connections

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Connections: Our Big Beautiful World

Nandini and boys

Nandini and our boys

Sunday morning I spoke with my long-time friend, Nandini via Skype. She currently lives in Chennai, India. It’s wonderful to connect.

I shared this passage on Facebook:

Nandini and I worked together at a start-up called Pretzel Logic Software in 1995. We became fast friends, then first time moms when we had our boys just six weeks apart in 1997. We supported each other through those sometimes difficult and perplexing first months of parenthood. We met weekly for tea, pushed our strollers through the park, and enjoyed time at our respective homes. It was a sad parting when she moved back to Chennai in 2000 in order to support her aging family. I’m grateful for the technology that allows us to continue our conversations, and to marvel at the fact that those baby boys will soon turn 18.

That’s when all the connections (my word of the year) started rolling in.

When you tag someone in a photo on Facebook, their friends can see it too. After several lovely comments from my local friends, Nandini’s cousin, Sujatha left a few words. When she did, it showed that we had a mutual friend named Akila. Akila’s son attended pre-school with my younger son here in California. Incredible.

Akila joined the conversation, saying she knew Nandini’s cousin as a family friend. That’s when Nandini’s friend, Parvathi posted, saying she also knows Akila. Nandini knows Parvathi because their sons are schoolmates in India.

It’s been amazing discovering these connections throughout the day. I’m humming with the joy of it.

How about you? Have you uncovered an unexpected connection between a friend or colleague? Please share your story in the comments section, below.

Any one person is connected to any other person through six or fewer relationships, because it’s a small world. SixDegrees.org is about using this idea to accomplish something good. It’s social networking with a social conscience.

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Word of the Year

I love the idea of choosing a word of the year. Unlike new year’s resolutions which seem doomed to failure, I like the transformative qualities of a single word.

This past year I chose serendipity, or serendipitously, the word chose me. You can read about that process here.
According to Wikipedia,

Serendipity means a “fortunate happenstance” or “pleasant surprise”. It was coined by Horace Walpole in 1754. In a letter he wrote to a friend Walpole explained an unexpected discovery he had made by reference to a Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip. The princes, he told his correspondent, were “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”.

As you know, once you focus on a word, theme or idea, you find examples of it everywhere. All year I noticed serendipity at play. It was energizing, so much so that I’ve decided to elevate it to word of the decade. I’m not letting that gem go!

2015 Word of the Year

I’ve chosen connections as my word of the year.

To connect is to:

bring together or into contact so that a real or notional link is established.

For my part, I like the idea of bringing people and ideas together in a positive way. The notion that a whole is more than the sum of its parts is appealing. The amazingly unexpected connections made through blogging gives me hope. Life is good. People are good. I will look for and make positive connections throughout the year.

How about you? Do you set your intentions for the new year? Do you choose a word or a mindset or a series of goals?

Please share in the comments below.