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, 6428 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, 23232 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, 12935 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, 32108 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, 40746 reads

Sacred Giving and Receiving
Giving has long been a central part of American Indian cultures. It may be a means of giving thanks, of bringing the people together, of gaining honor, of distributing material goods so that all may survive, or of teaching. Giving away things informally is also common in American Indian communities in times of good fortune. And yet, in much of the twentieth century, American Indian giveaway practi... posted on Aug 16, 36719 reads

7 Ways Sharing Can Make You Happy
One silver lining in dark economic times is that as people learn to make do with less, they are discovering the many benefits of sharing. New psychological research suggests that sharing fosters trust and cooperation in the community and contributes to personal well-being. Researchers are finding that sharing impacts people in the very specific ways that are closely linked to increased happiness.... posted on Oct 20, 0 reads

Whiz Kids: 5 Amazing Young Inventors
15-year old Chester Greenwood wanted to ice skate in the winters of Maine, so he invented ear mufflers. Also at the age of 15, Louis Braille in France invented what became the standard language for blind people all over the world. Philo Farnsworth, a 14-year-old electronics prodigy, came up with the concept of a television, and mentored by his chemistry teacher, developed it some years later. And ... posted on Aug 20, 5987 reads

OneSeed Expeditions: Traveling for Good
When you are 22, the world is your oyster. For Yale University graduate Chris Baker, that oyster contained a pearl, which was the idea for OneSeed Expeditions. OneSeed is now a way to take an amazing trip and give an entrepreneur in Nepal the seed money needed to start a business. As President of the Yale Mountaineering Club, Chris was inclined to start a business that would marry his passion for ... posted on Aug 24, 3053 reads

Barry Lopez: A Sense of Reverence for Life
His travels have taken him to some of the most inhospitable places on the earth, outside the furthest reaches of human civilization. But Barry Lopez always returns to his home in Oregon to write about what he has seen. And though nature is often his inspiration, it is not his subject, Lopez tells Bill Moyers, "I'm not writing about nature. I'm writing about humanity. And if I have a subject, it is... posted on Oct 14, 3477 reads

Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Time
"'Time' is the most used noun in the English language, yet it remains a mystery. We've just completed an amazingly intense and rewarding multidisciplinary conference on the nature of time, and my brain is swimming with ideas and new questions. Rather than trying a summary (the talks will be online soon), here's my stab at a top ten list partly inspired by our discussions: the things everyone shoul... posted on Sep 3, 25999 reads

Where Children Sleep: A Poignant Photo Series
'Where Children Sleep' is a remarkable series capturing the diversity of and, often, disparity between children's lives around the world through portraits of their bedrooms. Kenyan-born, English-raised, Venice-based documentary photographer James Mollison explores the topic with poignancy. The project began on a brief to engage with children's rights and morphed into a thoughtful meditation on pov... posted on Sep 9, 45303 reads

How to Transform Negative Emotions
"The word emotion comes from the Latin emovere, meaning to 'move through or out.' So in its original form, there isn't any trace of clinging to, or rejecting, these movements. But instead of allowing emotions to move through and out of us, we often feed them with negative thoughts and end up giving them long-term residence. In short order, the guests take over the house, leaving us reeling and una... posted on Sep 19, 68785 reads

6 Ways to Boost Your Helping Habits
"Just last year, a survey of 4,500 American adults showed that 73 percent agreed that "volunteering lowered my stress levels," 89 percent reported that "volunteering has improved my sense of well-being," and 92 percent agreed that volunteering enriched their sense of purpose in life. These benefits are available even -- or perhaps especially -- to those in the midst of crisis. A recent study by my... posted on Sep 26, 12647 reads

Runner Carries Competitor Half a Mile
When high school cross-country runner Josh Ripley heard the screams of a competing runner, Mark Paulauskas, Josh knew he needed to help. While other competitors in the race ran by, Josh stopped to see what was wrong. In the first mile of a 2-mile race, Josh found Mark holding his ankle and bleeding profusely. Worried that Mark had punctured his Achilles heel, Josh carried the wounded runner for a ... posted on Sep 30, 9462 reads

