A Beautiful Mind: A Conversation with Gina Sharpe
What if "the real adventure and beauty in life does not consist in grand gestures but in imperceptible acts of daring -- moments of daring to be open, to listen, to not run away or defend ourselves from what arises"? In this interview, Tracy Cochran explores precisely this idea with Gina Sharpe, co-founder of Manhattan retreat center New York Insight. Their illuminating conversation explores how ... posted on Jan 30, 19738 reads

My Daughter Malala
Pakistani educator Ziauddin Yousafzai reminds the world of a simple truth that many don't want to hear: Women and men deserve equal opportunities for education, autonomy, an independent identity. In this TED talk, Yousafzai tells stories from his own life and the life of his daughter, Malala, who was shot in the head at point blank range by the Taliban in 2012 simply for daring to go to school. Yo... posted on Nov 29, 3775 reads

Should We Train Doctors for Empathy?
The term 'bedside manner' has long been used to describe a doctor's ability to connect and empathize with a patient. According to recent studies, the importance of good bedside manners is becoming more and more critical, as patients whose doctors listen and demonstrate an understanding of their concerns not only are more satisfied with their treatment, but also enjoy better health. This article sh... posted on Nov 14, 13173 reads

The Power of Not Knowing
Every day, the world we live in and the vast universe around us, offer countless questions waiting to be answered. And despite all of our scientific advances and vast reservoirs of knowledge many times the answers remain elusively just out of our reach. In this thoughtful piece writer Wayne Muller explores the counter-intuitive power of not knowing.... posted on Nov 21, 17994 reads

The Story of the Man Who Gave Us Pain Relief
For the longest time, doctors basically ignored the most basic and frustrating part of being sick -- pain. In this lyrical, informative talk, Latif Nasser tells the extraordinary story of wrestler and doctor John J. Bonica, who persuaded the medical profession to take pain seriously -- and transformed the lives of millions. ... posted on Apr 12, 14246 reads

Can We Create Social Change Without Money
Can we create social change without money? Just holding that question can raise some very interesting insights. In theory, our society is supposed to balance our three big sectors. The private sector, the voluntary sector and the public sector. Each has its purpose and, in theory, it works. But in practice, money has become such a driving force that we have started to put a price tag on everything... posted on Oct 28, 33370 reads

Peter Kalmus: The Question of Progress
"In every house, there were blue flickering lights going in synchrony because everyone was watching the same TV show. It was a quiet night and I was alone, just walking with the sound of the freeway and the blue flickering lights. And what had seemed normal to me my whole life suddenly seemed strange." Here's a moving interview with a young climate scientist at Caltech.... posted on Oct 30, 0 reads

Erich Fromm on the Art of Loving
Our cultural mythology "continually casts love as something that happens to us passively and by chance, something we fall into, something that strikes us arrow-like, rather than a skill attained through the same deliberate practice as any other pursuit of human excellence. Our failure to recognize this skillfulness aspect is perhaps the primary reason why love is so intertwined with frustration. T... posted on Jan 12, 19151 reads

Debt As A Relationship Based On Love
For all that debt contains and constrains us, debts worth having are all around when we care to look for them. The debts that are worth having are those that allow us to be more fully ourselves, that we honor with our freedom rather than our servitude. This article presents a revolutionary way of looking at debt and provides a vision for a more compassionate and relationship-based debt system.... posted on Dec 7, 9077 reads

The Surgeon General on Health Via Happiness
"Happiness is not an emotion, an inherited disposition that is awarded to a select few, or even dependent on events that happen to you in life." Rather, the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy argues that "happiness is a perspective, and that everyone can create it for themselves with four simple, free approaches: gratitude exercises, meditation, physical activity and social connectedness." In this... posted on Dec 8, 24842 reads

What Does A Grateful Brain Look Like?
Evidence is mounting that gratitude makes a powerful impact on our bodies, including our immune and cardiovascular health. But how does gratitude show up in the brain? At the University of Southern California a new study sheds light on the neural nuts and bolts of gratitude, offering insights into the complexity of this social emotion and how it relates to other cognitive processes.... posted on Jan 2, 16309 reads

Lessons from the Longest Study on Happiness
If you were going to invest now in your future best self, where would you put your time and energy? While we're constantly told to lean in to work, to push harder and achieve more, The Harvard Study of Adult Development tracked the lives of 724 men for 75 years and found that the healthiest at age 80 were those who had had the most satisfactory relationships. This fascinating TED talk shares more.... posted on Jan 8, 145755 reads

The Power of Treating Employees Like Family
Parenting gave CEO Bob Chapman an epiphany about leadership: "Parenting is the stewardship of the precious lives that come to you through birth, adoption or second marriages. Leadership is the stewardship of the precious lives that come to you by people walking through your door and agreeing to share their gifts with you." This insight ultimately transformed how Chapman runs his company. In a new ... posted on Jan 9, 0 reads

