Smiles for the Morning Commute
"If people think I'm crazy, I don't care." Arms spread wide, feet tapping and hips swaying, Erica "Happy Lady" McElrath of St. Louis greets daily commuters on the street corner while rocking to the beat of her headphones. McElrath, who lost her full-time job in January, now spends her days doing what she loves: dancing in the street. "I don't want money. I come out here to make people smile." Her ... posted on Dec 17, 10086 reads

Beyond the Known Territory
Sean McNiff, who's an art therapist, says in his book, Art and Medicine, "The commercial art world is allied with a particular set of economic values, and we make an error when we perceive this context to be the exclusive, or the highest, realm of art." That speaks to something I found it very difficult not to feel hampered by. The market side of art, art as a commodity, kind of rules the experien... posted on Dec 24, 1976 reads

Tiny House Movement
As Americans downsize in the aftermath of a colossal real estate bust, a small but growing number of Americans are buying or building homes that could fit inside many people's living rooms. "It's very un-American in the sense that living small means consuming less," says Jay Shafer, co-founder of the Small House Society. "Living in a small house like this really entails knowing what you need to be... posted on Dec 26, 2690 reads

Compassion Caught on a Late-Night Train
One act of kindness that befell British writer Bernard Hare in 1982 changed him profoundly. Then a student living just north of London, he spins the story of himself during a young, troubled, and disrupted time in life. "... my mother was in hospital and not expected to survive the night. "Get home, son," my dad said. I got to the railway station to find I'd missed the last train. A train was goin... posted on Jan 15, 15111 reads

How to Change the World While Traveling
In 1989, while touring India, Marc Gold found himself "thunderstruck" when he realized he could save a woman from a deadly ear infection by paying the $1 for her antibiotics. "I thought you had to be wealthy to do such things," he recalls. Since then, Gold has trekked through Asia, handing out money to the needy in amounts as little as 50 cents and rarely exceeding $500. In Vietnam, a small donati... posted on Dec 30, 4588 reads

Habits May Be Good for You
For years, Dr. Val Curtis has been persuading people in the developing world to wash their hands habitually with soap. Meanwhile, researchers at Duke and Cornell universities were examining how often smokers quit while vacationing and how much people eat when their plates are deceptively large or small. Those and other studies revealed that as much as 45 percent of what we do every day is habitual... posted on Jan 11, 4000 reads

The Man Who Doesn't Ask for Money
During a two-week period of "self-chosen exile", Vinod Sreedhar made a radical commitment to himself: no more price tags on his work. Everything would be offered as a gift, and he would accept whatever came back his way. After the initial "noble high" of this major life decision subsided, questions rushed in. How will I make a living now? Am I setting myself up to be taken advantage of? After near... posted on Jan 31, 7063 reads

The Best Place for a Break
In the age of multi-tasking, constant communication, and overwhelming stimuli, studies show that a 20 minute walk helps refocus our minds and revive our spirits. Researchers explain, "Nature engages your attention in relaxed fashion- leaves rustling, patterns of clouds, sunsets, a bird, the shape of an old tree. It captures our attention in subtle, bottom-up ways and allows our top-down attention ... posted on Jan 24, 5914 reads

The Blanket of Laughter Cure
About two years ago, LuAnn Kessi started a group called Living Well with Cancer and Healing Through Quilting. The Harlan resident has three aunts who are cancer survivors, and all had been making things to sell to raise money for cancer research. But she felt moved to do more. "You knew that you were doing something good, but we just wanted to help in a more personal way," she said. So she decided... posted on Jan 27, 2806 reads

How Meditation May Change the Brain
"Over the holidays, my husband went on a silent meditation retreat. He said the experience was so transformational that he has committed to meditating for two hours daily, one hour in the morning and one in the evening. He's running an experiment to determine whether and how meditation actually improves the quality of his life," one NY Times contributor writes. Scientists say that meditators like ... posted on Feb 11, 5654 reads

