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A random man on the train thought it was OK to reach under her shirt. He f**ked with the wrong lady.

They may love their country. But they know it's far from perfect.

These lovely women call themselves BomBaebs.

They live in place where women are too often treated like things — objects for men's satisfaction. And they're pretty over it.

The BomBaebs are TV personality Pankhuri Awasthi (left) and theatre artist Uppekha Jain.

They got tired of hearing things like...

"We have the best culture. In our culture, there is no place for a woman." — ML Sharma

They've grown bored with the double standards.

They could certainly do without random men groping them in public.

And honestly, that's not even the worst of it.

So they made this fiery three-minute video to get some things off their chests — including strange men's grubby hands.

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A spate of sexual assault cases in India has led it to be known as the "rape capital of the world."

According to the country's National Crime Report Bureau, there are 93 reported cases of rape every day.

Many Indians contest the title of "rape capital of the world" on the grounds that sexual assault is a global problem that doesn't only tarnish India's reputation. That's true enough. There are places where the problem is statistically worse — like the United States, for example.

But regardless of where it's happening, we cannot be silent in the face of rape and the systemic oppression of women. And if you're as over it as Awasthi and Jain, give this post a share.

(Gentlemen, that goes for you too.)

Modern Families

Fed up parents explain why they 'never want to bring the kids over' to visit

Can't you guys come to us for once?

Photo by Johnny Cohen on Unsplash

It's a good news/bad news situation for parents of young kids.

The good news? Everyone wants to spend time with the kids! Grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends. They all want a relationship and lots of special moments with the little ones.

The bad news? One phrase:

"When are you bringing them over?"

Parents have been frustrated by the expectations of orchestrating stressful visits for generations — loading the kids in a car or on an airplane only to spend hours chasing them around in an un-baby-proofed environment and watching routines go to hell.

Now they're sounding off on social media and airing their grievances.

Why visiting grandparents and other relatives is so challenging for parents

A mom recently took to Reddit to vent about everyone in her life wanting her to "bring the kids to them."

"My parents live 30 mins away and always bug me about not coming to visit them," she writes. They constantly ask, "Why don't you bring our granddaughter to come see us?"

The fascinating discussion highlights a few things that make arranging visits with young kids a potential nightmare for parents.

Grandparents' houses are rarely childproofed

Grandparents love their breakable decor! Ceramic doo-dads, glass vases everywhere. They can't get enough. And while they should be able to decorate their house however they see fit (they've earned the right!) that doesn't make it a good environment for toddlers and babies.

Ceramic bowlsThe breakable decor found in every grandparents' houseozalee.fr/Flickr

"Last week was the last straw, I took my daughter to my parents and of course she went EVERYWHERE! flooded their toilet, broke a vase, and tried multiple times to climb their furniture," the Reddit mom writes.

Parents in a foreign environment are on constant safety duty and can rarely sit down

Let's be honest. Sometimes these "visits" are hardly worth the effort. After all, it's hard to get much catch up time when you're dutifully chasing your kid around.

"They don’t understand that my 3 yo ... is absolutely wild," writes another user in the thread. "She has no self preservation and nothing we do works. She doesn’t listen, she throws, she bites, she refuses to use the potty. It’s exhausting and then ... they expect us to entertain them, when I’m trying to just keep my kid from jumping off the stairs and into an ER visit."

Even just putting the kids in the car for a 20-minute drive is more work than it seems

Taking the kids out of the house requires packing a bag, bringing extra clothes, loading up on snacks, etc.

It seems easy to "pop over" but it actually absorbs the majority of the day between prep, visit, and aftermath.

Naps and routines go to hell

Parents with babies and toddlers know all too well — there is a price to pay for taking the kids out of the house for too long.

Chances are, the baby won't nap in a strange environment and then you're stuck with a cranky kid the rest of the night.

Kids with special needs require even more consistency

Kids with autism or ADHD can really struggle outside of their zone of safety. They might become severely dysregulated, have meltdowns, or engage in dangerous behaviors.

