Meet quintessential Mumbai girl Dinkle Shah. She’s 29, loves numbers, graduated from a college in the suburbs, lives with a loving family, did an MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj, works at Deloitte India in the Consulting wing, plays basketball as a defender and has won a gold medal in the sport. All good? Impressive, you might say. Definitely far above average.

Now what if I tell you she has been paralysed from the chest down since 2001, and has achieved all this in a wheelchair!

What if I tell you that she is a player with the Maharashtra Wheelchair Basketball women’s team, but when she started out in 2015, she was part of a mixed team!

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By FRANCIS LEARY
Published by: Better Yourself Books
Pages: 204; Price: Rs 250

In this era of the ubiquitous and immensely popular listicle genre of content, it is tempting to dismiss this book as just another way to advance the clickbait culture of our times. After all, it has that magical numbers’ start to the title which is supposedly irresistible to both Millenials and Gen Z, with Baby Boomers tagging along complete with mystified facial expressions.

Dismissing it would be a mistake. Ignore the cutesie title, pretty likely to put off those who have come to technology as immigrants who have given up all hope of integrating, except on occasion. Also ignore the twinges caused by the “101” nature of the book itself, a glancing reference to its level of communication about social media itself as pretty basic. Ignore it all, and engage with the work. I promise you will not regret it.

After all, how many of us Boomers look at social media, aware of its infinite possibilities while lecturing to Millennals about its malign nature as the biggest source of fake news, misinformation, disinformation, propaganda and outright lies.

At the same time, we know very well that, depending upon the level of our media literacy, it is possible to harness the power of social media as a force for good. All we need to do is understand it. Aha! But who has the time to understand it in all its glorious and perplexing complexities? Enter Francis Leary, described in the blurb on the back cover as “an expert in impact-driven online communication, speaking internationally, championing big ideas and empowering change”.

Leary has set to write, not just a practical book filled with constructive tips and ways to measure the impact of what one is reading, but also one that she hopes will be transformative. That is how much she respects social media while never allowing it to control her.

Every action we take on social media is a choice, and once you accept this with complete consciousness, the rest just flows. Like it or not, this is society’s most popular pastime now, and not all the cartoons in the world, mocking at this aspect of humanity, is going to change that.

At the very start, Leary provides “full disclosure” admitting she is one of those people for whom the glass is always half-full. For her, people are innately good, she consciously chooses words, thoughts and actions aimed at making the world a better place. But before you dismiss her as Miss Priss, reflect. Frances Leary runs her own online company. She came to social media late, hesitant to “embrace such a public forum” as Facebook! A few years later, social media became her lifeline. In between, she took the time to understand its power, especially its ability to magnify, make a big wave out of a ripple.

Every chapter, from Show Up And Be Yourself, through 99 other suggestions to the last one, Be Soulcial (sic), she explains patiently, exhorts, and finally suggests an Action that is the kicker in making this one different from the rest. Even when she urges you to get in step with the concept of social media, she rings the warning bells. For example, in Chapter 93 — Celebrate Your Own Success, she says “don’t show off”. If you are sharing, cheer on other people as well. Of course, this is with an online community as carefully chosen as your own actions. And in the very next one, she says “respond” when someone reaches out. Respond!

At the end of the book there is more; a complete list of resources that supported her, invaluable because in an online world, anyone can access them for extra reading. But the way I see it, most will require nothing more than this book.

It’s a keeper.

Click here to buy a copy of 101 Ways To Use Social Media To Do Good.

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Trust me when I say, I have been there, done that, mostly in the frittered away and squandered category. Suddenly the summer is upon you, the last day of school is over, the future stretches ahead of you, wonderful, “pressureless’, unmapped and unplanned. Nothing is demanded of you and you demand nothing of anyone else. Bliss!

Or is it? After the first three days of determinedly doing nothing, reality catches up. YOU may be on holiday, but are your parents as free as you? Chances are, if they are working, a vacation means two weeks of packing up the family and spending oodles of money just to get everyone out of the city, no matter how much it costs. Great for you, hard for them.

