Luminosity

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Diarmuid Hudner
CEO of Cybersmarties Ltd.

As a writer I suppose I have always been interested in words, the way they sound, the way they are used in language, their numerous meanings. The word “Luminosity” I came across listening to music by Mark Richter. In the Western World “luminosity” is given its scientific definition which is the brightness of a celestial object relative to the brightness of the sun. To me though its definition seemed a little less luminous than what I had hoped. Until by accident yesterday in a moment of planetary boredom I came across the word in another program about the Urdu language of Pakistan (I shall clear up quickly here that I do not just watch obscure documentaries, I am an avid Games of Thrones fan…Winter is coming….or as we say in Ireland, Winter’s never left).

In the Urdu language, luminosity means the quality of being luminous, emitting or reflecting light. Now this seemed a lot more interesting a word to me as there is something wholly human about that word, not a celestial object in sight. For me humans are luminous creatures. When people are happy, we emit light which affects others. We’ve heard the phrases like “She is glowing” or “She lit up the room with her smile”. To me when people are happy their faces literally shine, it is a natural human instinct which is infectious to all others present. When someone smiles you involuntarily smile back. The same cant be said of scowling I may add, I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work.

This brings me to another point about luminosity and its meaning. What kind of light do you want to emit to the world? Is it a negative light which darkens the mood of others, the kind of light that people are afraid of, shirk away from, do not want to be around? Or do you want to radiate light, making others feel better for a while because you have brightened their day. Let’s expand this point a little further. Imagine when a whole crowd of people emit light of happiness and what affect that has. I wonder can it be measured, the positive effect of human luminosity. At Cybersmarties, we hope that our technology through its safety and creativity allows children that ability to shine and only good can come from that.

Something else to ponder. Another documentary I watched recently (I’m losing my own argument here about viewing tastes!!) was about human DNA. A group of people of different nationalities, of all religions and colours were asked to define who they were, what their nationality meant to them, what they thought about other nationalities. The views were unsurprising – The Englishman disliked the Germans, The Jewish person disliked the Palestinian, The Russian disliked Americans and so on. Then all of them were asked to submit their DNA for testing and the results were very interesting. The Englishman had 5% German in him, the Jewish person was 24% Palestinian and so it went on. In all cases no person was 100% of their own nationality. We are not who we think we are, we are particles of this earth, a celestial object of our ancestors from every nation on earth. I wonder if people would think the same about bombing and killing and invading other countries if they knew they had in fact distant relatives living there. Perhaps we should all be made do a DNA test. In the wake of the terrible loss of life in Turkey and Iraq, I wonder what light the human race is emitting now: is it infectious or infected? So yes indeed humans are luminous creatures but we are reflecting many colours in our light.

Just has to be done

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Wenqian Xu
System Administrator of Cybersmarties Ltd.

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.” – Bil Keane

Many people are always worried about something. For instance, in the morning people are worried about the heavy traffic which might cause them to be late for work; During work, people are worried about other people’s opinions and trying to guess what is on someone’s mind; After work, people are worried about choosing dinner. Even before sleep, people are still worried about sleeping in the next morning which will make them late for work etc. Such a life is like a “perfect” circle, if you get lost in it, it’s very hard to shake off.

“Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.” – Swedish Proverb

I myself had such an experience just in this month. At the beginning of June, I finally finished all my essential 12 lessons to obtain a full Irish driving license. It took quite a long time, almost every weekend. Although I hold a driving license in my home country of China, I needed to get used to driving on the left because I am used to driving on the right. For one hour each week, I tried to remember all the rules of the road (like how to enter a roundabout properly etc.). So, the only thing on my mind was to pass the driving test as soon as possible just in case I forget the skills and knowledge which I learnt from my driving instructor. Upon completion of my lessons I applied to sit my full driving test. However, after two weeks I heard nothing, no emails, no calls, nothing. So here was where the worrying started. At that time, I was starting to make lots of “strange” assumptions – Is something wrong with my application? Did I choose a wrong available date for the test? etc. After work, the first thing I did when I got back home was to check the RSA website, log in to my account and check my application status. To be honest, just looking back at it now, it reminds me of a quote from Leo Buscaglia –

“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”

So, what made me finally stop worrying was a talk with my boss – Diarmuid Hudner. Actually just one sentence which he usually says, simple but powerful –

“Just has to be done.”

Taking the above as an example, just thinking about passing the driving test is a thing which “just has to be done.” If something is wrong with my application, the driving test centre will eventually notify me to correct it. If I choose the wrong available date for a test, at least there are some days I can choose which would be suitable. According to the rules, when I get the test date, I still have 2 opportunities to reschedule for free. I also ask myself, is there anything I can do that I haven’t done? The answer is no. So, the only thing left is patience and leave it be.

This methodology also works in relation to everyday worries as discussed in my first paragraph. “Starting work on time” is a thing which just has to be done. Why not get up earlier or prepare everything the night before in order to save time in the morning? Furthermore, lots of research reveals that trying to read someone’s mind usually doesn’t work too well at all. So, why not communicate and ask what you want to ask? You might say it won’t be so easy in real life which I totally understand and agree with. But… at least it’s one way which can help us stop worrying and stay positive, isn’t it? And it works for me.

So, no more worries, things just have to be done. If something happens, find a solution to solve it. That’s it. Simple but powerful.

In the end, as a technical guy, it’s my first time to write something about psychology and methodology. Hope you like it and hope it helps you too. Thank you very much.

FEAR – False Evidence Appearing Real

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Diarmuid Hudner
CEO of Cybersmarties Ltd.

Recently I saw the above acronym for the word “Fear”. I thought it was very apt and how unfortunately most people experience fear without seeing it for what it is. Like power which I wrote about recently, Fear is also an illusion. Everyone experiences fear at some stage of their lives and the majority of us live with some form of it on a daily basis. Fear comes in many guises; fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of success, physical fear and social fear like a fear of public speaking or how we look. Fears do appear very real to us no matter how much of an illusion they are and they can be crippling, suffocating and draining. So what causes these fears and how are they overcome? The one common denominator between them is that something can be done to overcome them. All of us have negative behavioural habits based in fear. They govern the extent to which we live a fulfilling life or reach our full potential.

Negative Behavioural Habits are routines we have picked up over time, normally linked to something that has occurred in our lives, like we spoke in public once and everyone laughed. Others are those which are pre-conditioned from our upbringing. If our parents were very cautious, risk adverse people then it is likely that we would be too as we associate any type of risk with danger. Negative habits we have learned, however difficult can be broken. Positive behavioural triggers can be implemented to cause a reflex positive response instead of a negative one. It takes work and effort but the reward is greater than to live in fear.

Confidence and self-belief in my opinion is at the root of most of these fears and it begins when we were children. We learn a lot in school, the politics of friendship, the travesty of love scorned; school can be tough. How much different do you think your life would be today if your confidence had been boosted every day? Do you think you would have made different decisions in your life, better decisions? I believe I would certainly have made different life choices if I had been a more confident child. I would not have procrastinated and let opportunities slip away, would have attempted new things more often because I would not have been afraid of rejection or failure. Luckily I was later in a position which taught me how to change these negative habits into positive ones where fear no longer was in the driving seat but it took time and effort.

I think there is an onus on parents to ensure their children are as confident and self-reliant as they can possibly be. I think that is one of the gifts a parent can pass on to their children, not their own insecurities but rather to ensure their children have very few of them. Parents can’t rely on teachers to do this, it’s time we took ownership of that. At Cybersmarties we look after their online confidence, that’s all we do; protect them, keep them safe, fill them with confidence and teach them positive behavioural habits. We’re in this together.