the Net are worthy organizations devoted to children’s well-being, and the two are partners. But it’s a lot easier to see how your donation to Spread the Net will make an impact. And, sure enough, research we’ve conducted has found that when donors give money to Spread the Net, they get a bigger happiness boost than when they give money to UNICEF. As that finding suggests, people feel better about giving money when they can sense the real-world impact of their generosity. Knowing that we’re having an impact on someone else is another critical factor in transforming good deeds into good feelings. What’s more, enabling donors to see the specifi... posted on Nov 11 2013 (32,970 reads)

that is. With the advent of fMRI imaging and the proliferation of brain research, scientists have begun to find out more about how sadness works in the brain and influences our thoughts and behavior. Though happiness is still desirable in many situations, there are others in which a mild sad mood confers important advantages. Findings from my own research suggest that sadness can help people improve attention to external details, reduce judgmental bias, increase perseverance, and promote generosity. All of these findings build a case that sadness has some adaptive functions, and so should be accepted as an important component of our emotional repertoire. Here are some of the ways s... posted on Aug 29 2014 (28,796 reads)

in this destructive phase that is so terrifying. All the work I do in the world is an attempt to ease that passage. So the way I try to do that is by taking positive steps in every way I can. Counteracting the fear that we are all feeling with positive action with enjoyment and with pleasure and with change. One of the things that I have loved over the years with doing Daily Bread is that it’s very out there, in the world’s eye. So it attracts attention, and it also attracts generosity, partly because it itself is an act of generosity. Those who resonate with its generosity become generous in turn. Over the years, we’ve gotten offered some of the most amazing thi... posted on Oct 30 2014 (16,315 reads)

our neural pathways-- and our mental patterns can’t help but come along for the ride. "Pay Forward a Surprise Treat" was the kindness idea for Day 1. This student baked vegan donuts for her class, and initially, just placed them at the front of the room. But when others hesitated to help themselves, she took a flying leap out of her comfort zone. Walking to the front of the classroom, she began to hand out her homemade treats. For her it was an unprecedented gesture of generosity -- and it opened the door to a whole new world. Day after day, she stepped up her kind acts, and began to notice changes within. Not only was she happier and more attentive, but her whol... posted on Dec 19 2014 (26,892 reads)

such as Aung San Suu Ky, Dorothy Day, and Peace Pilgrim. Their lives exposed me to stories of possibility and along with that internship, I also learned about meditation. Together the two transformed me. Soon I learned about Service Space Awakin gatherings and I kept going back every Wednesday until slowly I started learning about Service Space. It all just felt right. By the end of that summer, Karma Kitchen reopened and it was such a joyful day for me to try and blow people away with generosity. It was a very different approach than my approach as a social justice activist. It felt very subtle and it was a way of making things peaceful in a very simple and intentional way. ... posted on Feb 17 2015 (20,959 reads)

loose phrase that captures the ability to listen, exert ourselves, cooperate with others, do our best, and stick to a task until we’ve done it right. They should do it at least one summer during high school. Or perhaps more: Some parents require their children to pay for a portion of their first year in college, even if the parents could write a check for it easily. 5. Teach kids the importance of giving Parents have an essential role to play in modeling generosity, and researchers have shown that if parents give, kids tend to as well. If you haven’t primed the pump of generosity with your kids by talking to them about your charitable giving, yo... posted on Mar 19 2015 (21,976 reads)

to affairs of the heart. […] What I really mean … is be passionate, fall madly in love with life. Be passionate about some part of the natural and/or human worlds and take risks on its behalf, no matter how vulnerable they make you. No one ever died saying, “I’m sure glad for the self-centered, self-serving and self-protective life I lived.” Offer yourself to the world — your energies, your gifts, your visions, your heart — with open-hearted generosity. But understand that when you live that way you will soon learn how little you know and how easy it is to fail. To grow in love and service, you — I, all of us — must value i... posted on Nov 3 2015 (59,632 reads)

than a decade after Greater Good first started reporting on the science of compassion, generosity, happiness—what we call “the science of a meaningful life”—the research in our field is acquiring ever more nuance and sophistication. New studies build on and even re-interpret findings from previous years, particularly as their authors use more exacting methods, with bigger and broader data sets, and consider additional factors to explain prior results. These nuances are clearly reflected in this year’s list of our Top 10 Insights from the Science of a Meaningful Life—the fourth such list compiled by Greater Good’s editors. Indeed, many of this... posted on Jan 7 2016 (18,384 reads)

was recently the recipient of an incredible act of anonymous kindness. It came from out of nowhere, at exactly the right time.  The magnitude of the gift moved me to tears, and I was so grateful and profoundly moved by the generosity of my unknown benefactor.  But I was also sure there had been a mistake. In the midst of this beautiful act, I am ashamed to admit that I was momentarily overcome by feelings of unworthiness.  I simply couldn’t believe I was deserving of such radical kindness.  Had I been face to face with my benefactor, I would have given them 100 reasons why they “shouldn’t have”, attempting to convince them that they wer... posted on Oct 16 2016 (13,533 reads)

days thereafter, $5 checks went out to 150 families across the town. Today, $5 doesn’t sound like much, but back then it was more like $100. For many, it was more money than they had seen in months. So stunning was the offer that it was featured in a front-page story in the newspaper, and word of it spread a hundred miles.” Read here how the grandson of the mysterious B. Virdot discovered this exceptional legacy and did his own sleuthing to discover how his grandfather’s generosity affected its beneficiaries. Secret Agent L. “For the past year, Laura Miller has been living a double life of sorts: administrative assistant by day, secret agent of kindness by... posted on Dec 13 2016 (14,126 reads)