Explaining and mediating the generational divide

man in gray sweater sitting beside woman in black and white floral long sleeve shirt Photo by Tim Kilby on Unsplash

Why is this a conflict almost all parents can relate to?

Is this a Boomer vs Millennials thing?

Some experts think that generational values and traditions might play a role.

"Many Boomers were accustomed to more traditional, hierarchical family dynamics, where visiting grandparents was a way for the younger generation to show respect," says Caitlin Slavens, a family psychologist.

But that's not to say this is a new problem. I can remember my own parents driving me and my brothers over an hour to visit my grandparents seemingly every other weekend, but very few occasions where they came to visit us. It must have driven my parents nuts back then!

Plus, it's easy to forget that it's hard for older people to travel, too. They may have their own issues and discomforts when it comes to being away from their home.

"But for today’s parents, balancing careers, kids’ routines, and the demands of modern parenting is a much bigger undertaking. Grandparents might not always see how childproofing their space or making the trip themselves could make a huge difference, especially considering how travel and disruption can impact younger kids' moods and routines," Slavens says.

"So yes, this divide often comes down to different expectations and life experiences, with older generations potentially not seeing the daily demands modern families face."

Is there any hope for parents and grandparents coming to a better understanding, or a compromise?

"First, open conversations help bridge the divide—explain how much of a difference it makes when the kids stay in a familiar space, especially when they’re very young," suggests Slavens.

"Share practical details about the challenges, like childproofing concerns or travel expenses, to help grandparents see it from a parent’s perspective. You might even work together to figure out solutions, like making adjustments to create a more child-friendly space in their home or agreeing on a shared travel plan."

Ultimately, it's a good thing when grandparents, friends, and other relatives want to see the kids.

We all have the same goal.

"It’s helpful to approach the topic with empathy, focusing on everyone’s goal: more quality time together that’s enjoyable and low-stress for everyone involved. For parents, it’s about setting boundaries that work, and for grandparents, it’s about recognizing that flexibility can really show the parents that you are ... willing to make adjustments for their children and grandchildren."

Enjoyable, low-stress quality time — that's something everyone can get behind.

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Joy

Funeral director shares the morbid but life-affirming way to find true meaning in life

Life can be more meaningful when lived in reverse.

via Canva/Photos

Pallbearers holding a coffin.

In the 2020 series finale of the philosophical sitcom “The Good Place,” Kristen Bell’s Eleanor character poignantly reflects on what it means to be human. “Every human is a little bit sad all the time because you know you're going to die. But that knowledge is what gives life meaning,” she says. And it’s true: The fact that our lives will end makes the time we spend on this planet much more meaningful.

You only have so much time on this planet; how will you choose to spend it? What goals will you pursue? Who will you help? What will you contribute? What will your job be? Who will you spend your time with?

One way to figure out the answers to these big questions is to put it all on paper. Victor Sweeney, 33, a funeral director in Warren, Minnesota, chooses to do so by rewriting his obituary once a year to help him focus on the things that really matter in life. Working in the death business must give one a unique perspective on these matters of life and death.

Even though Sweeny has lived another year, he makes more edits to his obituary than additions. “Each year, my obituary gets shorter and shorter,” he told CNBC’s Make It. “It’s not that I’m doing less, but that there are fewer and fewer things that really, truly matter.”

Sweeney tells CNBC that every time he rewrites his obituary, he realizes that what truly matters to him are his family and service to others. Since 2015, Sweeney has slowly removed references to his accomplishments or career. “Now it’s like, ‘He lived, he loved, he had some kids.’ That’s about it,” he says.

The significant benefit of writing your own obituary is that you can reverse engineer your own life. You can list everything you set out to do and make your true purpose concrete. As you grow, you can make additions and subtractions as your purpose evolves.

