There was once a frightening period in our history, my friend. It was a sad time (although we did wear colorful clothes…). You may have seen pictures of our past, though we shudder when we recall. It was a time when we used faxes (I’ll explain that word at a later date) as a speedy way to communicate, and even used paper that would yellow and dissolve quickly, though it was not a spy-esque mechanism … It was a time where people would actually stay home to watch a TV show they liked (OK, I’ll explain TV later too) or even wait a week or more for written correspondence.

And yes, there was a time before we had the “tubes” of the internet . And before social media. But you can put all those years of inefficiency and dismay behind you, because that time has passed.

So you are probably wondering how does social media improve my life? Here are just a few benefits:

1. Say Connected

At a recent conference , Cultural Anthropologist Grant McCracken pointed out that Facebook means your contacts are always warm. You’re always in touch with them in a subtle yet meaningful way. “This is communication with little hard, informational content, but lots of emotional and social content. Phatic communications doesn’t get much said, but it has social effects so powerful, it gets lots done .”

While you may not have seen that co-worker from a few years back, your newsfeed tells you what she’s been up to. Or you read that your friend is planning a trip to Boston so you decide to send her the email address for that couple you know who also enjoys Melanesian Throat Singing. And your Facebook status can inform business contacts that you’re “excited about the new job” – which subtly clues them in to the fact that you have changed workplaces - without any drama. And as Chris Brogan puts it, social networks can be as connective as a local pub .

2. Be More Productive

Or at least save some valuable time. Rather than sifting through mounds of paper or your desktop favourites , social bookmarking tools like del.icio.us and Ma.gnolia make finding and storing articles, posts, sites and videos easy and fluid.

3. Show off your assets (no not those, put those away!)

You have talent, so flaunt it! Youtube let’s you show the world your abilities (and sometimes lack thereof), while Strutta takes it into the ring. Fray invites you to tell a story and Moments asks you to collaborate on one. You can Be Funny (or Die) , or rock out while developing your fan base . There are even artist friendly marketplaces: sites like Pixish and Deviant Art facilitate the sale of creative work. And some artists use social media tools to make it happen on their own .

4. Smarty-Pants It Up

You know something about something. Even if it’s really nerdy stuff, there’s a place for you (or me – no finger pointing!). Demonstrate your expertise and provide others with (hopefully) useful info on your blog, with your comments on other blogs, or by responding to a problem on a crowdsourcing site (eg Innocentive ). You can even develop something new or redesign something old .

5. Help others

Support a cause? Social Media provides you with a myriad of tools to be part of a solution . Help spread the word get donations, organize gatherings and more.

Sorry, what was I saying? Oh, that’s only five, right. Right!……

6. Distract yourself with ease!

Never before has it been so easy to procrastinate. You can socialize, write, read, avoid work and put off your impending thesis … (Sorry, Beth, I couldn’t resist J) But hey, it’s social, man. And remember, you’re procrastinating on the cutting edge.

Monica Hamburg is a writer and social media evangelist in Vancouver, Canada. Her investigations and observations on social media, and its relation to business and connecting, form the basis of her blog, “ Me Like the Interweb ”.

Originally posted at PickTheBrain a weblog dedicated to self improvement and motivation .

When we create, we come alive; we’re making love to life. We use our unique talents, perception and skills and make the intangible tangible. Most of us generally know what we want in life. For every person, the answer to what brings us joy will be unique. For some it’s playing guitar or dancing. For others it’s writing, hiking, spending time with family, photography, or drawing.

So if we know what makes us feel alive, why do we resist it? Why do we avoid doing what we love to do?

I think there’s a number of reasons that can help us explain this elusive phenomenon. Hopefully in discovering the blocks toward pursuing what is dearest to us, we can overcome them.

So why do we resist?

1. The inability to accept imperfections. Do you think that Mona Lisa was Da Vinci’s first painting? We think, if it’s not perfect, why bother? But when we pursue the creative act, it’s crucial that we suspend judgment. After all, you can always cull the fluff and ridiculous later.

What to do instead? Resist your temptation to have everything figured out before you start. Failure is fundamental to the creative process. If you don’t fail, you’ll never improve. Suspend your judgment and remember that whatever you don’t like, you can always take out or re-do.

2. Not respecting the gestation of improvement. Say you have a passion for dancing. The only problem is, you’d make a blind man cry. Remember that mastery of any art or skill takes time. No one starts out being a natural Michael Jackson. And anyway, look what fame did to him. Are you sure you want that?

What’s a poor Napoleon Dynamite to do? Respect the fact that mastering any skill takes time. Instead of thinking about all the things that aren’t right, think about what you can do now to improve.

3. Not accepting your creative identity. All great artists, poets, musicians and creators, excelled by accepting their artistic identity. The truth is, we are all artists. We’re creating the story of our life in each moment. We’re not just humans living, we’re artists shaping a story. Accepting your identity as an artist is accepting your creative nature.

So how can we gain the confidence to accept out creative identity? The biggest block toward your acceptance of your creative nature is probably due to self-judgment. How can you possibly accept that you are a writer when you haven’t hit the bestseller list? While external affirmations are important, the approval of your heart is equally important. If you feel in your heart that you are born to be an athlete, but don’t have Magic Johnson’s skills, that’s okay. What matters is that you feel deeply in your heart that is what you want. It makes you come alive.

4. We’ve turned our passion into work. Anytime you feel that you must do something, you lose inspiration. You lose your sense of excitement. In our society and in general, we have a clearly separate work and play. “Work hard, play hard!” is a common motto people tell others to make them feel a little better about their drudgery. We don’t have to dread work, it’s a choice. That’s the problem when our passion has also become our work. We tend to think it’s our passion has become something we must do. There’s no fun in that.

What can we do to re-ignite our passion? We need to get our heart back in it. Spend 15 minutes just visualizing what you want to create. Think about how it makes you feel. How does it make your body feel? What excites you about it? Think about all the reasons you wanted to do it in the first place. If you feel the urge to start working on it, hold yourself back until the 15 minutes are over.

This a great tool for realigning yourself and remember the reason you started in the first place. Sometimes our mind tends to overpower the heart. It’s our logical faculty after all right? Using this exercise helps us re-align ourselves.

Lost in Space

The truth is, we’re often the most productive when what we’re doing has absolutely no purpose. We come alive when we’ve lost track of time, doing what we love.

Perhaps its not our weakness, but our greatness that we fear the most.