Intelligence That Transcends the GRE
Was Albert Einstein a wise man because of his intelligence? Did Mother Teresa's spirituality make her wise? These are the type of questions that UC San Diego researchers are trying to answer in a new study that attempts to define the abstraction we call wisdom. According to their findings, wisdom is not limited to a high IQ quotient or moral righteousness, but is a form of advanced cognitive and ... posted on May 3, 6862 reads

Change Your Life with a Thank-You Note
It all started three years ago. John Kralik's life was really going down the tubes, personally and professionally, when one day, while walking, he heard an inner voice telling him to start writing thank you notes. So he sent a note of appreciation to his daughter's piano teacher. And then to the woman who cuts his hair. And the barista at the coffee shop, just for trying to remember his name. By t... posted on Feb 19, 12200 reads

The Power of Touch
A pat on the back, a caress of the arm--these are everyday, incidental gestures that we usually take for granted. But after years spent immersed in the science of touch, University of California, Berkeley, psychology professor Dacher Keltner has found that the power of touch is much more profound than we usually realize. In this Greater Good magazine essay, he argues that touch is our primary lang... posted on Feb 24, 43938 reads

There's a Farm in the Front Yard
"I'm 57," Michael says. "Started at 26. And we're just barreling along! If I have to work 7 days a week, I'll do it." Back when Michael and Bob started 30 years ago, there wasn't much about urban agriculture around. Soon, City Farmer had hundreds of pages of original urban agriculture research online, before anyone else did. Today, City Farmer is now Canada's Office of Urban Agriculture, and their... posted on Mar 24, 3138 reads

How to Deliver the Speech of Your Life
Sweaty palms, trembling knees, that feeling of butterflies in the pit of your stomach. Whether you're at a job interview, standing in front of a class, or keynoting a conference, speaking in public can be intimidating. In fact, statistics have shown that people fear it more than death. But is it really that bad? Dan Pallotta used to think so. After a few years of doing it more, something changed.... posted on Mar 14, 9992 reads

Free Music Lessons Build A Priceless Community
Every day, 120 students from the inner city, the suburbs and the rolling hills come to Scrollworks for free music lessons. Many travel over an hour to get there. With her entire retirement savings, Jeane Goforth launched this organization as a fun place for kids from all different socieconomic levels and backgrounds to make friends, and to change their thinking. The ripples are tremendous. "She wa... posted on Apr 3, 1601 reads

Sleep Helps Us Remember What We Need To
You may have heard it before. While we sleep, our brains replay and store the days events into our long-term memories. But it can't keep everything. Of the deluge of information that pass through us each day, how do our minds "decide" what to keep and what to dump? Why can we replay the disagreement with a spouse or the promising job interview, but forget what we ate for breakfast or where we put ... posted on Mar 21, 7170 reads

Human Spirit Rises to Meet Japan's Tsunami
Snapshots from Japan: A woman opens up her home and bathrooms to weary travelers walking hours home. A baker gives out free bread. Customers at the supermarket pick up fallen items and quietly stand in line to buy food. An old man at the evacuation shelter asks, "What's going to happen now?" And a young high school boy nearby responds, "Don't worry! When we grow up, we will promise to fix it back!... posted on Mar 16, 14001 reads

Recycled Cell Phones Save Lives
"It's your trash, but it turns into value, it turns into lives saved really quickly." Josh Nesbit says excitedly. Four years ago, Nesbit noticed that health workers in Malawi often lost important information during their strenuous trips to patients in isolated villages. Instead of walking for hours on end, doctors and patients could instantly text each other if they just had the right technology, ... posted on Mar 22, 2927 reads

The Art of Giving
First there was Ehren. Then Fariba, and Ashley. Ehren Tool: "Literally a woman took a photograph of a bowl that I made for her and sold the photograph of the bowl for thousands of dollars in New York. You can't ask for thousands of dollars for a ceramic bowl. [laughs] But the photograph will last only fifty years; the ceramic piece will last a couple of thousand. So rather than accept five dollars... posted on Apr 19, 2810 reads