The Top 10 Insights from the Science of a Meaningful Life 2015
From the link between kindness and awe, and the keys to bridging political divides, to the effect of mindfulness on making healthy choices, and news about the contagious smell of happiness (that's right, you read that correctly -- 'the smell of happiness'), there's a lot that was uncovered in 2015! Enjoy this intriguing list of insights compiled by the Greater Good Science Center from the past y... posted on Jan 7, 18742 reads

The Best Leaders are Insatiable Learners
Nearly a quarter century ago, at a gathering in Arizona, John W. Gardner -- a legendary public intellectual and civic reformer -- delivered a speech that may be one of the most quietly influential speeches in the history of American business. Surprisingly, this speech was not about money nor power. Rather, it was on "Personal Renewal" -- "the urgent need for leaders who wish to make a difference a... posted on Jan 13, 16376 reads

5 Important Things We Learned About Mindfulness in 2015
The more we learn about mindfulness -- cultivating a focused awareness on the present moment -- the more health and well-being benefits we discover. In 2015 researchers delved deeper into the science of meditation and uncovered even more surprising evidence of the powerful effects of mindfulness on mind and body. ... posted on Jan 25, 23206 reads

Shelagh Was Here: An Ordinary, Magical Life
"Shelagh Gordon was another name in the obituaries, an ordinary woman who had died suddenly." Or was she? Here's what her passing revealed about Gordon: "Her relationships were as rich as the chocolate pudding pie she'd whip together...She was both alone and crowded by love...She was the interpreter, she made sure everybody understood each other's feelings...You could put your heart on the table ... posted on Jan 18, 110934 reads

Dr. Abdul Kalam on Life's Pursuit
This artful rendition of the inspiring words of the late former President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, cautions us against the constant pursuit of material goods and status symbols, and prompts us instead towards discovering our own deepest dreams and convictions.... posted on Jan 29, 17869 reads

Introspection is Out, Outrospection is In
What is your capacity for empathy? Is it just reserved for the down and out? How about empathizing with those in power? Can empathy travel across great distances and through time? This informative animation challenges how we tend to view empathy and advocates for the transformative power that can bring about change for individuals as well as entire societies. ... posted on Jan 10, 5733 reads

A Comic Book For Refugee Children
"International Medical Corps developed a series of comic books for children displaced by the conflict in Syria and Iraq in order to teach them important messages about disease prevention, safety in camps and about how to promote their well-being. The first two comic books in the series tell stories about children facing the same problems young refugees encounter in their daily lives, introducing s... posted on Jan 24, 9023 reads

Tiny Houses Built with a Big Heart
Some may see the makeshift tents and tarps that line the streets merely as garbage or eyesores, but Gregory Kloehn sees a game plan. Inspired by the improvised shelters that homeless people craft, Kloehn, the founder of Homeless Homes from Oakland, California, decided to start making his own "mini" homes with material mainly sourced from waste. With 35 houses built and counting, these miniature ho... posted on Jan 16, 5229 reads

The End of Solitude
Technology is taking away our privacy and our concentration, but it is also taking away our ability to be alone. Today's young people seem to feel that they can make themselves fully known to one another. They seem to lack a sense of their own depths, and of the value of keeping them hidden. So we live exclusively in relation to others, and what disappears from our lives is solitude.... posted on Feb 13, 12060 reads

We Are All Homeless
Many of us feel uncomfortable and nervous when we come across homeless people carrying signs asking for money. We cross the street or look away to avoid making eye contact. Designer and artist Willie Baronet started buying signs from the homeless as a way to deal with his discomfort. In 1993, he embarked on a cross-country trip, buying signs from homeless people from Seattle to New York City. Alon... posted on Feb 3, 5721 reads

The Story of Bopsy: The Very First Make-a-Wish Kid
"In 1978, 5-year-old Frank "Bopsy" Salazar was diagnosed with leukemia. Doctors advised his mother, Octaviana Trujillo, to check him in to St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix. At the time, Trujillo was 26, single, and couldn't afford to put Bopsy on her health insurance. She checked him in anyway. Over the next two years, Bopsy was treated by Dr. Frank Barranco, a physician who the... posted on Feb 4, 18419 reads

Our Shortened Attention Span & 3 Ways To Stay Focused
"In the digital age, where the news is limited to 140 characters and conversations take place in the form of emojis, our attention span has shortened. A recent study has found this digital lifestyle has made it difficult for us to stay focused, with the human attention span shortening from 12 seconds to eight seconds in more than a decade....Humans now have less of an attention span than a goldfis... posted on Feb 17, 24643 reads