Then, what about your domestic help? Does your vacation mean more work for her because you have decided that you have earned all that free time, can sleep as late as you want and can generally be a nuisance. All because you have been (hopefully) doing what is your duty, including studying, passing exams and getting decent grades.

Believe me when I say that after three days of lolling around, you will begin to miss a structure to your day, even if the structure is formed around giving yourself a break and enjoying yourself. For then, you will realize that even enjoyment has many meanings, not all of them self-indulgent.

In the pages to come, we have a host of suggestions on what you could do during your vacation so that you look back upon them and say,” Hey, I was pretty good all round”. Sherene Aftab’s piece on 12 things to do to ensure you treat your free time wisely is a must read. And by the way, reading is one of them, besides practicing public speaking in front of a mirror, playing board games (definitely trendy), learning leisure time cooking, doing a bit of holiday homework and generally value-adding to your surroundings.

Pearl Mathias has an article on how important it is to reach out to each other, because loneliness is a real social disease and how much does it cost to be nice to someone! And Nidhika Bhal continues a long-running discussion on what it takes to be a leader.

I know the feeling – your summer holiday stretches ahead, every free minute a gold coin deposited in the Bank of Forever Freedom. You are determined to spend frugally, horde as much as you can for the future. But Time and Tide wait for no-one and the days don’t stand still while you make up your mind about what to do. So plan ahead.

Else you will be looking at a past holiday during which you don’t remember a single worthwhile thing you did!

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A bit predictably, most of the achievers that I would like to mention as having a story to share or a success mantra to guide you with, are young people who have something to do with the internet, in the online space, part of Digital India. That’s where most of the stuff seems to be happening and we are in danger of overkill. But that may just be my old age talking, because honestly, many of the stories are inspiring to say the very least, and have been shared with great generosity.

Yet the hallmark of great success stories is always measured by how replicable they are. And here, one quality seems to stand out — a passionate imagination which enables you to SEE your success long before anyone has the faintest inkling of what you are trying to achieve.

I’m sure you have come across a website called yourstory.com. Set up around seven years ago by Shradha Sharma, it carries original as well as curated content from other sites, and to all intents, is doing a super job. 2015 was in Shradha’s own words, “An unprecedented year for yourstory.com. We raised Series A funding after seven years of existence, we’ve written 23,000 original stories, we are now in twelve Indian languages, we’ve expanded to become a 65-member rock solid team, we’ve started working on new products, many new brands, government bodies, etc. That’s a lot of milestones for a single year. At one level, it felt that finally all my mad running of so many years was showing some results.”

Shockingly, at another level, she found herself experiencing a deep sense of pain and loneliness as she struggled to cope with the ugly side of the seemingly glamorous start-up world which so worships youth and success.
And so in December, she found herself stepping back from decisions and people and the overall work situation, following the advice of a psychiatrist who said that even fertile land needs to lie fallow for a time, to rest, heal and recover. Which she seems to have done, if the article she wrote on her return is any indication. And she has this mantra to share: “Don’t expect someone else to make the magic happen for you, go and make your own fertile land in 2016.”

A bit like Shradha, Swati Chauhan also has the internet to thank for her success. A London-based computer engineer and management graduate, she is also a mother of a small child. By her own admission, she wanted to set the world on fire, bring about change, make an impact, but nappies and formula and all the things that go to make up very small worlds got in the way. So she decided not to wait anyway and set up theerurekalife.com. Her early blogs are dated May 2013 and what she has achieved since then is admirable.

She writes on relationships, trends, children, parenting and related subjects and so far, she has racked up an enviable number of recognitions and awards, from Huffington Post to Revlon, and was chosen by Circle of Moms as placing among the Top 25 European Moms in 2013.

What did she do that was different from most of us who have dreams, hopes, ambitions and then do nothing about it? She did not wait; she just went out and did.

