Where Poetry Comes From
"I think poetry always comes out of what you don't know. And with students I say, knowledge is very important. Learn languages. Read history. Read, listen, above all, listen to everybody. Listen to everything that you hear. Every sound in the street. Every bird and every dog and everything that you hear. But know all of your knowledge is important, but your knowledge will never make anything. It w... posted on May 25, 5020 reads

Raising Kids to be Less Stuff-Centered
"Too often, we turn to acquiring stuff to meet our emotional, social, recreational and other needs. This consumer-mania isn't good for our resource-stressed planet, isn't good for our family budgets and ultimately doesn't work. We have more stuff than previous generations could have dreamed of, but we also have less leisure time, fewer friends and spend less time with our kids." Annie Leonard, aut... posted on Aug 14, 10294 reads

Bill Moyers: Naomi Shihab Nye
Renowned poet Naomi Shihab Nye writes about button-hooks, onions and her grandmother's tea. Her poems speak of ordinary things -- things we take for granted until it's almost too late. For her poetry is a "conversation with the world, conversation with those words on the page, allowing them to speak back to you -- conversation with yourself." The daughter of a Palestinian father and an American mo... posted on Jul 7, 5514 reads

Forgiving Her Son's Killer
It would be easy for Mary Johnson and Oshea Israel to be enemies -- he killed Johnson's only son. But their first face-to-face conversation took a remarkable turn. "You were not that 16-year-old. You were a grown man. I shared with you about my son." At the end of their meeting at the prison, Johnson was overcome by emotion. "The initial thing to do was just try and hold you up as best I can," Isr... posted on May 23, 5207 reads

Using Soccer to Turn it Around
Lisa Wrightsman used soccer to turn her life around, and now she's using it to help others do the same. Wrightsman was in a semipro league, but later succumbed to drugs, alcohol, homelessness and jail. Last year, however, she entered a Volunteers of America recovery program and discovered their street soccer program. With soccer as her pivot, she made a big shift in her own life, and then saw the ... posted on Jul 29, 4025 reads

100 Places to Go Before They Disappear
Last year, global carbon emissions hit a record high, and the latest science tells us that we're almost certainly locked into roughly 2 degrees Celsius (or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming. It might not sound like much, but 2 degrees Celsius will redraw maps, change landscapes, and force cities to deploy aggressive adaptation measures. A new book by Abrams Books, 100 Places to Go Before They Dis... posted on Jun 4, 15035 reads

Female Auto Mechanic Breaks Stereotypes
Aside from a thin coat of powder, there's nothing superficial about 32-year-old Sarah "Bogi" Lateiner. Big-hearted and brilliant, Bogi graduated Phi Beta Kappa and did it in three years with a double major in pre-law and women's studies. Her plan was to go to law school and become a champion for women on a global scale. Although in the end, she decided to go with her plan B, instead. "I had in my ... posted on Jun 10, 5557 reads

5 Classic Commencement Speeches
It's graduation season, so commencement addresses by actors, politicians, writers, musicians and other luminaries are sweeping the world of higher education, sharing advice ranging from the humorous to the profound. Even for those of us that aren't students, it becomes an opportunity to reflect on the most compelling, provocative and deeply inspirational speeches of years past. This article highl... posted on Jun 14, 15541 reads

The Reading Promise: An Extraordinary Father-Daughter Story
When Alice Ozma was in the fourth grade, her family was going through a rough patch. Her parents had just split up, and her older sister had recently left for college. Ozma was suddenly spending a lot more time alone with her dad, Jim Brozina, an elementary school librarian. So Ozma and her father made a pledge: to read together every single night for 100 days. But after 100 days, they just kept g... posted on Jun 19, 4675 reads

Soap That Saves Lives
Perhaps he noticed because his father was a soapmaker in Uganda. When Derreck Kayongo learned how much soap was thrown away by hoteliers in the US, and that 2 million children die each year due to a lack of santitation, he decided to do something about it. He started Global Soap Project. Volunteers across the U.S. collect the hotel soaps and ship them to the group's warehouse in Atlanta. On Saturd... posted on Jun 22, 3125 reads

