The 9 Dwarves: A Legend of Conservation
With multinational companies accelerating exploitation of oil, timber and minerals, activist Ladislas Desire Ndembet decided that he had to supply a stronger local voice in the West African nation of Gabon. Financed out of his own modest salary from running a cleaning business on the side, Ndembet's NGO is an inspired movement to conserve some of the world's largest intact tropical rainforests for... posted on Dec 12, 9085 reads

Coelho's 1 Min Manual For Climbing Mountains
"A. Choose the mountain you want to climb: don't pay attention to what other people say, such as 'that one's more beautiful' or 'this one's easier.' You'll be spending lots of energy and enthusiasm to reach your objective, so you're the only one responsible and you should be sure of what you're doing." Through 11 simple but profound guidelines, Paulo Coelho, bestselling author of "The Alchemist," ... posted on Dec 20, 49445 reads

Locked Up, Yet Calm Within
"Prison time, you're in a box. Every second, every day, every year, every decade -- there's no hope. No matter what you accomplish in there, no matter what you do in there, you're still in that box." These are the words of boxer Dewey Bozella, locked up for 26 years for a crime that he did not commit. His is a story about the triumph of the human spirit, and living proof of the maxim: "never give ... posted on Dec 16, 4263 reads

The Neuropsychology of "Don't Worry, Be Happy"
"In 1988, Bobby McFerrin wrote one of the most beloved anthems to happiness of all time. On September 24 that year, 'Don't Worry Be Happy' became the first a cappella song to reach #1 on the Billboard Top 100 Chart. But more than a mere feel-good tune, the iconic song is brimming with neuroscience and psychology insights on happiness that McFerrin -- whose fascinating musings on music and the brai... posted on Dec 22, 41828 reads

How Good Found Me In A Bad Neighborhood
"It occurred to me a little too late that I was in a sketchy part of town. In anticipation of making it to my massage appointment, I had actually gotten off my bus five blocks before my stop. I was young and clearly a college student...I stuck out like a sore thumb in the southern town. Yet, even with my fingers trembling I was convinced that I would be perfectly safe, that I didn't have to rely o... posted on Dec 30, 12469 reads

Be Healthy, Be Compassionate
The Dalai Lama has been telling us for years that it would make us happy, but he never said it would make us healthy, too. Maybe the Dalai Lama knew all along or maybe he's just finding out like the rest of us, but science is starting to catch up with a couple millennia of spiritual thought. In recent years, the investigation of compassion has moved beyond theology and philosophy to embrace a wide... posted on Jan 5, 7787 reads

What We Aren't Taught About Creative Thinking
"Creativity is paradoxical. To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge, must see unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder, must work hard but spend time doing nothing as information incubates, must create many ideas yet most of them are useless, must look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different, must desire success but embrace fa... posted on Jan 18, 60985 reads

Life Is Easy ...When You Simplify
"Life is easy" says Jon Jandai. "Why do we have to make it so difficult?" After pursuing "success" in Bangkok for several years, Jo dropped out of university to return to village life. There, he went back to the life he knew as a child, working 2 months of the year to grow rice (with an additional 15 minutes a day to grow vegetables), dug a couple of fish ponds, built his own homes using earthen b... posted on Jan 23, 6604 reads

The Inventor Who Disrupted the Period Industry
When Arunachalam Muruganantham hit a wall in his research on creating a sanitary napkin for poor women, he decided to do what most men typically wouldn't dream of. He wore one himself -- for a whole week. Fashioning his own menstruating uterus by filling a bladder with goat's blood, Muruganantham went about his life while wearing women's underwear, occasionally squeezing the contraption to test ou... posted on Jan 26, 19244 reads

High Schooler Devises Potential Cancer Cure
17-year-old Angela Zhang's after school project may change the world. Zhang has been making headlines recently after taking home a check of $100,000 from the national Siemens science contest, and now it has been suggested that her research could lead to a potential cure for cancer. "I created a nanoparticle that's kind of like the Swiss Army knife of cancer treatment in that it can detect cancer c... posted on Feb 18, 20085 reads