3 Lessons From A Collapsed Lung
"At the start of my junior year at USC, my left lung spontaneously collapsed unexpectedly. After being admitted to the ER, I spent four days at the Good Samaritan Hospital with a uncomfortable chest tube jutting out of my body. This was my first, real, and personal encounter of the true fragility of life: the fact that I could possess perfect health one day then instantly have to cling on for de... posted on Nov 9, 8803 reads

A College Degree 23 yrs After Memory Loss
A freak accident involving a ceiling fan may have taken Su Meck's memory of everything that happened for the first 22 years of her life, but it did not rob her of her determination. Since the accident that left her with amnesia, the 45-year-old from Maryland, has had to relearn how to walk, talk, read, write and drive. But Meck, whose identity was once as a mother and homemaker, carved out a place... posted on Oct 23, 9892 reads

Giving Back Where He Belongs
When most people think of the American dream, they imagine all this country has to offer them. But for 40-year-old Hamid Chaudhry, a Pakistani immigrant and owner of a Dairy Queen in Reading, Pa., that dream isn't just for the taking. "I'm part of the society," Chaudhry tells CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman. "And when you belong somewhere, you have to give back." A few years ago, after becomi... posted on Oct 27, 3384 reads

Change Yourself, Change the World
"There are 4 ideas you have to believe if you seek to "be the change you wish to see in the world: 1. Real change requires patience: It takes time to move others through love (rather than by carrot or stick), but the results are real and lasting. 2. Real change is decentralized/local: The revolution will not be provided by governments or corporations. 3. Real change cannot be traditionally measure... posted on Oct 29, 31154 reads

Karma Kitchen: The Pay-It-Forward Restaurant
Imagine a restaurant where your bill reads $0.00, because your meal is a gift and can't be paid for -- only paid forward for the person after you. How long might the chain of generosity last? At Karma Kitchen, in three cities around the United States, it has gone on for close to 25 thousand people -- and is still going. Filmmaker Katie Teague shares a thoughtful and hopeful short video portrait of... posted on Oct 30, 3235 reads

The Essence of a Great Presentation
"A few months ago when I had worked with Macy in the recording studio, I found the circumstances even more daunting. Nearly every time I began to play, my mind would start churning: 'I'm not a professional musician. I'm going to make a lot of mistakes. The audience/album producer/recording engineer will think I'm lousy. I am lousy. I am going to let Macy down. Why did I think I could do this?' I'v... posted on Nov 4, 16196 reads

Celebrating World Kindness Day
Today is World Kindness Day, and we thought you'd enjoy this real-world story of spreading smiles. "'Right on. This is my kind of protest,' he says while going past me. I hadn't thought of it way before. But perhaps it is a protest -- for lack of smiles in the world. About 15 of us gathered earlier today to create poster boards that we would proudly hold up on busy street intersections of San Fran... posted on Nov 13, 3414 reads

Stillpower: A Path to Flow, Clarity, and Responsiveness
Sports guru and author Garret Kramer has a unique theory about what separates great performers. Kramer believes that the classic 'grind it out' mentality that we're taught at a young age actually prevents athletes from realizing their potential -- and he's betting it's impacting your performance at work, too. His insights led him to write a book: 'Stillpower: The Inner Source of Athletic Excellenc... posted on Nov 17, 8064 reads

5 Reasons Why Meditation Beats an iPhone
"People buy iPhones to be universally connected and have a ton of cool functions and features at their fingertips. But as the wise monk Rev. Heng Sure once said, everything we create in silicon already exists in carbon. I'd add that the silicon technology is a poor facsimile at best. So how exactly do you tap into the wonderful carbon technology you carry around with you all the time? Meditation i... posted on Nov 22, 47105 reads