The Blind Man Who Taught Himself To See
Daniel Kish has been sightless since he was a year old. Yet he can mountain bike, navigate the wilderness alone, and recognize a building as far away as 1,000 feet. How? The same way bats can see in the dark. Since his infancy, he has been adapting to his blindness in remarkable ways. He has learned to use what he calls "Flashsonar," or echolocation. He produces a brief, sharp click with his tongu... posted on Jul 5, 9829 reads

9 Interviews with Creative Visionaries
"I love a good interview. To me, there's nothing so useful for demystifying the creative process as hearing an artist or entrepreneur speak from a very personal perspective about how, and why, they do what they do. This weekend, I combed through my archive of epic and inspiring interviews and came up with this shortlist. Straight talk from Ernest Hemingway, Dieter Rams, Patti Smith, Steve Jobs, An... posted on Jul 13, 14935 reads

High Schooler Pays Forward $40,000
They wanted to show kids in Compton, CA, one of the most dangerous cities in America, how to create community spirit, and so organizers put on a basketball contest for top academic students. But following a tear-jerking gesture from the winner -- it appears the true lessons learned were by the adults. Senior Allen Guei won in front of a packed house. And three months after winning the $40,000 top ... posted on Jul 8, 14453 reads

The Power of Feedback Loops
The premise of a feedback loop is simple: provide people with information about their actions in real time, then give them a chance to change those actions, pushing them toward better behaviors. Why does putting our own data in front of us somehow compel us to act? In part, it's that feedback taps into something core to the human experience, even to our biological origins. Like any organism, human... posted on Aug 1, 5994 reads

How He Crossed the Finish Line
In 1992, Derek Redmond was running the race of his life -- the 400-meter dash at the Summer Olympics. In the previous Olympics, he was forced to withdraw 10 minutes before the race due to an Achilles injury but now he was he was ready and heavily favored to medal. His father was in the stands cheering. The race began and 175 meters into it, he pulled his hamstring muscle and collapsed on the groun... posted on Jul 19, 7344 reads

Secrets to Longevity
They say that the key to a long life is eating well, exercising regularly and reducing stress. Now an eight-decade study indicates that this is only part of the equation. The Longevity Project tracked the lives of 1,500 boys and girls to explain how factors such as social connections, personality and marriage affect long-term health. The results flipped traditional logic on it's head. "Take dispos... posted on Aug 10, 17309 reads

The 3 Stages of Generosity
How do you think about generosity? In this recent TEDx Talk, Nipun Mehta shares his experiences with generosity, broken down into three stages: Give, Receive, and Dance! When you give, you find that the compassion felt around you is contagious and it, in turn, creates a community. When you receive, you discover abundance, you realize generosity exists in so many different ways. And finally, when y... posted on Aug 9, 5220 reads

Friendship Balloons
When 9 year old Sara-Beth Martin let out red balloons in her send-off party a week before her second heart surgery, little did she know that one of them will travel 180 miles to reach 8 year old Reanna -- struggling with troubles of her own. The balloons carried a simple request of praying for Sara for her successful surgery. Reanna knew adversity and pain herself -- she lost her mother to cervica... posted on Sep 18, 3273 reads

7 Ways to Have More by Owning Less
Stuff. We invariably accumulate it and often times develop a certain emotional attachment to it. To some extent, it's the effect of increased marketing, but it is also our own conditioning. Fortunately, new digital platforms and cloud-based tools are making it increasingly easy to have many of the things we want without actually owning them. Because, as Wired founder and notable futurist Kevin Kel... posted on Aug 11, 92224 reads

Her Heart Was Bigger Than This Room
It is a tragic story, but one that touches and inspires. For her 9th birthday, instead of getting presents for her, Rachel Beckwith asked loved ones to donate to charity:water, a nonprofit bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Her goal was $300, enough to give 15 children access to clean water, but she only got to $220. A month later, tragedy struck, when her fami... posted on Aug 17, 10921 reads

