The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption

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At any time, there are about twenty posts queued up in my mind, waiting to be written. Sometimes, I do write them, but days after they were meant to. Sometimes, I tweet them instead, use 140 letters where I should have used a thousand words. Sometimes, I end up not writing them at all.

This is a post I almost didn’t write.

I was recently profiled in Indian daily Mid-Day for a story on how online and offline relationships have merged for young people in India —

I had given the interview almost six weeks before it was published, and, as I read through the interview, I was reminded that being a host is at the core of my social life, both online and offline.

The thing is, I’m not really naturally social. I’m often uncomfortable in large groups and I’m terrible at small talk. Over time, however, I have realized that I like being the host, that my preferred social style is to connect with people on a one-to-one basis, on my blog, or at my house parties.

Even though I know that I can’t satisfy everyone all the time, I try.

So, when I realized that the response to my offer to give away everything I own to one lucky reader of my blog wasn’t a unanimous “wow!”, I listened to constructive criticism from friends whose opinion I value, and made a few changes.

First, I realized that I was being presumptuous in thinking that my giving away everything I own will change someone’s life. Even though everything I own is, well, everything I own, I realized that it will only be second hand household stuff, even junk, for the person who wins it. So, instead of telling me “how my giving away my life will change your life”, you now need to tell me “what you will do with my stuff”. It will be great if you actually use everything, but it’s okay to sell it off or give it away, as long as you have an interesting story to tell.