Writing in 7 Top Habits Of High Achievers, Swati says, “…does life have any meaning at all? I would say NO! Life in itself is quite meaningless, an empty vessel. It is we who bring meaning to it… with our thoughts, our dreams, our hopes, beliefs and endeavours. We keep asking the question when we are the answer itself. So the discovery of life is actually a discovery of your own self!” And she discovered that writing about what she knew best, life through the eyes of a mother seemingly on the sidelines, could be the ‘great idea’ she was looking for. And through her blogs, she has been able to impart another truth she bases her life upon — that “the habits practised by (achievers) over and over again so much so that they become intertwined with their personality” are what separates them from the mediocre, the ordinary and the also rans.

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The answers ranged from an earnest ‘‘no” through uncertainty to a blunt avowal that if good manners were not dead, they were on their deathbed. As expected, much of the responses depended upon the age demographic.

A couple of mornings ago I heard this story that pretty much had me whooping in delight and cheering for my own age demographic, which is unequivocally Senior Citizen. A much respected doctor practising as a GP (remember those?) in Wadala, was coping as usual with a packed clinic where those who were waiting were given numbers that were called out by the receptionist. You pretty much tend to jump to it when you hear your number called!

Then there was a hiatus. A number was called, then called again. It was a very young man, a late teen, who was the “numberee” and he was on his cell-phone. After the number was called yet again, he stood up but indicated that he would like to continue his conversation for a bit. At which point, the doctor came out of his room, saw what was happening, exploded at the culprit’s casual approach — and threw him out.

The thing is, the boy did not seem unduly upset and went off still talking, the cell phone practically an extension of his hand. In the world he inhabited, where the mobile is the god who rules his life, his decisions, his attitudes and relationships, everything was fine.

I think that if there is a single element that has contributed to the paradoxical uniting of the world while at the same time causing it to dissociate into its billions of separate parts, each part representing the individual, it is the cell phone. Never before have we been so connected, never before have we been so alone. And never before has there been a greater need to understand, interpret and analyze what this trend is doing to all of us, especially youngsters.

For if there is one fall-out of this worldwide trend, it has been on the manners of hosts of people linked all over the globe by technology. As Caroline Allen puts it in the Irish Examiner, “In this era of over-sharing — naked selfies, binge drinking, sex tapes, social media stalking and trolling and expletive-strewn conversations — being a lady or a gentleman seems outdated.”

Yet it is good manners that set us apart in this competitive world. And almost everyone who has attained public success seems to display good manners as a matter of course. Mark Zuckerberg was an unsocialized individual who didn’t even know how to talk to girls before the success of Facebook! Salman Khan, notorious for uninhibited behavior in his life away from the glare of publicity, is the soul of courtesy otherwise. Amitabh Bachchan is always a perfect gentleman with a family background that would bear up to any scrutiny, and we love him for his polish and his charm.

The twerking Miley Cyrus on the other hand or the troubled Justine Bieber would have trouble relating to ordinary individuals in ordinary settings, and while much is still expected of them in terms of entertainment, good manners are not! Neither at table nor on stage, where it is expected and socially acceptable for these public figures to behave badly.

Everyone complains about the way the younger generation seem to have abandoned any pretence of good manners. Parents complain, teachers complain, employers complain, authority figures complain. It’s a plague they say, not realizing that the plague is not technology but the impact on billions of psyches actually and naturally hotwired to the collective and not the individual. In giving in to technology’s siren song, we are actually going against the grain and this is exacting a terrible price. The loss of good manners is a small part of it.

Manner itself is an accepted construct of collective living. Douglas Harper in the Online Etymology Dictionary traces the meaning of the word from AD 1300 as “customary practice, a way of conducting oneself toward others”. Manner has always been important as a way of distinguishing groups of people from each other, converting into custom along the way, which in turn leads to what is socially acceptable in a particular milieu.

Which means that in its outward manifestations, good manners, or what is socially acceptable, could change over a period of time and this perception is what comes through when you talk to people of the younger persuasion.

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