Borrowing Money

by Tara Joyce | Apr 17, 2010 | Cultural Creativity

[tweetmeme] I’m in debt. And I have been for most of my adult life.

I see debt as means to an end.

There was a brief point in my life when I managed to pay off my first round of debt – this one due to attending university and post-graduate school. But my next round of debt started soon after, when I decided to leave my job and travel for half a year with my now-husband-then-boyfriend. And, subsequently, start a business with the money.

Design Happiness

by Tara Joyce | Apr 5, 2010 | Cultural Creativity

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“What if we looked at the world as a design project – how might we begin to make it better?” – Bruce Mau

Design is not just aesthetics. It doesn’t exist for business, culture, or nature; business, culture, and nature exist because of it.

It’s not making stuff pretty. Design is solving problems and changing lives. Design is applying your creativity strategically. And because of new technological advances, our increased sharing of knowledge, and our ingenuity, it’s now possible to design everything.

And when I say everything, I mean it. I’m not just talking about your stuff, I’m not just talking about matter. I’m talking about You, your existence, I’m talking about designing meaning.

Our Biggest Assumption

by Tara Joyce | Mar 22, 2010 | Cultural Creativity

[tweetmeme] The biggest assumption each of us makes is to infer that everybody sees life the same way we do. It’s so hard to challenge the expectations we have of others, and accept that they do not think the way we think, feel the way we feel, judge the way we judge, and abuse the way we abuse. They are not us. We can’t even begin to pretend to know how anyone else feels.

This, I think, is why we have a fear of being ourselves around others. We think that everyone will judge us, victimize us, abuse us, and blame us, the same way we do to our Self. We believe we know how others see us. So, before they can have the chance to reject us, we reject our Self, and alter our behaviour.

Our assumptions set us up for suffering, yet we keep on making them, for this is easier than facing our fears, asking questions, and getting the clarification we really need.

photo credit: DerrickT

Dig It, Here Comes the B-Corp

by Tara Joyce | Mar 17, 2010 | Cultural Creativity

[tweetmeme] Have you heard of the B-Corp (a for-benefit corporation)? They’re companies who have voluntarily revised their bylaws to include social and ecological benefits in their definition of the shareholder value they deliver.

There’s over two hundred and fifty in Canada and the US today. Seventh Generation’s one. So is Yale School of Management.