A Morning When Everything Fell Into Place
"I finally found a Motel 6 about twenty-five miles east. When I got there around 11pm, from the cars and people I saw -- it was still warm outside, maybe 85 degrees -- I got the impression I was deep in gang territory. A young couple checking in at the office counter ahead of me added to this impression. I was nervous and felt out of place, but ended up getting a good night's sleep. In the morning... posted on Aug 26, 12026 reads

Dogs with Custom Wheelchairs Inspire Rehab Patients
Cruising in their custom wheelchairs, Chili and Arlo are the center of attention wherever they go. But for patients at the Baylor Institute for Rehabilitation in Dallas, these two canine caregivers are also an inspiration. "Many of the patients are new to wheelchairs," Linda Marler, the program's director told TODAY.com. "When they see Chili and Arlo, they say, 'If those dogs can do it, so can I.'... posted on Sep 7, 10335 reads

Unexpected Gestures of Compassion
"Through some incredible good luck no one was seriously hurt but the experience was very frightening. There was so much smoke that my first thought was to just get out of my car as fast as I could. I could hear the children from the car behind me screaming and crying as I was trying to claw my way out of my car. When I got out, I could see their mum was frantically trying to comfort her shaking c... posted on Sep 22, 4283 reads

Recycling Soap and Saving Lives
That bar of soap you used once or twice during your last hotel stay might now be helping poor children fight disease. Derreck Kayongo and his Atlanta-based Global Soap Project collect used hotel soap from across the United States. Instead of ending up in landfills, the soaps are cleaned and reprocessed for shipment to impoverished nations such as Haiti, Uganda, Kenya and Swaziland. "I was shocked ... posted on Oct 1, 4097 reads

Connected: Love, Death, & Technology
"From the beginning of time, every new technological advancement has brought with it a complex mix of positive and negative repercussions as well as unintended consequences. I set out to make a film that addresses the potential of our twenty-first-century technologies and the importance of harnessing their powers. I also wanted to examine what can happen when these new technologies take over and s... posted on Oct 3, 21424 reads

National Treasures: Wild Horses, Wild Kids
Jean Albert Renaud sleeps in a barn. His bedroom shares a wall with the stall of a stallion named Incitatus. On winter nights, he can hear the wind whistling across the hills, but Renaud (or Jar, as he is known) is warm in the company of his eight horses. He sleeps there because he wants to. Jar's life has never been conventional, but today it is focused on his noblest effort yet -- preserving and... posted on Oct 4, 7990 reads

How to Live a Single-Tasking Life
Multi-tasking is no longer about being productive -- it's a way of living. It's not a sane way of living, however, and it's not necessarily the most effective way of working either. Imagine instead, a single-tasking life. Imagine waking and going for a run, as if running were all you do. Nothing else is on your mind but the run, and you do it to the very best of your abilities. Then you eat, enjoy... posted on Oct 5, 39837 reads

The Art of Seeing
Something happened to successful artist Jane Rosen when she came to California -- something that changed the trajectory of her work. "The exposure to the beauty of the place -- the coast, the hills, the redwoods -- made a deep impression. One day, as she stepped out of her house, she looked up and saw a red-tailed hawk soaring above her. "As I stood looking up at the hawk, in a voice as clear as d... posted on Oct 9, 6489 reads

25 Insights on Becoming a Better Writer
Today, writing well is more important than ever. Far from being the province of a select few as it was in Hemingway's day, writing is a daily occupation for all of us -- in email, on blogs, and through social media. It is also a primary means for documenting, communicating, and refining our ideas. As essayist, programmer, and investor Paul Graham has written, "Writing doesn't just communicate idea... posted on Oct 13, 34093 reads

Why Do Some People Learn Faster
Why are some people so much more effective at learning from their mistakes? A new study by Jason Moser at Michigan State University is premised on the fact that there are two distinct reactions to mistakes, both of which can be reliably detected using EEG. The first reaction is called error-related negativity (ERN). It appears about 50 milliseconds after a screw-up and is mostly involuntary. The s... posted on Oct 19, 13538 reads

