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, 5988 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, 45305 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, 9463 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, 16197 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, 16372 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, 12557 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, 38107 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

The Power of Failure
Often times we invest failure with the wrong kind of power by thinking it's a permanent state that holds us down, rather than a temporary condition that we can learn and grow from -- often to remarkable heights. This 1-minute video gives us a window into well-known figures of the world, such as Edison, and Lincoln who all share a common trait. They each failed (and spectacularly so!) in their res... posted on Jan 14, 6201 reads

Nurse Donates Own Kidney to Patient
The way Clay Taber looks at it, he's got three moms now. There's the woman who gave birth to him and raised him, of course. Then there's his fiancee's mother. And then there's the transplant nurse who, though practically a stranger, donated one of her healthy kidneys so that he might start married life untethered to a dialysis machine. Allison Batson first heard about Taber, now 23, in August 2010... posted on Jan 16, 24366 reads

In Africa, the Art of Listening
"For nearly 25 years I've lived off and on in Mozambique. Time has passed, and I'm no longer young; in fact, I'm approaching old age. But my motive for living this straddled existence, with one foot in African sand and the other in European snow, in the melancholy region of Norrland in Sweden where I grew up, has to do with wanting to see clearly, to understand. The simplest way to explain what I'... posted on Jan 17, 30383 reads

A Doctor's Notes on Hurt & Healing in Haiti
"There is always humming from somewhere. It is usually low and musical as patients try to distract themselves from phantom limb pain that is not at all phantom. It is 13 days after the earthquake. I am coordinating a 12-member team at St. Marc's hospital, a government facility on the west coast of Haiti." In this gripping piece, poet-doctor Sriram Shamasunder covers life and death, resilience, com... posted on Jan 19, 10719 reads

Man Builds Fairy Tale Home -- For $4700
"Simon Dale is a family man in Wales, the western part of Great Britain. His interest in self-sustainability and an ecological awareness led him to dig out and build his own home -- one of the loveliest, warmest, most inviting dwellings you could ever imagine. And it cost him only $4,700. Can you imagine a more charming entrance than this?"... posted on Jan 28, 221552 reads

Training the Mind to Find Happiness
"At first, I sat on a couch cushion in the middle of my living room, and meditated for 5 minutes using my kitchen timer. At the beginning, I experienced what the book referred to as a 'waterfall' of thoughts. Having never tried to focus my mind on something so simple as respiration, so many thoughts poured down on me: 'What am I going to have for lunch?' 'What if this doesn't work?' 'I should do a... posted on Feb 3, 27102 reads

Redefining What it Means to Grow
"As we all grow in our lives and careers, it's normal to expect a raise every year. Why? Because it's a signal of growth. Growing is good -- not growing is downright un-American. You didn't get a raise? You're not growing? Well then you must be no good. But why only 1 way to measure growth? If I get a 10 percent raise next year but eat less healthy food, spend less time with close and extended com... posted on Feb 10, 15809 reads

4 iPhones and a Subway Serendipity
In October 2010, little-known New York City band, Atomic Tom, had their instruments stolen. But a little bit of bad luck wasn't going to stop these musicians from doing what they love. Riding over the Manhattan Bridge on the B train, the band gave an impromptu performance of "Take Me Out" ... using four iPhones to simulate the drums, guitars, and piano they had recently lost. And they caught it on... posted on Feb 12, 5592 reads

Valentine's Day Wisdom
"We've heard it said that this day -- which once belonged to a legendary saint in whose wake loving deeds flowed like a river -- was hijacked so many years ago by corporations looking to cash in on a beautiful state-of-the-heart technology. They who strode in preaching a catchy new religion: I love therefore I buy. And maybe we bought it. At any rate we've been blaming them ever since. Why give th... posted on Feb 14, 6296 reads