Knock Knock
As an actor, singer, writer, and composer, Daniel Beaty has worked throughout the world in a variety of styles ranging from solo concerts to theatre to one-man plays to a gig at the White House. But here he is at a Def Jam Poetry contest, sharing about a topic near and dear to his heart -- the essence of a father-son bond. In this 3-minute video, he delivers nothing short of a riveting, electrifyi... posted on Feb 26, 5647 reads

Five Tips For Making Travel Meaningful
Few know more about the art of travel than acclaimed writers Paul Theroux and Pico Iyer, who have a combined six decades of experience chronicling their adventures around the world. These two world wanderers shared a list of the things they do to make travel meaningful and how they go about being a traveler rather than a tourist. Their first piece of advice? "Pick a destination that raises more qu... posted on Mar 5, 11428 reads

A Heart Touched By Music
"The way she was singing comforted me a bit. I stood there watching her play for about fifteen minutes, thinking that it must take courage to perform on your own in the middle of a crowded New York ferry terminal. So I stood there listening. She must have felt my presence because she would occasionally look in my direction. By now I was telling myself that if she could perform in front of hundreds... posted on Mar 7, 5718 reads

The Suitcase That's Saving Lives
What if your carry-on suitcase could save a woman's life? In the fight against maternal mortality in the developing world, a rugged, portable "Solar Suitcase" is providing reliable electricity to clinics in 17 countries where healthcare workers previously struggled to provide emergency obstetric care by the light of candles, flashlights and mobile phones. The Solar Suitcase powers medical LED ligh... posted on Mar 9, 5470 reads

How to Be Alone
This charming and chirpy video pays tribute to the happy wholesomeness of being alone. Tanya Davis recites her poem about the ways of solitude, gently cataloging all the places where aloneness can bring freedom and healing. Whether at a lunch counter, park bench, mountain trail, or on the edge of a dance floor -- all we have to do is love ourselves enough, to love being alone.... posted on Mar 16, 10333 reads

The Radical Linguist Noam Chomsky
For centuries experts held that every language is unique. Then one day in 1956, a young linguistics professor gave a legendary presentation at MIT. He argued that every intelligible sentence conforms not only to the rules of its particular language but to a universal grammar that encompasses all languages. And rather than absorbing language from the environment and learning to communicate by imita... posted on Jun 10, 7001 reads

From Selling to Serving
"The topic for this week's meeting was: 'What are you doing to keep your business going in these crazy-making economic times?' Several people said they have upped the number of cold calls they're making; others talked about creative ways they're using social networking to market themselves. Some are revamping their web sites and blogs; a few are exploring new business ideas, as they worry that the... posted on Mar 19, 41536 reads

The Importance of Imagination
"While growing up, I'd never really considered how important it is to be imaginative. It's a childhood profession, you could say. It comes naturally. Then we hit an age when we're presented with a scantron of bubble-in options, a template for a CV that we need to create, and Excel. At that point, our learning has to fit into certain parameters: within that little bubble, within the one page limit... posted on Mar 29, 85770 reads

10 Points on the Science of Spreading Good
"Good deeds are contagious. We naturally imitate the people around us, we adopt their ideas about appropriate behavior, and we feel what they feel. Acts of charity are no exception. In our 2010 generosity experiment, we showed that every extra dollar of giving in a game designed to measure altruism caused people who saw that giving to donate an extra twenty cents. Furthermore, the network acts lik... posted on Mar 21, 46765 reads

Recovering the Heart of Medicine
"Our modern view of disease is that disease is centered in the body. The older view of disease is that it is soul loss, a loss of connection, of meaning, of purpose, of essence. If this is so, the real task of the medical system is to heal soul loss, to aid in the retrieval of the soul. What is needed is not to develop more of a spiritual practice or to go to church more. Our task is to recognize ... posted on Mar 23, 52165 reads

