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What if we'd forget about Making Money Online for One Week and Focused on Writing from our Hearts?

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The Chase For Online Money Is Robbing Our Souls!

"Make Money Online In One Week!" "Get Rich Overnight!" "Start Earning Cash Tomorrow!" Statements like these are huge distractions to our natural yearning for creativity - especially during financially difficult times. Everything we do becomes influenced by our obsession to "monetize". We love to express our passions, but there's always that thought about how we can sell stuff along with it. I find this disturbing.

Not that there's anything wrong with creating an internet business and making some money online - I'm fully immersed in such efforts myself. What bothers me is that I seem to have developed a diminished ability to "play", to make a website for the sheer joy of sharing my experiences.

So, here's my proposal:

For one week, let's create websites, Squidoo lenses, blog posts, and articles about our most heart-felt topics without a single thought about making any money from it. Let's be candid and generous with our offerings, considering only how we can help others by sharing ourselves.

Maybe, just maybe - we'll get back our sense of authenticity and uniqueness, our joy in giving away something intimate and dear to the world, and our ability to connect with one another without the need of "getting something out of it".

And, maybe this will be the beginning of a new manifestation of never before experienced wealth in our lives...

What do you think about this idea? Can you improve on it?

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A perfect example of "Art from the Heart"

Fully in tune with "God's Will for us"

Pay by "faith" - with your Visa or Mastercard! (This is a parody...)
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Thanks for your 5-cents-worth (or more, who knows?)

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Have a hoot! :-)

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  • Reply
    ShirlW May 28, 2010 @ 2:39 pm | delete
    Writing from the heart makes me want to jump up in the morning, run straight for my trusty laptop and start pouring my heart out.

    Writing to write something takes too much effort and not enough reward.

    Excellent, meaningful lens.
  • Reply
    LindaJM May 28, 2010 @ 1:37 pm | delete
    Beautiful thoughts, Chef Keem! I am one who doesn't write trash just because it is popular and may get lots of hits. My definition of trash would be -- to write something I have no interest in, just for money. If it doesn't come from my heart, I find it painfully hard to write, and it shows in the quality of writing... so why bother?

    Thanks for the thoughtful lens!
  • Reply
    Greekgeek May 27, 2010 @ 11:05 pm | delete
    chef, absolutely agreed. I hate the fact that i'm using Squidoo to make money on some webpages I originally posted just as a gift to the web.

    In the early days of the web, it was illegal to use the internet to make money (at the time most of it was running across military and educational cables), because those building the infant internet didn't want to get it seized upon and used by big commercial interests before it had a chance to get going. Eventually the ban was lifted and .coms exploded.

    But before that. I REMEMBER the early days. Most sites were .edu. My boss would run through our office, a college program to digitize and post ancient Greek art, literature, and archaeology info online -- he'd shout, "Power to the people! Knowledge to the masses!" You see, books in Latin and ancient Greek are expensive, because they're so rare and take a lot of editing to make sure there's no typos. So Greek and Roman scholarship has belonged to the privileged ivory tower. He thought anyone -- random high school student -- should be able to see and study Greek vases or read Homer or take a virtual tour of Delos if they wanted to, without having to buy expensive books or attend an Ivy League college.

    It was our dream. In that spirit, back in those days, I and most of my friends would make webpages as our "gift to the web." I created one of the first guides to easy HTML and writing webpages. I had my "how to make a kite" page which is now my most popular lens. I posted my translations of Sappho and Tacitus, a page on dealing with arthritis pain, a page on the library of Alexandria, and a list of all the Egypt sites on the web (this was before search engines were effective -- back then we'd all post bookmarks of sites we'd discovered by exploring links.)

    We all added a kernel of what we knew to the web, and learned by browsing. It was fun. I miss it.

    On the other hand, I need to make money. :(
  • Reply
    strayspay Dec 14, 2009 @ 10:37 pm | delete
    Love the lens and especially the idea behind it. Five stars and favorited.
  • Reply
    _Joan_ Dec 4, 2009 @ 10:53 am | delete
    Well said. Congratulations on your purple star!

    This reminds me of a Joni Mitchell song -- "For Free"

    If you want to look at it -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmzN1p5q2sY
  • Reply
    tandemonimom Nov 30, 2009 @ 11:20 am | delete
    I've quit making lenses that aren't close to my heart. Those other lenses, I don't want to take care of them and they end up just being dead weights. Thanks for the challenge!
  • Reply
    OhMe Nov 26, 2009 @ 5:50 am | delete
    This is wonderful advice. I sure enjoy reading lenses that are written from the heart and there are a lot of them out there. Blessed by a Squid Angel.
  • Reply
    Kylyssa Nov 25, 2009 @ 11:15 pm | delete
    Excellent challenge! I write for writing's sake much of the time. Sticking in keywords where they don't come naturally is like brushing a cat's fur backward to me. I write that stuff but I do it poorly. I can only write halfway decently when I'm writing from my passions.

    I am a high-functioning autistic so for me my writing is my only real method of heartfelt conversation. The first lens in which I just let go and wrote from the heart was my main lens on when I was homeless. It's full of pain and anger, mostly unfiltered, but leavened with my acceptance and the realization of what I learned and gained from that horrible time. I was a bit nervous to have it out there.

    It was written from catharsis, not desire to earn a profit but it's been my most successful lens to date. It's still a little scary to have sticking out there but it's real and it's written from the heart.
  • Reply
    ChapelHillFiddler Nov 23, 2009 @ 11:51 am | delete
    I made a thank-you lens this morning and led off with this lens of yours. Thanks for giving us all a boost in the right direction. (http://www.squidoo.com/fan-club)
  • Reply
    ChapelHillFiddler Nov 23, 2009 @ 5:55 am | delete
    I rushed over to this lens when I saw it mentioned in AJ's thread because it's a topic so near to my heart and - shucks - OMG my lenses are here! Thank you so much! Being an old crone, single, unsuccessful at everything I do, I feel liberated finally at this point in my life to do what I want to do for no reason at all. Squidoo has become a vital part of that project! I hope lots of people see this lens. Thanks again.
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