When a Homeless Man Used Twitter
A few folks in New York City wondered what it's like to be homeless. So they gave four men cell phones and Twitter accounts to help them share their stories with the world. For Daniel Morales, these gifts would change his life. Three weeks into the project, Morales used the social neworking tool to find his 27-year-old daughter, whom he hadn't seen in over a decade. After posting his cell phone nu... posted on May 1, 8269 reads

Trading Wall Street for the Simple Life
He was a successful currency trader handling a $15 billion portfolio. But something wasn't right. So Henry Quinson walked away from his comfortable life, gave his savings to charity, and joined a rural monastery in France. "I thought the spiritual part of my human life was more important than a career or making money," he explains. For six years, Quinson spent his days in silence and prayer, follo... posted on Apr 6, 3822 reads

8 Things That Are Better Than Free
These days, digital technology gives us easy access to almost anything. So why would we ever pay for anything that we could get for free? Kevin Kelly asks: When anyone buys a version of something they could get for free, what are they purchasing? In a real sense, there are eight things that are better than free. Eight uncopyable values. Kelly calls them "generatives." Things like authenticity, emb... posted on Apr 1, 8682 reads

The Good News Effect
Good news begets better people. That's the conclusion of researchers at the University of British Columbia. In four separate studies, results showed a direct link between a person's exposure to media stories of extraordinary virtue and their yearning to change the world. "If more attention was devoted to recounting stories of uncommon acts of human virtue, the media could have a quantifiable posit... posted on Apr 4, 6860 reads

Meditation More Effective Than Morphine?
Meditation has long been touted as a holistic approach to pain relief. And studies show that long-time meditators can tolerate quite a bit of pain. Now researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have found you don't have to be a lifelong monk to pull it off. Using a special type of brain imaging, researchers saw significant brain changes even in novices who hadn't meditated before. Their ... posted on Apr 10, 6520 reads

Building Curious Employees
Design thinking is a process of empathizing with the end user. David Kelley, founder of IDEO and Stanford's d.school design program, takes a similar approach to managing people. He believes leadership is a matter of empathizing with employees. In this interview, he explains why leaders should seek understanding rather than blind obedience, why it's better to be a coach and a taskmaster and the eff... posted on May 31, 4768 reads

10 Keys to Happier Living
Happiness matters to all of us. And by focusing our time and energy on things that have been shown to consistently bring happiness, each of us can live rich, rewarding lives. The recently launched project, Action for Happiness, has identified practical actions that anyone can take in their everyday lives -- not only to help boost their own happiness but also to contribute to building better, more ... posted on May 15, 22937 reads

Sometimes It Just Takes a Penny
In this real-life kindness story, a man inspires generosity in a homeless woman after being approached by her for money. Having just heard good news in a friend's life, he offers to buy food for her and shares his inspiration with the homeless lady: "Something nice happened to my friend recently, after a lot of struggles. When you came in, I thought that I should keep that chain of goodness going ... posted on Jun 23, 3076 reads

Four Shelters Later, Still a Star Athlete
After holding together his family through a house fire, six address changes since his sophomore year and a violent encounter with his mother's boyfriend, high school basketball star Marquis Barnett told recruiters he is not about to abandon them now, insisting on staying local. "Marquis is fiercely loyal to his family," said Ron Naclerio, Barnett's coach in New York the past two seasons. Barnett i... posted on Oct 8, 3134 reads

Is the Internet Changing the Way We Think?
Each year, Edge.org poses a provocatively deep question to visionaries in science and culture. Last year, it collected 168 essays relating to the question, "How is the Internet changing the way you think?" In answer, academics, scientists and philosophers responded with musings on the Internet enabling telecommunication, or functioning as a sort of prosthesis, or robbing us of our old, linear mode... posted on May 9, 6427 reads