10 Keys To Happier Living
Based on the latest scientific research on happiness a group based out of the United Kingdom has identified ten "keys" that tend to have a consistently positive impact on people's overall happiness and well-being. The first five keys relate to how people interact with the world outside, while the latter half are concerned more with the inner life. This piece shares the ten keys (that together form... posted on Apr 14, 92242 reads

How 17 Equations Changed the World
When legendary theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking was setting out to release A Brief History of Time, one of the most influential science books in modern history, his publishers admonished him that every equation included would halve the book's sales. Undeterred, he dared include E = mc^2, even though cutting it out would have allegedly sold another 10 million copies. The anecdote captures the ... posted on May 8, 15618 reads

Free Money Day: Giving Is Common Cents
Last year on September 15, people at over 60 locations worldwide handed out their own money to complete strangers. Participants committed to give two small coins or banknotes to strangers, asking these strangers to pass one of them on to someone else -- as a symbolic gesture, not a donation. Quirky? Yes. Likely to elicit questions and dialogue? They hoped so. The idea was for this simple exercise ... posted on Sep 14, 14357 reads

An 18 Year Old's Ode to the Ordinary
"The ordinary...is the part of our world where beauty is interlaced in each detail...It's the part of our world that can knock our socks off...but so many of us walk by everyday, never knowing, never caring...But some see..." This lovely 7-minute video on the blessing of vision -- both metaphorically and explicitly -- was filmed by Dietrich Ludwig, an eighteen year old on a budget of $25, using on... posted on May 13, 5179 reads

Peace Artist Gifts Half A Million Works of Art
April 23rd, a little after lunch. 1991. That was the moment Joe Murphy, decided that he would make something for peace. The details weren't clear to him at the time, but he knew that it would be something symbolic of connection, a chain of sorts. He knew that he would create small art pieces, and that he would give them away, and that he would do this for the rest of his life. This idea evolved in... posted on May 25, 3393 reads

When Nothing Works
I'd had tendinitis in my elbow for over a year. Even something as gentle as twisting a doorknob made me wince in pain. I went to see my brother, Bertie, who also happens to be my doctor. As Bertie examined my elbow, I reminded him of everything I had done to try to fix my problem. When it began to hurt, I used ibuprofen. When that didn't work, we tried two injections of cortisone, six months apart... posted on May 27, 26911 reads

7 Essential Books on Optimism
Every once in a while, we all get burned out. Sometimes, charred. And while a healthy dose of cynicism and skepticism may help us get by, it's in those times that we need nothing more than to embrace life's promise of positivity with open arms. Here are seven wonderful books that help do just that with an arsenal ranging from the light visceral stimulation of optimistic design to the serious neuro... posted on Jun 5, 40809 reads

Rickshaw Puller Starts Clinic for the Poor
Joynal Abedin still remembers the rainy and windy night when he saw his father die because there was no medical treatment. His village in a northern district of Bangladesh did not have any medical facility at the time, and the nearest hospital was about 12 miles away. The death of his father, about 30 years ago, changed the life of Abedin, a rickshaw puller. He vowed to establish a basic medical c... posted on Jun 14, 5767 reads

One Student's Unforgettable Graduation Gift
Brenna Martin's dad evidently doesn't like last-minute shopping. Bryan Martin purchased a gift for his daughter's high school graduation -- which happened earlier this month -- thirteen years ago. He managed to keep it hidden this whole time, and his "moving, touching, nostalgic, and thoughtful" present (her words) brought Brenna to tears when dad finally gave it to her last week.... posted on Jul 2, 29174 reads

Texting That Saves Lives
Teenagers in the U.S. send an average of 3,339 text messages per month. What happened when Nancy Lublin, the CEO and Chief Old Person at DoSomething.org, started texting 200,000 teens across America? They texted back -- about their own problems, from bullying to depression to abuse. In this passionate TED talk, Nancy describes how this birthed a crisis text hotline which has helped thousands of te... posted on Jul 7, 3633 reads