Four Degrees of Separation
In 1929, Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy proposed that there were six degrees of separation between any two people in the world. The theory was made popular by a play, movie and later a trivia game in which players try to link the actor Kevin Bacon to another Hollywood star within six steps. Yesterday, Facebook announced that with its 721 million members, and 69 billion friendships between th... posted on Nov 26, 6622 reads

The Journey of a Basketball Player Turned Poet
"I started writing this terrible, I call it an awesomely bad, novel. I was going out with this French woman and I told her about it. I told her 'This book is just juvenile. I don't know how to do this.' She said, I have a friend of the family, a writer, and maybe he can help you with it. I agreed with that. So the next thing I know, I meet this little French guy with the glasses. He says to me, 'I... posted on Dec 9, 3156 reads

How Doctors Die
"In his last few months of life after discovering that lung cancer had spread into his brain, my older cousin Torch went to Disneyland for the first time, ate his favorite foods, had no serious pain, and remained high-spirited. Torch wasn't a doctor, but like many doctors who have access to medical care when diagnosed with a fatal disease, he chose state of the art end-of-life care: death with dig... posted on Dec 13, 0 reads

The Three Building Blocks of Virtue
"Depending on what you paid attention to in school, you might remember Confucius by the Silver Rule ("Do not do to others..."), his exotic concepts (e.g., filial piety), or a series of grammar-challenged jokes ("Confucius say..."). Confucius did have a lot to say, but if there is one principle that runs through his philosophy, it's that personal virtue is the way to the good life and the good soci... posted on Dec 21, 16369 reads

Seven Tips for Fostering Generosity
"We all know gift giving is an essential, ritualized part of the holidays. But what about the rest of the year? There's good reason to practice generosity even after you've greeted the New Year. As we've reported in the past, giving activates parts of the brain associated with pleasure and social connection; releases endorphins in the brain, producing a 'helper's high'; and provides many long-term... posted on Dec 25, 12555 reads

Love, the Most Powerful Medicine
For a brief time, hospice nurse Dean Nash is able to break down the barriers of sickness and the reality of dying through his 10-year-old Australian Shepherd, Stormy. Bringing Stormy into the Crossroads Hospice, Nash says, offers patients unconditional love -- allowing them to temporarily forget about dying and instead focus on the delight of a "ball of fur and a wet nose" to lift their spirits." ... posted on Dec 26, 6363 reads

5 Reasons Why We Serve
In a world dominated by financial incentives that appeal to a mindset of consumption, it becomes all the more critical to turn the tide by engaging in small acts of generosity and continually shifting the mindset towards one of inspired contribution. It's a beautiful fact that in practicing kindness in this way, we can't help but deepen our understanding of how inner and outer change are fundament... posted on Dec 27, 38106 reads

Ways To Go Green In 2012
As we head into 2012, many of us will be resolving to lose those few extra pounds, save more money, or spend a few more hours with our families and friends. But there are also some resolutions we can make to make our lives a little greener. Each of us can make a commitment to reducing our environmental impacts. This article offers a set of simple starting points -- ranging from recycling and plant... posted on Dec 29, 14236 reads

A New Kind of New Year's Resolution
The upcoming new year serves as a reminder of hope, possibilities, and new beginnings. As we prepare to step into 2012, here's a new tool to help turn our annual motivation outward, resolving to brighten the lives of others: Resolution12.org. Its organizer, a chaplain at the University of Pennsylvania named Rev. Chaz Howard, calls it "a public campaign to challenge people to make outwardly-focused... posted on Dec 31, 11981 reads

Gandhi on the Power of One
"There were many observers who said Gandhi was extraordinary, an exception to the limitations that hold back the rest of the human race. Others dismissed him -- some with great respect, others with less -- as just another great man who was leaving his mark on history. Yet, according to him, there was no one more ordinary. 'I claim to be an average man of less than average ability,' he often repeat... posted on Jan 9, 23005 reads