Becoming a Presence Activist
"A friend of mine is visiting from out of town and staying in East Oakland, in an area that's infamous for its gang violence and unrest. This friend happens to be a monk. He shaves his head and dresses in the traditional brown robes of his monastic order -- not the kind of person who blends easily into the background. Having spent many years making compassion a conscious practice, his response to ... posted on Oct 18, 22841 reads

Secrets of the 100-yr-old Marathoner
Most people hang up their boots as they get older, but Fauja Singh only began running in his eighties. At the age of 94, he ran a full marathon in less than 5 hours, but on 16 Oct 2011, at the age of 100, he still has it in him. Singh did what no other person has done: he became the oldest person and the first centenarian to finish a marathon. Along the way, he's received sponsorship deals, but he... posted on Oct 21, 42316 reads

A Case Study of Anonymous Giving
"Giver Girl" and her husband "Giver Boy" came up with a simple yet powerful idea: donating $52 to a different charity every week for a year. After each experience, they post their moving reflections, invite others to join in, and maintain total anonymity. The brilliance of their project is captured in a week when they spontaneously decide to make that week's gift a $52 tip to a waitress serving th... posted on Oct 25, 15789 reads

The Decision-Making Flaw in Powerful People
The decisions made by powerful people in business and other fields have far-reaching effects on their organizations and employees. But new research finds a link between having a sense of power and having a propensity to give short shrift to a crucial part of the decision-making process: listening to advice. Power increases confidence, researchers say, which can lead to an excessive belief in one's... posted on Oct 26, 11183 reads

An Amazon Tour Guide's Inspiring Story
Nearly 21 years ago, Patty Webster landed her dream job as an adventure tour guide in the Peruvian Amazon. But as she shared the area's beauty and culture with tourists, she realized there was a darker side to the rainforest paradise. "I saw how poor they were and realized that people were dying because they didn't have medical care," Webster said. She started sharing her supplies with the locals ... posted on Nov 7, 3803 reads

8 Approaches to Simplicity
Uncluttered, Ecological, Family, Compassionate, Soulful, Business, Civic, Frugal. According to Duane Elgin, author of the classic 'Voluntary Simplicity,' these eight words constitute distinct aspects of simplicity. "As these eight approaches illustrate, the growing culture of simplicity contains a flourishing garden of expressions whose great diversity -- and intertwined unity -- are creating a re... posted on Nov 10, 19185 reads

When Generosity Meets Venture Capital
What happens when someone who has spent much of his life on volunteerism and generosity keynotes an event for venture capitalists and entrepreneurs? "My instructions for the talk were: don't be humble, talk about scale. I actually laughed out on the phone, when I heard that, only to realize that it wasn't a joke. The other keynote was a billionaire, who had invented 33 medical devices and held 150... posted on Nov 14, 34438 reads

Is This a Business or an Art Project?
"To call Robert Fogarty an accidental entrepreneur is a bit of an understatement. If you haven't heard of Fogarty's Dear World, a venture that grew out of a not-for-profit fundraiser called Dear New Orleans, it's likely to hit your radar screen soon. He's a photographer whose striking portraits feature people with heartfelt messages written on their hands, arms, and faces in black marker. The imag... posted on Nov 27, 3987 reads

Need to Create? Get a Constraint
"One of the many paradoxes of human creativity is that it seems to benefit from constraints. Although we imagine the imagination as requiring total freedom, the reality of the creative process is that it's often entangled with strict conventions and formal requirements. Pop songs have choruses and refrains; symphonies have four movements; plays have five acts; painters still rely on the tropes of ... posted on Nov 21, 6809 reads

A 15-yr-old Dog's Gift
"I have the pleasure of meeting hundreds of incredible heroes, but this one caught me off guard. Your hair will stand on end as you read the story of this man and this dog who picked one another up time and time again: 'I saw in the front yard what appeared to be a very old dog that was in obvious distress. He would walk in a semi-circle, then fall to the ground, then struggle back to his feet a... posted on Nov 19, 107526 reads