Then, you can follow the path laid out in your obituary, which becomes a roadmap for life. “Writing your own obituary helps you uncover your life purpose. This exercise will help you find meaning and focus—live your life the way you want to be remembered,” Gustavo Razzetti writes in Fearless Culture.

obituary, meaning in life, writingA woman writing her obituary. via Canva/Photos

Wring your own obituary is also a way to “Blue Sky” the way you think about your life. “Blue Sky” speculation is a technique the Imagineers use to design attractions at Disney Parks and generate ideas without limitations. As the engineers say, “If it can be dreamt, it can be built.” What would be your “Blue Sky” dreams for your life? Where do you want to live? What do you want to do for work? What organizations would you like to start or be part of? How many kids would you like to have? Who is your perfect partner? What do you want your impact on the world to be?

Some may think that writing an obituary, especially early in life, is a morbid practice that makes them uncomfortable. However, with our limited time on Earth, realizing your own mortality too late in life, could mean the difference between following your dreams and staying in bed. Because when we live without considering our deaths, we are not truly thinking about life itself. That discomfort is a small price to pay for waking up one day and realizing that your time is limited, but you came to that truth too late to do anything about it.

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Health

Conflict expert shares the 1 phrase you can use to stop an argument from happening

It'll make people agree with you, too.

via Canva/Photos

A guy having a collaborative conversation.

The quickest way to stop having a constructive dialog with someone is when they become defensive. This usually results in them digging in their heels and making you defensive. This can result in a vicious cycle of back-and-forth defensive behavior that can feel impossible to break. Once that happens, the walls go up, the gloves come off and resolving the situation becomes tough.

Amanda Ripley, author of “High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out,” says in her book that you can prevent someone you disagree with from becoming defensive by being curious about their opinion.

Ripley is a bestselling author and the co-founder of Good Conflict, a media and training company that helps people reimagine conflict.

How to have a constructive conversation

Let’s say you believe the room should be painted red and your spouse says it should be blue. Instead of saying, “I think blue is ugly,” you can say, “It’s interesting that you say that…” and ask them to explain why they chose blue.

The key phrase is: “It’s interesting that you say that…”


conversation, arguments, communication tipsPeople coming to an agreement. via Canva/Photos

When you show the other person that you genuinely care about their thoughts and appreciate their reasoning, they let down their guard. This makes them feel heard and encourages them to hear your side as well. This approach also encourages the person you disagree with to consider coming up with a collaborative solution instead of arguing to defend their position.

It’s important to assume the other person has the best intentions while listening to them make their case. “To be genuinely curious, we need to refrain from judgment and making negative assumptions about others. Assume the other person didn’t intend to annoy you. Assume they are doing the best they can. Assume the very best about them. You’ll appreciate it when others do it for you,” Kaitlyn Skelly at The Ripple Effect Education writes.

Phrases you can use to avoid an argument

The curiosity approach can also involve affirming the other person’s perspective while adding your own, using a phrase like, “On the one hand, I see what you’re saying. On the other hand…”

Here are some other phrases you can use:

“I wonder if…”

“It’s interesting that you say that because I see it differently…”

“I might be wrong, but…”

“How funny! I had a different reaction…”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that! For me, though, it seems…”

“I think I understand your point, though I look at it a little differently…”


conversation, arguments, communication tipsTwo men high-fiving one another.via Canva/Photos

What's the best way to disagree with people?

A 2016 study from Yale University supports Ripley’s ideas. The study found that when people argue to “win,” they take a hard line and only see one correct answer in the conflict. Whereas those who want to “learn” are more likely to see that there is more than one solution to the problem. At that point, competition magically turns into collaboration.

“Being willing to hear out other perspectives and engage in dialogue that isn’t simply meant to convince the other person you’re right can lead to all sorts of unexpected insights,” psychologist and marketing Professor at Southern Methodist University tells CNBC.

In a world of strong opinions and differing perspectives, curiosity can be a superpower that helps you have more constructive conversations with those with whom you disagree. All it takes is a little humility and an open mind, and you can turn conflict into collaboration, building bridges instead of walls.

relationships
Joy

Self-proclaimed 'master procrastinator' takes us on a tour of his mind. It's so relatable.

The war between "Instant Gratification Monkey" and "The Panic Monster" is real.

Credit: TED/YouTube

Tim Urban giving his "Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator" TED Talk in 2016

Procrastination is a common but baffling phenomenon that doesn't make logical sense but most of us engage in to some degree. We know we need to do something that we don't really feel like doing, so we put it off until we have no choice but to hustle and get it done.