The Disappointed Diner Who Now Feeds 1200 Children Daily
Unhappy with the service he'd received at a restaurant, Darshan Chandan sent the management an email expressing his disappointment. When the management apologized and offered him a free meal, Darshan asked them to feed underprivileged children instead. What happened next changed the course of his life. The restaurant carried out his request and sent pictures of the children they'd fed. "This is th... posted on Feb 6, 25169 reads

Karen Armstrong on Leading from the Heart
"It is difficult not to feel helpless as we witness the widespread cruelty, poverty and injustice that human beings inflict upon one another. It is tempting to harden our hearts or to dwell only upon the suffering that we have endured. But this can no longer be an option. Compassion is not emotional feeling of goodwill; it does not mean pity; it is rather the principled determination to put oursel... posted on Feb 16, 15852 reads

The Principle of Sufficiency
Lynne Twist, author of "The Soul of Money," shares the distinction, as she sees it, between sufficiency and abundance and why understanding this distinction can help build a future that will serve us all. "We can move our money, or the money we are entrusted with, toward that which will serve us all from a sense of our own wholeness rather than a desperate longing to be complete. I call this livin... posted on Feb 19, 5038 reads

Peace Fleece: Spinning A Good Yarn
"Peace Fleece started as an act of protest, a way of challenging the continuation of the Cold War...Founded on the mantra of 'peace through trade,' Pete and Marty combined American and Soviet wool into yarn -- it was detente through domestic art." Read on to learn how Pete used this practice to deal with his psychological wounds from memories of Vietnam and how this project blossomed into a compan... posted on Mar 1, 11252 reads

David Whyte: On Anger, Forgiveness & What Maturity Means
"Our emotional life maps our incompleteness, philosopher Martha Nussbaum wrote in her luminous letter of advice to the young. A creature without any needs would never have reasons for fear, or grief, or hope, or anger. Anger, indeed, is one of the emotions we judge most harshly in others, as well as in ourselves and yet understanding anger is central to mapping out the landscape of our interior ... posted on Feb 8, 43607 reads

Reclaiming the Lost Art of Walking
"There is something about the pace of walking and the pace of thinking that goes together. Walking requires a certain amount of attention but it leaves great parts of the time open to thinking. I do believe once you get the blood flowing through the brain it does start working more creatively," says Geoff Nicholson, author of The Lost Art of Walking."Your senses are sharpened. As a writer, I also ... posted on Feb 12, 13917 reads

From Child Soldier to Refugee Lawyer
Deng Thiak Adut grew up on his family's farm in South Sudan, where his father grew bananas and other food crops. At just six-years-old, Deng was conscripted by the rebel People's Liberation Army. This video shows Deng's resilience and perseverance, and how he has transformed his life to be of service to others, despite the unimaginable trauma he endured in childhood. Deng now works as a lawyer in... posted on Mar 9, 2642 reads

How to Listen to Pain
In this thought-provoking Q and A, Greater Good's book review editor Jill Suttie asks author Brene Brown about the intricacies of her book 'Rising Strong.' One of the key points of the book is how we all react -- or 'listen' -- to the intense pain we may feel when we experience shame in our lives. And it is how we respond to those feelings that can either hinder our emotional well-being, or lead u... posted on Feb 25, 21118 reads

Art as Experience
When discussing the future of art recently with a friend, author Maria Popova was reminded of an important book entitled 'Art as Experience.' The book, based on a series of lectures delivered at Havard back in 1931 by famed philosopher and psychologist John Dewey, tries to illustrate the delicate balance between living and experiencing life, and thus, the art that then grows organically from it.... posted on Jun 26, 12304 reads

Stop Trying to Be Creative
Writer Christie Schawnden investigates how the creative process works using the example of the story behind one of her own articles. Interwoven with her journey are glimpses of her conversations with computer scientist and AI researcher Kenneth Stanley on the topic of creativity. Schwanden shares personal insights and explores research-backed ideas on some of the surprising secrets that are at the... posted on Feb 23, 7821 reads

The Radical Work of Healing
"Angela Davis and her sister Fania Davis were working for social justice before many of today's activists were born. From their childhood in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, where their friends were victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, to their association with the Black Panther Party and the Communist Party, to their work countering the prison-industrial complex, their lives have cen... posted on Feb 29, 10589 reads

The Quest for Control Over Our Own Lives
"The basic nature of life is that it is ever-changing, uncontrollable. When we think we have stability in life, something comes up to remind us that no, we don't. There is no stability, no matter how much we'd like it. And this kinda freaks us out. We don't like this feeling of instability, of loss of control. So we do things to cope, out of love for ourselves. These are strategies for control, se... posted on Mar 10, 15784 reads