Gandhi on Knowledge Without Character
"We have not yet learned to make use of our most civilizing capacities: the creativity and wisdom we all have as our birthright. When even one person comes into full possession of these capacities, our problems are shown in their true light: they are simply the results of avoidable -- though deadly -- errors of judgment. Gandhi formulated a series of diagnoses of the modern world's seemingly perpe... posted on Feb 17, 82368 reads

Top 5 Regrets of the Dying
Author and songwriter Bronnie Ware shares: "For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone's capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomen... posted on Feb 23, 262803 reads

Competing with Love
"I had a hard time with most of my subjects, especially math. One day, after looking at my grades, my father had a heart-to-heart chat with me. He said, 'The way to crack your subjects is to fall in love with them. When you start loving what you are learning, it will no longer look like work. Everything will fall in place after that. Just fall in love.' I was in sixth grade around then, and decide... posted on Mar 3, 19906 reads

Jeff Skoll on Story-telling & Social Change
One of Jeff Skoll's passions is storytelling. It stems from his youth, when he hoped to be a writer and inspire people to help solve the world's biggest problems. Skoll took a detour on that path when he met Pierre Omidyar and became eBay's first employee and president. Ultimately that detour enabled him to tackle his early passions on a scale that he could only have dreamed of before. He is famed... posted on Mar 14, 7186 reads

The Memory Project: Portraits of Compassion
At the base of a volcano in the middle of Lake Nicaragua, there's an orphanage. Although developing world orphanages aren't normally festive places, on this day, at this time, there was reason to celebrate: the arrival of a young man named Ben Schumaker. Schumaker comes from faraway Wisconsin, and he comes bearing gifts. He carries a suitcase with 62 pounds of portraits -- portraits of the kids, a... posted on Apr 12, 4609 reads

When Life is Ugly Make it Beautiful
"The Josephine beauty parlor in northern Paris is celebrating its first birthday Thursday. Some 1,200 disadvantaged women -- abuse victims, former convicts or addicts, disabled women, single unemployed mothers -- have come here for a professional haircut and makeup, or to borrow clothes for a job interview, since it opened on International Women's Day a year ago. Thanks to volunteer workers and pr... posted on Jun 9, 7740 reads

The Pursuit of Silence in A World of Noise
Writer George Prochnik says he's had a passion for silence as long as he can remember. "I can't sit in my house without hearing air conditioners. I worry about this layer of noise that's placed on top of infrastructure noise." In his new book, In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise, Prochnik leaves the noisy confines of New York City and goes on a global quest to find tho... posted on Apr 11, 6397 reads

What the Internet Does to Your Brain
"Inherent in any media technology -- from the telephone to TV to Twitter -- is an emphasis of some ways of thinking and a de-emphasis on other ways of thinking. If you look at the Internet, what it emphasizes is the ability to supply lots of information, in many forms, very quickly. As a result, it encourages us to browse through information in a similar way -- by grabbing lots of bits of data sim... posted on Apr 24, 16174 reads

A Chinese Living Water Garden
Water is art activist Betsy Damon's passion. She was studying sacred springs in China when she began meeting individuals interested in water from a variety of angles: medicine, hydraulic engineering, spirituality. This unique collaboration led to an invitation to review a major water project in Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan. Because of her critique, the project was actually scrapped. But th... posted on Mar 25, 8036 reads

The Language of Love
"Love is a funny thing. As the saying goes, we often find love when we least expect, but it might be equally true that when we do find love it's different than we expected. This beautiful short film was created to raise awareness and money for a good cause, which it did. But it has gone so much further in showing us what love looks like, and how we can connect with each other when we have the cour... posted on Mar 31, 10347 reads

Infinite Family
Amy Stokes uses the internet to connect South African teens affected by HIV/AIDS and poverty with volunteer mentors from around the world. She is the founder of Infinite Family an effort in South Africa -- where nearly two million children have been orphaned by AIDS. A diverse and growing team of Infinite Family's mentors have stepped forward "to fill the void of adults -- to teach, discuss, encou... posted on Jun 15, 2582 reads