Starting A Slow Story Movement
"It is said that we become the stories that we tell among ourselves. This might have been true before we became salespersons. For a few decades now, I think we have become numb to the stories that we tell among ourselves. So stories have become shorter and crisper to the length of a tweet. We are so committed to telling a story to the point that finally what remains is a dimensionless point. There... posted on Jul 10, 15730 reads

The Radical Dissent of Helen Keller
The bronze statue of Helen Keller that sits in the U.S. Capitol shows the blind girl standing at a water pump. It depicts the moment in 1887 when her teacher, Anne Sullivan, spelled "W-A-T-E-R" into one of her 7-year-old pupil's hands while water streamed into the other. This was Keller's awakening, when she made the connection between the word Sullivan spelled and the tangible substance splashing... posted on Jul 16, 35524 reads

One of the Greatest Love Stories Ever
This animated StoryCorps video tells one of the greatest love stories ever. Funny, touching, and insightful, Danny and Annie share the story of their ordinary yet wondrous journey together, right from their very first date up until their final farewell.... posted on Jul 21, 11280 reads

Remembering Stephen Covey
In 1989, Stephen R. Covey penned The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, a book that went on to sell millions of copies worldwide and defined a new genre bridging self-improvement, business management, and personal productivity. Last week, Covey passed away at the age of 79. Maria Popova of Brain Pickings takes a look back at his legacy with some of the keenest insights from his beloved bestselle... posted on Jul 23, 18286 reads

Servant Leadership: Helping People Come Alive
"It's a powerful perspective on work -- holding within it a value for collaboration, agency, creativity, and meaning. What if we all could see what we do in that way? What if our organizations supported us in holding that perspective, and to go one step further, how can we create institutions that release these core values? In his seminal 1970 essay 'The Servant as Leader,' Robert Greenleaf coined... posted on Jul 31, 21999 reads

Why Creative Thinking is Inclusive Thinking
"Albert Einstein was once asked what the difference was between him and the average person. He said that if you asked the average person to find a needle in the haystack, the person would stop when he or she found a needle. He, on the other hand, would tear through the entire haystack looking for all the possible needles. With creative thinking, one generates as many alternative approaches as one ... posted on Aug 3, 102596 reads

Who Are You Really Mad At?
A father yells at his son who then hits his sister. A boss gets upset at a manager who then yells at their employees. In both obvious and subtle forms, people often do or say something to someone when it's really intended for someone else. In this honest self-reflection, leadership expert Peter Bregman looks more deeply at his own behaviour to discover freedom from habits and the choice of more th... posted on Aug 7, 23842 reads

Guerilla Gardener Plants Joy in Potholes
They're the bane of cyclists and motorists alike, but one urban gardener has grown a fondness for potholes after deciding to spruce up cities around Europe by filling them up with miniature flower arrangements. Australian Steve Wheen, 34, who lives in London, has been using flowers and small-scale objects to transform urban potholes for the last three years. The self-styled 'guerrilla gardener' ha... posted on Aug 8, 11581 reads

Around the World in 40 Places
Every community needs a commons where people can gather as friends, neighbors and citizens. This can be a grand public square, a humble Main Street or a vacant lot with a few handmade benches where locals sit down for conversation. Or even a bridge, beach or bus station. Project for Public Spaces, a New York-based group compiled a comprehensive catalog of more than 600 of the best public spaces ar... posted on Aug 14, 17568 reads

The Spirit of Gift
A gift. It is a simple gesture of care. Like an open palm, it is an invitation to connect ... But can it be more than that? Can gifts restructure our monetary system? In a recent interview, teacher and writer Charles Eisenstein shared insights from his own journey with a gift-economy. His unique journey includes the raising of three kids, the writing of three books, going broke, facing his fears a... posted on Aug 18, 17944 reads

