Sharing Stories in a Broken Culture
In this deeply divided culture, how can we honor people in such as way as to weave with them our common narrative and show each other respect? How do we find common ground? Simon Hodges believes that respectful relationships are a prior condition for persuasion and argues that we have the power to shape a narrative, giving voice to the voiceless and respect to all, that can bring about positive s... posted on Sep 01 2017, 8,879 reads

Want to Innovate? Become a Now-ist
In 2011, Joi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab, had a need to understand what was happening with an earthquake in Japan, so he created a way to find that information. He lived and acted in the present. With the world moving so rapidly, a new approach to innovation was needed. Joi calls the people changing the method now-ists for living and working from the ground up. His TED Talk features his jou... posted on Aug 31 2017, 6,244 reads

How Gratitude Helps Us Grow
Gratitude has been repeatedly shown to improve our happiness, health, and relationships. Yet some critics suggest that it may lead to attitudes of selfishness and self-indulgence. Researchers from UC Riverside recently examined the evidence and found that gratitude in fact not only helps us feel good, but may even motivate us to pursue our goals and engage more with the world around us. Identifyin... posted on Aug 30 2017, 10,256 reads

Finding Joy: The Science of Happiness
We long to find more joy in our daily pursuits even though life has taught us it's not so easy. New discoveries in neuroscience offer insight into how we can develop a brighter state of heart and mind. Our choices are more than a temporary glitch in the brain, it turns out. Learn why it's better to sometimes allow love for the fractured and suffering humanity around and inside us to enter our busy... posted on Aug 29 2017, 20,357 reads

Defining Hope: A Tribute to Nurses
In 2012, photographer Carolyn Jones was commissioned to create The American Nurse Project, interviewing, filming, and photographing over 100 nurses across the U.S., after her own fight with breast cancer. She was inspired by her chemo nurse, Joanne Staha, who not only made her feel more normal during treatment, but reminded her that eventually she would heal and her life would go back to normal. O... posted on Aug 28 2017, 2,998 reads

Rebecca Solnit: On Breaking Silence
Human beings have a tendency to remain silent regardless of whether they need to utilize their voices. Rebecca Solnit sees how that tendency has harmed the women's movement. She quotes poets, inspirations, authors and more, including Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Audre Lorde, Elie Wiesel, Hannah Arendt and Laura Jackson. Rebecca believes and acknowledges that the quickest fix is to use our voices, noting t... posted on Aug 27 2017, 10,339 reads

Medicine Baba: When a Man Becomes a Movement
In the aftermath of a building collapse in East Delhi, India, that left some dead and more suffering, Omkar Nath Sharma felt helpless. Before his very eyes, people in pain, some dying, needed medicine but had no money. And the local hospital could not help. Then it struck him: maybe people had medicine in their homes that they no longer needed. Though he was 80 years old, he could walk, he could t... posted on Aug 26 2017, 2,338 reads

The Grace of Great Things
What if the goal of education becomes making visible and lifting up the souls of all those involved in the process? How might this way of reclaiming and re-grounding the learning-teaching relationship transform both the individual souls involved and the institutional souls of the systems themselves? Parker Palmer reflects on these and other profound questions with respect and grace in an article a... posted on Aug 25 2017, 16,012 reads

The Power of a Beginner's Mind
Picture this: A substitute teacher wearing a kimono and speaking Japanese to inner city students. Surprising? That was exactly the intention of Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu as he attempted to cultivate a "beginners mind" in his students. He asserts that the moment the unexpected is encountered, mindfulness begins without training. The attention is completely focused on the unknown, senses alert in th... posted on Aug 24 2017, 14,344 reads

How Do I Love Trees? Let Me Count the Ways...
Trees are interwoven into our existence in so many ways. They give us air to breathe, shade from sun, beautiful colors in the autumn, timber to build our homes, food to eat, paper to write on, and so much more. In this ode to our wooded friends,the team at Gratefulness.org have compiled a series of quotes, stories, poems, and photographs that delve deeper into our connection to trees. Going beyond... posted on Aug 23 2017, 28,497 reads