different forms. And ServiceSpace is like the magnet that the metal filings can orient to. It helps inform why we do what we do when we acknowledge that we're at the edge of humanity. It reminds me of a tour guide when you got to another country -- and the tour guide has a little flag which guides people where to go to. Shifting our perception of what it means to be human is, I think, the most powerful we can do. When I was thinking about the impact of ServiceSpace's essence of generosity and service, I see it as ripples of kindness. ServiceSpace has encapsulated the fundamental idea that while you can count the number of seeds in an apple you can't count the number of a... posted on Oct 25 2018 (5,394 reads)

understand as well.” Bhoodan’s primary contribution was in demonstrating to the world that our strong assumptions about human nature being primarily exploitative are incomplete. People everywhere do respond to selfless love. Yes, they can fall back into hatred, but if love is nurtured and valued as the bedrock of a community, then seemingly impossible solutions become possible. Vinoba has given us a compelling invitation to try the unthinkable — trust our own generosity and that of others. He did not give us cookie-cutter answers. But he did show that when we walk our talk with authenticity, amazing things happen. Things we cannot possibly anticipate. When... posted on Jun 18 2018 (13,256 reads)

trigger pro social behavior through the messages and commitments of our society. As individuals, we can put our fingers on the scale of the collective good—which is really not the opposite of the individual good because everything we use or rely upon comes from so many sources that the collective good is our individual good. P: Does the emphasis of spiritual practice have to change now to keep the global picture and our impact in mind? JR: Every spiritual tradition has a lineage of generosity. But what we really have to do is to shift our behavior. At Garrison Institute, we have a program called Climate, Mind, and Behavior, in which we look at how we behave and how we shift. One... posted on Jul 14 2018 (9,185 reads)

mothers who needed furniture. When school began the next year, she was at it again, donating reams of school supplies she had collected from businesses and individuals. “Everything was being done out of my home when I started,” Ramirez says. Recognizing her efforts, the property manager of an abandoned local storefront gave her use of the facility. That’s when her charitable acts became a community shop—Detroiters Helping Each Other (DHEO)—where kindness and generosity, not money, is the currency of exchange. Their motto: Teamwork makes the dream work. “I would love to see us not need this anymore,” she says. “In the meantime it&rs... posted on Aug 21 2018 (5,900 reads)

Viola has called it ‘the best book I have read on what it means to be an artist in today’s economic world.’ Robin McKenna is the writer, director and producer of a new feature-length documentary inspired by Hyde’s bestseller. Her film, GIFT, takes us to settings as varied as the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, a potlatch ceremony in British Columbia, and an art museum in Melbourne, to explore some contemporary ways of being where artistic expression and generosity of spirit have primacy. A celebration of ‘gift culture’ and the positive impact of sharing on the individual psyche as well as the collective, GIFT offers a welcome antidote... posted on May 23 2019 (5,375 reads)

that’s what my life is about.”   TS: So, I think for a lot of people, there’s a sense of, I’ve given over a portion of my heart to this, but I’ve kept a little portion over here that’s in reserve. I’m not really giving it over exactly. I’m just going to keeping it over here for times when I might need it for myself, something like that. What do you think about that?   SS: Well, I think that’s the quandary of generosity. Do we ever end up with less through giving? That’s something to check out. That’s the experiment. Are we depleted? Are we bereft? If so, it really wasn’t generosity, or w... posted on Apr 8 2022 (2,631 reads)

this question that Brother Orland, and this is why I spoke about co-learning here, asked. What happens when we outlive, we grow bigger than our lives, so to speak? What happens then? What’s the ritual for that? And then I wrote that down just now, and I heard myself saying to myself that that’s where the crack is. That’s where something outside, so to speak, something parabolic passes and breaks the ritual. And then the invitation is, experiment here. This is the space of generosity and generativity and experiment. Resmaa, you’re shaking, you’re into it? Resmaa Menakem: That’s it, that’s it. Bayo Akomolafe: Right? This is... posted on Jul 3 2023 (2,088 reads)

into a remarkable incubator for dozens of gift-economy projects, touching millions of people. While the external impact of these projects is tremendous, what is most striking is the fact that ServiceSpace doesn't fundraise, has no staff, and remains 100% volunteer run. Everyone involved is driven simply by a volition to grow in service. In a world dominated by financial incentives that appeal to a mindset of consumption, ServiceSpace is a counterculture invitation to engage in small acts of generosity, continually shifting the mindset towards one of inspired contribution. It's a beautiful fact that in practicing kindness, we can't help but deepen our understanding of how inner and outer... posted on Dec 27 2011 (37,503 reads)

deeds are contagious We naturally imitate the people around us, we adopt their ideas about appropriate behavior, and we feel what they feel. Acts of charity are no exception. In our 2010 generosity experiment, we showed that every extra dollar of giving in a game designed to measure altruism caused people who saw that giving to donate an extra twenty cents. 2. The network acts like a matching grant That same experiment showed that contagious generosity spreads up to three steps through the network (from person to person to person to person), and when we added up all the extra donations that resulted at every step, we found that an ... posted on Mar 21 2012 (46,042 reads)

generously  gave us water when we were extremely thirsty -- only to later discover that she had to walk 10 kilometers at 4AM to get that one bucket of water. These people knew how to give, not because they had a lot, but because they knew how to love life.  They didn’t need any credit or assurance that you would ever return to pay them back.  Rather, they just trusted in the pay-it-forward circle of giving. When you come alive in this way, you'll realize that true generosity doesn’t start when you have some thing to give, but rather when there’s nothing in you that’s trying to take.  So I hope that you will make all your precious moments ... posted on May 14 2012 (391,880 reads)