Xomba and certainly Google AdSense Terms of Service (TOS) prohibit clicking your own ads, which certainly makes sense. Further, you cannot exhort anyone reading your article to click them either. Makes sense, too.

So, what other benefit can we derive from those wonderful hyperlinks that surround every article we submit here?

Well, for a short while now, I've begun paying attention to the different ads that end up around the articles I write. They range from the enticing to the just okay, but there are a lot of them.

When I am lacking in inspiration for new articles to write and nothing seems to grab me, I take a gander at the Google AdSense ads around the articles I read on here for ideas. Often, there will be something that "speaks" to me and I will use it as the nucleus of a new article. I don't click the ads unless I would find the information useful (and certainly not mine!), since doing so actually cheats the entity who is paying for the ad out of potential revenue.

It is all part of my ever-evolving philosophy that we go through life with blinders on and often miss opportunities because we are not open to looking at the details of anything that isn't on our mind at any given moment. If we make a conscious decision that we are going to pay attention to the details in our lives, we will open ourselves to actually living.

Try it and you will find that there are many opportunities right in front of you in the here and now.