The Third Side of a Conflict
How do we live together in a world of differences? So much depends on our ability to handle our conflicts peacefully -- our happiness at home, our performance at work, the livability of our communities, and, in this age, the survival of our species. The Harvard Negotiation Project's William Ury offers a promising new way to look at the conflicts around us, called the Third Side -- the side we ofte... posted on May 10, 12821 reads

Homeless Man Bails out Banker
A year ago, everything was going right for her: a good job at a bank in the suburbs and a safe home. But last year, she lost that -- and with her 10-year-old, had to move into a truck. Police threatened to take away her son until she found a safer alternative, so she moved into a hotel for a few nights to sort things out. That's when her angel showed up. A man named Curtis Jackson paid her hotel b... posted on May 13, 23228 reads

The Age of Social Transformation
The most significant social transformation in the last century is the shift, in dominance, of the industrial to knowledge based worker, according to the father of modern management, the late Peter Drucker. Regardless of numbers or power, knowledge workers will uniquely define the emerging knowledge society. This classic, in-depth Atlantic Monthly article by him is a survey of the epoch that began ... posted on Aug 19, 5316 reads

7 Practices to Cultivate Compassion
Scientific studies suggest that there are physical benefits to practicing compassion -- people who practice it produce 100 percent more DHEA, which is a hormone that counteracts the aging process, and 23 percent less cortisol -- the "stress hormone." According to this guide, the key to developing compassion is to make it a daily practice, and it offers 7 different ways to incorporate it into ever... posted on Aug 2, 49992 reads

Her Prom Date? A Football Star!
Joslyn Levell couldn't wait to get to school Monday. The eighth-grader became the most talked-about kid at Suncrest Middle School in West Virginia, after scoring a date with Chicago Bears rookie J.T. Thomas for her end-of-school-year formal dance Friday. "I'm not used to the attention, but I like it," Levell said. Joslyn has spina bifida, a condition in which the spine doesn't properly develop, ... posted on May 27, 4230 reads

A Teacher's Act of Calm Bravery
Last Friday, Martha Rivera was teaching her kindergarten class in Mexico when a drug shoot-out began outside her school. She immediately asked her 15 kids to place their faces on the floor and repeatedly told them that everything was going to be fine. While gunshots rang out, Rivera led her students in a Spanish-language version of a song from the TV show "Barney and Friends." They sang about choc... posted on Jun 9, 4827 reads

How One Teenager Used Her Life Savings
After finishing high school in New Jersey, Maggie Doyne took a gap year during which she did service projects and cultural programs in South Asia. In India, she met a teenage refugee who had escaped Nepal seven years earlier. Maggie felt moved to accompany the girl back to Nepal in search of her family. In the process, she was deeply touched by the orphans she met in the villages. "It was really t... posted on Jun 12, 16352 reads

A Letter to Myself at Land's End
Last year, a CharityFocus co-founder embarked alone on the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage of 900 kilometers traversed on foot. A little over a month later, she finished the journey at Finisterre (Land's End) on the western coast of Spain, where she composed a powerful letter to herself, brimming with quiet, timeless insight. "There's so much that I've learned from walking the thirty-seven days. ... posted on Jun 7, 23684 reads

Social Media for Social Change
Kecia Cruz's son had been sleeping on a cold linoleum floor since returning to live with his mother nearly two weeks ago. Cruz has served time in prison and her son is a recovering drug addict. Cruz sees her child's return as a second chance. She didn't want him sleeping on the floor, but she didn't know where to turn. Her neighbor had an answer: Beremedy -- an organization that utilizes social me... posted on Jun 16, 3851 reads

A Creative Use of Plastic Bottles
When former Peace Corps volunteer Laura Kutner was asked to help find funding to finish constructing two classrooms in the elementary school where she worked in Guatemala, she decided to use -- or rather reuse -- a common piece of trash. Kutner used what was known in environment-friendly circles as "eco-blocks" -- plastic bottles stuffed with inorganic trash -- and encased them in chicken wire. On... posted on Jul 12, 12934 reads

