I will if you will: The next 60 minutes

Well first of all, Happy April Fools' Day to everyone. Every April 1st, it's been quite a practice for me to check on the official website of Blizzard Entertainment, the makers of Starcraft, Warcraft and Diablo franchises. This years joke, apparently, is a new product called Blizzard Kidzz, a host of educational games for kids. Blizzard hasn't admitted this yet, but it's pretty clear this is them fooling their visitors. It's a once-a-year affair after all. But what I really find enjoying about how their 'Warlocks' do it is the attention to detail, as if they spent months building the whole product suite to impress. It even gets to a point that I have this nagging thought that maybe it is real. Ingenious. Go ahead and find out more about their "new"product right here http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/blizzkidzz/.

Now to our topic.

Yesterday isn't exactly a typical day when I grabbed a few racks of my favorite ribs and typical potato sides with some friends at RUB along Scout Rallos, T. Morato. I hadn't eaten much during the day other than a bowl of cereal in the morning. I was starving. Admittedly, it was a tough late dinner because something was amiss--we were consuming it in darkness. Heck, I couldn't distinguish bone from meat! This ribs place was one among a good number of food joints who closed their lights between 8:30 to 9:30pm. Despite the hassle, it is easily one of the eat outs that I'd remember, more than those with all the lights on. Don't you agree? Because it felt warm all over. Not just because of the candle light, but it was great being in the dark among friends. And while that sentence sounded awfully creepy, let me tell you more about what the fuss is all about.

Every year, there's this massive event that has participants joining to consider a cause: shut off your lights for a full 60 minutes and expect others do the same. The annual event, dubbed the Earth Hour, went live a couple of years back when Sydney toyed with the idea, the first city in the world to do so. Fast forward to now, 150 countries across 6500+ cities and towns joined the cause last night. It is a record. Despite this, some critics argue that this activity does not make any significant dent towards energy reduction. They say that it should be more than 60 minutes for it to matter. They are right. But they are also wrong. They are right that this isn't helping as much to save energy. They are wrong because I think they misunderstood the exercise. Earth Hour teaches us that a great idea can go far-reaching if we believed. It tells us that if we do things collectively, we can change things. It is an exercise of pure inspiration, that's what this is about.

Alongside this annual tradition is a new campaign organized by WWF called 'I Will If You Will.' The objective is simple: turn it into a personal advocacy by going beyond the 60 minutes. So here's my pledge.

1. I will never buy groceries without a tote bag. No exceptions.
2. I will no longer buy disposable bottled water, except if it is a life or death situation.
3. I will support, activate and lead causes within my circle of influence. I will start with my workplace.

If I do this, what will you do? State them in the comments section below.

I Will If You Will!

It was great to take part again, similar to the actions of about 1.3 billion other people.

The United Nations HQ in New York (center) switches off for the Earth Hour.