I can confidently say reading blogs has made me a better person. The collection of blogs that I have organized in my Google Reader have become my "ideal newspaper": tree-friendly, inspirational and educational.

Less paper = more trees

Did you know that every year, hundreds of millions of trees are cut down in Canada to make millions of metric tonnes of paper for North America’s newspapers? Don’t even get me started on flyers & junkmail. Online news feeds has made for millions of informed people and happy trees.

Engaged learning

I grimace at the thought of reading long, verbose articles. Consequently, l love blogs that organize useful information in a way that’s fun to read. I dig bloggers that communicate their expertise efficiently & with a touch of humour. They use their blogs to share what they know and to engage in conversations. This is my favourite way to learn - engaged Q & A. The learning may begin with an informative blog post - but then it evolves into a stimulating discussion with people of diverse backgrounds, levels of experience & points of view.

Inspiring positivity

I often forget the good that’s in the world, especially when I watch TV news or read a newspaper. More often than not, this type of news makes me feel depressed and squashes my faith in humanity.  To balance things out I subscribe to inspiring blogs. Blogs that keep my mind fresh with possibility and that inspire me to live and love more fully. Here’s a link to a great personal development blog - The Positivity Blog.

For some timely inspiration, check out this video (of President Obama’s acceptance speech) from The Blog for World Peace.