Attitude of Gratitude
Cultivating an "attitude of gratitude" has been linked to better health, sounder sleep, less anxiety and depression, higher long-term satisfaction with life and kinder behavior toward others, including romantic partners. A new study shows that feeling grateful makes people less likely to turn aggressive when provoked. How to practice gratitude? Research shows that those who keep a simple gratitude... posted on Nov 24, 6212 reads

If You Want to Be a Rebel, Be Kind
The night before, Pancho Ramos Stierle heard about growing tensions in the community and thought, "If police are stepping up their violence, we need to go and step up our nonviolence." So on that Monday morning at 3:30AM, Pancho and his housemate Adelaja went to the site of the Occupy Oakland raid. With an upright back and half-lotus posture, they started meditating. The photos of Pancho meditat... posted on Nov 29, 166493 reads

Honesty Paid Off For Dave
About a year ago, a homeless man in Arizona found a bag full of cash and made a fateful decision: he returned it. 49-year-old Dave Tally was in debt, unemployed, had lost his driver's license for DUI violations, sleeping on a mat when he found $3,300 at a local light-rail station. When he returned it to its owner, a college kid, the gratitude and kindness of the kid touched him. "He hadn't had... posted on Dec 1, 5642 reads

An Old Japanese Love Warrior
"This so enraged the drunk that he grabbed the metal pole at the center of the car and tried to wrench it out of its stanchion. I could see that one of his hands was cut and bleeding. The train lurched ahead, the passengers frozen with fear. I stood tip. I was young and in pretty good shape. I stood six feet, weighed 225. I'd been putting in a solid eight hours of aikido training every day for the... posted on Dec 8, 43460 reads

The Never-Ending Story
In 2006, Jonathan Harris and a colleague launched We Feel Fine, a project that took the Web's emotional pulse by culling personal data from blogs. It was the first of several groundbreaking websites that Harris helped to create, and the project attracted widespread attention. In the following years, however, Harris began to feel like a voyeur. Determined to find a more open, transparent way to cha... posted on Dec 18, 3757 reads

A Eulogy For My Mother
"For the first 58 years of my life, I would have to say that my relationship to my mother was a complex and difficult one. She was a huge personality, full of great passions, creativity, rages, and generosity. I remember saying to friends that I loved my mother in small doses, but that she didn't come in small doses. She was a force of nature." Celebrated filmmaker Mickey Lemle has shared the stor... posted on Jan 3, 0 reads

The Sniper and the Trumpet Song
Two weeks after D-Day, Col. Jack Leroy Tueller's made a decision to play his trumpet. The last remaining German sniper threatening his unit was so moved that he couldn't shoot, and surrendered the next morning. By choosing to play "his love song" Jack had sensed the fear and loneliness in that sniper, and had recognized that he too had that within himself. Now 90 years old, in this two minute vide... posted on Jan 2, 4497 reads

Ben Davis Keeps His Promise To Meemaw
One van. One father. One son. Thirty-one cities. 30,724 pounds lost among 1,516 participants. 1,255,740 views on YouTube. When Ben Davis makes a promise to his Meemaw, he means business. It was Christmas Eve of 2008 when Ben's grandmother expressed her concern for him simply by asking whether he was happy. "I was 360 pounds," Ben told me. "I was in a deep depression, I had lost a relationship as a... posted on Jan 4, 11966 reads

Benefits of Rising Early -- and How to Do It
"Recently, reader Rob asked me about my habit of waking at 4:30 a.m. each day, and asked me to write about the health benefits of rising early, which I thought was an excellent question. Unfortunately, there are none, that I know of. However, there are a ton of other great benefits. Now, let me first say that if you are a night owl, and that works for you, I think that's great. There's no reason t... posted on Jan 8, 169036 reads

A Cookie Giving Experiment in New York City
"At around 12:30 AM Thursday morning, I began my expedition to give out cookies to strangers in NYC. I first offered a cookie to the front desk security guard; he looked in the bag and took the biggest cookie he could find and said thank you. I thought, "Well that's the biggest cookie in the bag, that's a bit selfish." Nonetheless, I smiled and was happy to give him a cookie. Lesson 1: I noticed m... posted on Jan 20, 5241 reads