Four Myths About Mentoring
When people think of mentoring, they often think of an older executive counseling a young upstart. The senior leader advises the junior employee on his career, how to navigate the world of work, and what she needs to do to get ahead. But mentoring has changed a lot in the last few decades. The traditional mentor-mentee relationship is not necessarily a thing of the past, but it's no longer the sta... posted on Jun 11, 8358 reads

A 15-Year-Old's Bucket List Goes Viral
Alice Pyne, 15, has been battling a deadly form of cancer for the last four years that is now spreading throughout her body. Last week at her mother's suggestion the teenager started a blog for friends and family, titled "Alice's Bucket List" and included her life wishes (high on the list were swimming with sharks and having everybody sign up as bone marrow donors). No one anticipated the tidal wa... posted on Jun 13, 13777 reads

Measuring the Wisdom of a Crowd
The "intelligence" of a group can be measured, according to a new study, and it has little to do with the brain power of its individual members. What makes a team more intelligent has more to do with the group's interactions. More equal participation and greater social awareness on the part of its members are the key factors in predicting a group's intelligence. "It really calls into question our ... posted on Jun 21, 6891 reads

Living Plastic Free
Three years ago, Beth Terry, like many other Americans chose double plastic bags, threw the plastic bottles in the trash and ate frozen dinners -- generating about 100 lbs of plastic waste a year. But after seeing a photo of the sea being filled with plastic products, she resolved to live a plastic free life. From January to November 2010, she generated less than 2 pounds of plastic waste. And she... posted on Jul 27, 4499 reads

The Bird Man of Long Beach
They call him the Bird man of Long Beach. "It all started with one little one-legged guy I named Buddy," ex-marine Dan Lubniewski said. Dan saw the little bird hobbling along, and felt sorry for him. He started feeding him and wound up taking him home for rehab. Apparently, someone had been tying pigeons' feet together. "They were all tied up the same way, with the same strength," Dan said. "I did... posted on Jul 1, 3505 reads

A 10,000 Year Clock in the Mountains
There is a Clock ringing deep inside a mountain. It is a huge Clock, hundreds of feet tall, designed to tick for 10,000 years. Why would anyone build a Clock inside a mountain with the hope that it will ring for 10,000 years? Part of the answer: just so people will ask this question, and having asked it, prompt themselves to conjure with notions of generations and millennia. If you have a Clock ti... posted on Jul 4, 4920 reads

Pick Up Artists Across America
When most people see a fast-food bag fluttering on the corner of the highway, they probably shake their heads and keep on driving. The Pick Up Artists aren't most people. These four young environmentalists are driving across America, conducting roadside cleanups and spreading the word about reducing waste. After just three months on the road, the Pick Up America project has already collected more ... posted on Jul 23, 9752 reads

The Psychology of Choice: 5 Perspectives
"Why are you reading this? How did you decide to click the link, load the page and stay? How do we decide to do anything at all and, out of the myriad choices we face each day, what makes one option more preferable over another? This is one of the most fundamental questions of the social sciences, from consumer psychology to economic theory to behavioral science. Today, at the risk of meta-irony, ... posted on Oct 10, 36681 reads

The Gift Economy
"Want to fix the economy? Next time you buy coffee, purchase a cup for the person behind you. Or as you grind your way through the morning commute, pick up the tollbooth charge for the driver behind you, draped over his steering wheel and ranting at the long delay. You've heard that famous Gandhian quote about being the change, well these are good measures to start with, packing more punch than yo... posted on Jul 9, 32107 reads

Why Patience Pays Off
"Consider this powerful quote by Lao Tzu: 'Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles, and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself?' We might think of "waiting" as taking time, but it's actually less about clock time and more about inner space. Of course, there are moments when our immediate gut-level response to a situation is a flash of in... posted on Jul 25, 40745 reads