But some of us are habitual procrastinators to the point where we put off things we desperately don't want to procrastinate on. Unless it's something fun or super interesting, a task will get delayed until the last minute, when our panic causes a superhuman ability to kick in that enables us to complete the task in record time. Then we kick ourselves for creating so much stress over procrastinating something that we could have simply done earlier.

One such "master procrastinator," Tim Urban, gave us a glimpse inside his mind with an entertaining and oh-so-relatable TED Talk. Using rudimentary illustrations, self-deprecating humor and characters like Rational Decision-Maker, Instant Gratification Monkey and The Panic Monster, Urban demonstrates what happens in a procrastinator's brain at every point in the process.

Watch:

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Urban begins by explaining how he wrote papers in college, not gradually doing a little work on it each day but rather doing it all right before it's due. But then he had a 90-page thesis to write, which should take a year. Theoretically, you would do a little at a time, building up over the course of the school year with a bigger push toward the end. But Urban kept struggling to get started, pushing his plan further and further, until he had only three days to get it done.

"And so I did the only thing I could," he said. "I wrote 90 pages over 72 hours, pulling not one but two all-nighters—humans are not supposed to pull two all-nighters—sprinted across campus, dove in slow motion and got it in just at the deadline."

Spoiler: It wasn't good.

The three characters that live in the mind of a procrastinator

Now a writer and blogger, Urban wanted to explain to non-procrastinators what happens in the brain of a procrastinator. He showed that a normal person's brain has a Rational Decision-Maker at the helm, whereas a procrastinator has both a Rational Decision-Maker and an Instant Gratification Monkey. When the Decision-Maker makes the rational decision that it's time to get some work done, Instant Gratification Monkey resists.

"He actually takes the wheel, and he says, 'Actually, let's read the entire Wikipedia page of the Nancy Kerrigan/ Tonya Harding scandal,because I just remembered that that happened,'" Urban says. "'Then we're going to go over to the fridge to see if there's anything new in there since 10 minutes ago. After that, we're going to go on a YouTube spiral that starts with videos of Richard Feynman talking about magnets and ends much, much later with us watching interviews with Justin Bieber's mom. All of that's going to take a while, so we're not going to really have room on the schedule for any work today. Sorry!'"

media.giphy.com

He explains that the monkey is only interested in two things: Easy and Fun. That causes a conflict when Rational Decision-Maker knows that we need to do something to reach a goal and have a good outcome.

"For the procrastinator, that conflict tends to end a certain way every time, leaving him spending a lot of time in this orange zone, an easy and fun place that's entirely out of the Makes Sense circle. I call it the Dark Playground. Now, the Dark Playground is a place that all of you procrastinators out there know very well. It's where leisure activities happen at times when leisure activities are not supposed to be happening. The fun you have in the Dark Playground isn't actually fun, because it's completely unearned, and the air is filled with guilt, dread, anxiety, self-hatred—all of those good procrastinator feelings."

So how does a procrastinator get out of the Dark Playground? The Panic Monster, of course. Asleep most of the time, The Panic Monster comes out when a deadline gets too close and there's some scary consequence, be it public embarrassment or a career disaster, that looms. The Panic Monster is the only thing Instant Gratification Monkey is afraid of. When he shows up, the monkey flees, allowing Rational Decision-Maker to take the steering wheel once again.

"And this entire situation, with the three characters, this is the procrastinator's system," Urban explained. "It's not pretty, but in the end, it works."

Procrastination without deadlines is actually harder to manage

However, he added, there are actually two kinds of procrastination—the kind with a deadline, where The Panic Monster inevitably always shows up, and the kind where there is no deadline, which means The Panic Monster stays asleep.

"It's this long-term kind of procrastination that's much less visible and much less talked about than the funnier, short-term deadline-based kind," Urban shared. "It's usually suffered quietly and privately. And it can be the source of a huge amount of long-term unhappiness and regrets." He said that he had heard from people who struggle with this kind of procrastination and come to the conclusion: "The frustration is not that they couldn't achieve their dreams; it's that they weren't even able to start chasing them."