How Ignorance Fuels the Evolution of Knowledge
"In the fifth century BC, long before science as we know it existed, Socrates, the very first philosopher, famously observed, 'I know one thing, that I know nothing.' Some 21 centuries later, while inventing calculus in 1687, Sir Isaac Newton likely knew all there was to know in science at the time -- a time when it was possible for a single human brain to hold all of mankind's scientific knowledg... posted on Aug 21, 18454 reads

Can We Design Cities for Happiness?
Happiness itself is a commons to which everyone should have equal access. That's the view of Enrique Penalosa , who is not a starry-eyed idealist given to abstract theorizing. He's actually a politician, who served as mayor of Bogota, Colombia, for three years, and now travels the world spreading a message about how to improve quality-of-life for everyone living in today's cities. Penalosa's ideas... posted on Aug 24, 21267 reads

The Billion Euro House
In January 2012, at the height of the economic crisis in Ireland and the rest of Europe, artist Frank Buckley was faced with the possibility of his home being repossessed. In a remarkable twist of fate, Frank set out to build himself a new home using shredded Euro banknotes and aptly named it "The Billion Euro House." Through The Billion Euro House, Frank seems to ask us "What is the true value of... posted on Aug 26, 4344 reads

The Literary Physician & How Stories Heal
When physician-writer William Carlos Williams was asked how he managed his dual careers, he replied, "It's no strain. In fact, the one nourishes the other, even if at times I've groaned to the contrary." It's a philosophy shared by Rita Charon, director of a new program in narrative medicine at Columbia University, where students and clinicians learn to shape the fragments of medical work -- a sym... posted on Aug 27, 8192 reads

How To Trick Your Brain for Happiness
"In recent years, we have started to better understand the neural bases of states like happiness, gratitude, resilience, love, compassion, and so forth. And better understanding them means we can skillfully stimulate the neural substrates of those states -- which, in turn, means we can strengthen them." In this article, Rick Hanson describes how to skillfully use the mind to amplify positive conne... posted on Sep 15, 148959 reads

How to Change When Change Is Hard
"Find a bright spot and clone it. That's the first step to fixing everything from addiction to corporate malaise to malnutrition. A problem may look hopelessly complex. But there's a game plan that can yield movement on even the toughest issues. And it starts with locating a bright spot -- a ray of hope." So begins this excerpt in Fast Company from the best-seller "Switch: How to Change When Chang... posted on Sep 9, 33454 reads

The 'E' For Empathy Test
"If you ever want to understand your boss, corner him (or her) at the next office party and see if he'll play a little game. Tell him you need only 30 seconds. Then ask your boss to extend his right forefinger. "Go ahead," you might need to assure him, "this won't hurt." Then ask him to take that extended finger and draw a capital E on his forehead. Does he draw the letter so that it faces him -- ... posted on Jan 18, 16633 reads

In Praise of Melancholy
"Eighty-four percent of Americans claim to be happy, a statistic that Wake Forest University English professor Eric G. Wilson finds "strange at best, troubling at worst." With a litany of self-help books, pills and plastic surgery to feed an addiction to happiness, he says, "It's now easier than ever before to live a trouble-free life, to smooth out the rough edges, to hide the darkness." In his r... posted on Oct 3, 6849 reads

The 13-Year Old Who Is Foresting the World
Felix Finkbeiner's stringbean physique is complemented by a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and a pudding-bowl haircut. At 13, he is an environmental superstar at the helm of a global network of child activists whose aim is to mitigate climate change by reforesting the planet. Behind his apparently unprepossessing facade, Felix is really an action hero. His organisation, Plant for the Planet, recently... posted on Sep 6, 11537 reads

A Good Day In Haiti
Lovely Avelus graduated from kindergarten this past June in Haiti..."It was a big day for little Lovely, now 5. Two years ago, she was buried in the rubble of the two-storey house her family rented a room in by the 7.0 Richter earthquake that smashed this already broken country into shards. Lovely was counted among the dead who, by the end of it all, measured some 300,000. She emerged unblemished... posted on Dec 28, 3394 reads