To the Child Who Gets My Little Brother's Heart
On March 2, 2016, Jason Longhurst's 11-year-old brother Eric was hit by a truck while crossing the street. The trauma knocked him unconscious, the damage to his brain quickly stopped his breathing, and it was soon clear that Eric wouldn't survive. Eric's family decided to do that which Eric would have wanted -- donate a part of himself to help others. And what part of him would be Eric's greatest... posted on Apr 1, 10374 reads

An Open Letter to the Next Generation of Artists
From their early days composing and playing together with Miles Davis in Davis' Second Great Quintet, Wayne and Herbie's contributions to the world of music have been extraordinary, including winning a combined total of twenty-five Grammys. What's their advice to the next generation of artists? They shared it in this dazzling letter, and whether you consider yourself an artist or not, it's certain... posted on Mar 16, 17480 reads

Seed-Saving Farmers Who Pass Land Down to Their Daughters
In northeastern India's mountainous state of Meghalaya, youngest daughters inherit the land -- and the ancient food heritage of their mothers. Enjoy this article and photo series featuring the beautiful people and ancient food tradition of these matrilineal tribes.... posted on Mar 23, 12013 reads

The Poet Sarah Kay on How We Measure Creative Success
When discussing the legitimacy of her poetry, Sarah Kay answers, "I think my work, from a broad perspective -- by this I mean my work as a writer, teacher, organizer, human -- is about trying to invite people in and create spaces where people feel welcome and comfortable with poetry, but are still creatively challenged. When that's happening, that feels like success to me." This piece offers a li... posted on Mar 21, 6220 reads

Reframing Our Relationship to That We Don't Control
A palliative care physician, Dr. B.J. Miller brings design sensibility to the art of living until we die. He learned to see life as a "creative enterprise" and largely redesigned his own physical presence after an accident in which lightning struck him with 11,000 volts, leaving him without both of his legs and part of one arm. Tune in to his wisdom on how we can reframe our relationship to our im... posted on Apr 4, 26183 reads

Camden Sophisticated Sisters
In the former industrial center of Camden, New Jersey, a city with the highest crime rate in the United States, Tawanda Jones drills over 300 children at Camden Sophisticated Sisters. Practice starts at 5pm, but doesn't really get going until 5:30pm, after "Miss Wawa" has hugged and kissed all the kids. Jones sets a tough standard: each team member must complete 200 hours of community service, kee... posted on Mar 24, 3015 reads

Science of Mindlessness and Mindfulness
Ellen Langer, a psychology professor at Harvard, defines mindfulness as the simple act of actively noticing things, which can bring increased health, competence, and happiness. Her provocative, unconventional studies prove that it's possible to become physiologically younger through a changed frame of mind. She has suggested for decades what neuroscience is pointing to now: that our experience of ... posted on Mar 28, 26411 reads

Remember to Remember
"When I was in the fourth grade, in the summertime when it would rain, we would always go out on a friend's porch and sit there all in a row, enjoying ourselves just looking out at the world, hearing the rain come down. And once, when I was meditating, I thought, Why not just be inside myself like that, just looking out? And by God, it was just like sitting on the porch, looking out at the rain! T... posted on Apr 2, 10458 reads

5 Things Science Says Will Make You Happier
Happy people are healthier; they get sick less often and live longer. They have more friends, make more money and are more productive at work. Decades of research show that happiness is not just a personal issue, but a matter of public health, global economics, and national well-being. Although it isn't easy, there are some proven methods...... posted on Apr 29, 70119 reads

Everyday Conversations to Heal Racism
"I am a second-generation Mexican American leadership coach and elder living in California. I experienced so much prejudice and racism during my young adulthood that for years I avoided even being in the presence of white people. Finally, well into my 30s, I realized that the wounds and pain I carried were robbing me of my full potential. I could do better than be angry at other people; I could wo... posted on Apr 8, 11025 reads

House Calls for the Homeless
In 1992, Dr. Jim Withers camouflaged himself as a homeless man to make medical visits to people living on the streets of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was shocked to find out how ill people were. In 24 years, Withers' "street medicine" has reached over 10,000 people, and his comprehensive program, Operation Safety Net, provides mobile medical vans, drop-in centers and helps advocate for insurance a... posted on Apr 21, 3522 reads

The Disease of Being Busy
How did we get so busy that we no longer have time for each other? What happened to a world in which we can sit with the people we love so much and have slow conversations about the state of our heart and soul, conversations that slowly unfold, conversations with pregnant pauses and silences that we are in no rush to fill?... posted on Jul 17, 37934 reads

Changing the World One Word at a Time
Listen to Belissa Escobedo, Rhiannon McGavin, and Zariya Allen, members of the Get Lit organization, who are determined to change the world, one word at a time. In this performance of "Somewhere in America," they open for singer John Legend at the Hollywood Bowl. The poem calls to attention the kind of information passed along unintentionally in classrooms, and addresses some hard truths and dark... posted on Apr 27, 4713 reads