayed the success stories of young people who did not curse darkness but lit a lamp to make this world a better place for you and for me. The stories can awaken the sleeping giant in you with imagination and innovation which can create good news around you. Creative ideas come from putting other ideas together. Steve Jobs used to remark, “Creativity is connecting things”. People with great ideas are those who possessed a lot of knowledge from books and experiences from life. Great innovators are always voracious readers of books and magazines. The pages that follow will certainly motivate you. Wish you a happy reading!

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“Being creative is not a hobby; it is a way of life”. ~ Author unknown

We are in that month of May, a month that can be quite frustrating. The long holidays, accompanied with the sweltering heat, can sometimes be really annoying and boring. With nowhere to go in the hot, sticky afternoons, how about engaging in a therapeutic and creative hobby? Let’s try origami — the art of folding objects out of paper!

The word ‘origami’ comes from the Japanese oru or orizuru which means “to fold”. That perfectly sums up what origami is. It is the traditional Japanese art or technique of folding paper into a variety of decorative and representational forms of animals, flowers or any other living thing. What makes origami unique is the fact that it simply requires a piece of paper and a bit of creative imagination!

Many people get confused between origami and ordinary paper-folding. The two crafts are similar in that they both involve the folding of paper to achieve a desired result. But usually paper-folding is done to serve a specific purpose whereas origami is an artistic expression of folding a single sheet of paper into a model without the use of tape, glue, scissors or other tools. We also do not decorate the model after it is complete.

Types of origami

Origami can be created in both 2D and 3D subjects, and has expanded and evolved beyond birds and boats. It has come a long way since Buddhist monks carried paper to Japan during the 6th century. Since the first Japanese origami dating from this period, which was used for religious ceremonial purposes only, origami enthusiasts have come up with over 80 different types of origami!

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Using your creativity doesn’t mean you’re doomed to poverty. However, your choice of career inevitably has implications for your future earning power and lifestyle. For example, would-be musicians should expect to have some downtime between two events. If you’re attracted to a poetry-based career, your income and working hours will typically be unpredictable.

Also, employment in the creative industries is typically less structured and formal than in other industries, and high levels of competition for work can make it difficult for newcomers to get a break. It’s important to build up your knowledge and skills through work experience or extracurricular activities or both.

Alternatively, you may go for stable paid employment in another area and pursue your creative ambitions in your spare time. Decide on your future career, based on your interest and aptitude. Along with that, you may find paid work that enables you to use your creativity in other ways.

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Creativity is the ability to make something new or to develop new ideas. Developing your creativity can benefit your education, relationships and hobbies. Although young children love to be creative, most teenagers have less motivation to create new things, mainly due to the fear of rejection, failure or judgement. Listed below are some of the most common barriers to creativity. You can always stack the deck in your favour by dealing intelligently with these barriers.

1. Fear of ridicule

As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. No matter what you do, someone will provide criticism. You can never please everyone. Some will love you and some won’t, irrespective of what you do! So you must learn to ignore the naysayers and let your creativity shine.

2. Fear of failure

Remember! Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn. All you have to do is to learn how to ‘fail forward’. As long as you can view your failure as a learning opportunity, take the lesson and move on, it’s worth it! Even a simple thing such as walking is mastered only when a toddler fails to stand on his/her feet and balance the body weight multiple times. Imagine if a toddler gives up his/her desire to stand and walk because he/she is failing! Will he/she ever learn to walk? Never! You’ve already failed thousands of times in one way or another and you’ve survived. So why be afraid of failing now? Just take it as an opportunity to grow and move on.

3. Interruptions

Time and space energize creativity. It’s more challenging to come up with a brilliant idea if you are constantly hooked onto social media websites and your phone is chirping at you every 30 seconds. Schedule your creative time to minimize as many interruptions as possible. Early in the morning and later in the evening can be the best options for many.

4. Distractions

A distraction is an interruption you give yourself. Ask yourself, “How do I commonly waste time?” Remove those distractions from your immediate environment. Put your cell phone on mute and throw it in the drawer. Turn off the TV. Focus 100% on your creative activity. All distractions are controllable, provided you have the ability to discipline yourself and manage your time to match your priorities.

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Opportunities and possibilities for innovation are all around us and businesses worldwide are striving to capture the market with a new product, an innovation or a unique solution to a pre-existing problem. Today, creativity and innovation are assets in all professions as consumers constantly desire new products. To quote Albert Einstein: “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” As the rapid growth of technology solves and creates new problems the requirement in the workplace is for professionals who can bring fresh perspective to problems and think of novel solutions. Here are some ways you can encourage your own creativity to blossom:

1. Playful learning: Very often while learning we are encouraged to accept concepts as absolute truths. As if they are not open for query? But in reality the entire universe is evolving and so is the knowledge within it. A fun way of developing your creativity is to play games like “Just imagine if …” or ask questions like “What if …?” When you learn to playfully challenge old knowledge you are gradually training your mind to create multiple solutions to the same problem and to form novel connections between pre-existing pieces of information.

2. Imagine being rich and abundant: Sometimes, when we are trying to think of new solutions, we limit ourselves by the availability of current resources and shoot down ideas which require additional assets. This is a classic way of limiting our own minds and the solutions we provide. At the brainstorming stage of the project let your mind be loose and free. Write down all the probable solutions without limiting yourself by the practicality of the solution. Once all the ideas are jotted down you could then go back and see what resources are required. This complete free-style of thinking will again encourage you to develop the habit of opening your mind to all possibilities.

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