Urban concluded his talk by sharing a visual of boxes, each representing a week of a 90-year life.

"That's not that many boxes, especially since we've already used a bunch of those," he said. "So I think we need to all take a long, hard look at that calendar. We need to think about what we're really procrastinating on, because everyone is procrastinating on something in life."

People in the comments appreciated feeling seen, even though many of them said they'd had the video saved to watch for months or years before finally getting around to it.

media.giphy.com

"Really the worst part of being a procrastinator is the guilt you endure everyday. Man it legit hurts."

"'The frustration wasn't that they couldn't achieve their dreams, but they weren't even able to start chasing them.' That one sentence has beautifully and effectively summed up my feelings in a way I haven't been able to."

"The worst feeling is being in the dark playground and something makes you think of the stuff you have to do. You just get that quick hit of anxiety."

"As a procrastinator I often feel like everybody else is moving forward and im just standing still."

"He just explained my whole life in 14 minutes."

Urban's talk doesn't offer much in the way of solving the procrastination problem, but he does have a whole long blog post on his website, complete with more illustrations, with advice for reducing the procrastination habit. Find his "How to Beat Procrastination" tips here.

human behavior
Health

Stanford communications expert says this is the best way to start a conversation

It works for parties, work and relationships.

via Canva/Photos

Two coworkers making small talk.

One thing that makes people anxious when they have to make small talk is that they feel compelled to be interesting and put on a show. They think they have to wow the person they’re talking to with their wit, insights and stories.

However, Matt Abrahams, a Stanford communications expert and host of the "Think Fast, Talk Smart" podcast, says that people shouldn’t feel pressured to be interesting at all.

“A lot of us put tremendous pressure on ourselves to be interesting,” Abrahams told Inc. “We want to say exciting, valuable, relevant stuff, and it’s the wrong mindset. I think many of us see small talk as a tennis match where the goal is to get the ball over the net and score. I think we should see it more like hacky sack. The goal is to serve it to the person so they get and can serve it back to you. Success is when you all work together.”

Simply put, “the goal is to be interested, not interesting,” Abrahams said, paraphrasing matchmaker and author Rachel Greenwald.

“It’s about curiosity,” Abrahams says. “Starting with questions, observing things in context, bringing up relevant information. So, if you’re at a corporate event, you could talk about the keynote speech. If you’re at a cocktail party, you could talk about what’s happening in the room.” Most importantly, he says, “avoid the doom loops of ‘Hi, how are you?’ ‘Fine, how are you?’ And then you’re nowhere better off.”

It all boils down to the idea that people love being heard and asked questions. People often say that when they meet someone who listens well, they are an interesting person. This also points to the fact that we’re so used to the person we’re talking to just waiting for a chance to speak that it is refreshing to be with someone who is all ears.

Patti DeNucci, known as the Intentional Networker, believes that Dale Carnegie coined the phrase in “How to Make Friends and Influence People,” where he shares his axiom: “To be interesting, be interested.” She adds that Carnegie believes that people should be genuinely interested in others but also have a lot of interests.

DeNucci says we should strive for “living a good life,” which includes interests in cultural, academic, and travel pursuits. “After all, when we’re interested in many things, there’s a better chance we will be more equipped to take an interest in what others have to say,” DeNucci says. “And, in turn, we’ll also have something interesting to add to the conversation to keep it going, expanding, deepening.”



Carnegie’s thoughts on the power of listening were proven in a 2016 study that on sales calls, that did an excellent job of quantifying the amount we should speak versus listening during a conversation. A marketing director at Gong.io analyzed 25,537 sales calls and found that the interactions where the salesperson listened 57% of the time and talked 43% of the time had the highest sales yield.

This is known as the 43:57 rule.

Hopefully, these insights will make everyone who feels nervous about going to their next party feel a bit more confident walking into a room, knowing they’ll be a big hit simply by being genuinely interested in people. It also reminds the talkative bunch out there that people will probably like you more if you keep your mouth shut.

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