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

Why We Stink At At Taking Breaks
"I've been curious to understand why so many of us are so awful at taking breaks. What is it about our cultural conditioning as adults that prevent us from stepping away from our seemingly-important tasks in order to briefly recharge? Certainly, we're presented with adequate opportunities to pause when we don't want to: red lights, traffic jams, lines at the grocery store and at the bank. For many... posted on Oct 6, 14192 reads

The Healing Power of Poetry
""I never could connect with poetry," Jan said. "I'm a math teacher!" She was sitting on my living room couch surrounded by piles of poetry books. On the coffee table was a stack of cards, each with a different poem on it. Even some of the art on the wall had hand-calligraphed verses among the colors....Jan's glance fell on a stack of Mary Oliver's books, and tears came to her eyes. "A few years a... posted on Nov 5, 10021 reads

The Secret Powers of Time
Time just passes by, regardless of how we feel about it... right? Not according to Philip Zimbardo. He's been studying how people think of time for decades and has some amazing findings. Here's an animated look at how our time-orientation shapes our families, careers, and happiness.... posted on Sep 25, 10369 reads

One Hat, One Heart
Seeds of Light is the humanitarian service arm of CoreLight, an international non-profit organization practicing "love-in-action." One Hat One Heart is a project that provides handmade, warm winter hats to orphans and vulnerable children in Mpumalanga, South Africa. These hats are the medium through which joy and open-heartedness are being expressed. This short video on their work demonstrates wha... posted on Oct 27, 2712 reads

Students Step Up the Kindness
How amazing would it be to start the first day of school receiving random acts of kindness from your fellow students? Last year, a hundred students at Kansas State huddled early in the morning to see just how they could pool their time, money and creativity to surprise (and perhaps shock!) their fellow students with unexpected generosity. From a welcome applause to paying for meals to wowing a dri... posted on Oct 2, 3262 reads

New Zealand's River That Is A Person
From the dawn of history, and in cultures throughout the world, humans have been prone to imbue Earth's life-giving rivers with qualities of life itself -- a fitting tribute, no doubt, to the wellsprings upon which our past (and present) civilizations so heavily rely. But while modern thought has come to regard these essential waterways more clinically over the centuries, that might all be changin... posted on Sep 13, 7315 reads

A Schoolbag Full of Love
"My daughter, Emma (in 7th grade), started back to school last week. There is a young boy in her class (call him Jake) who is quite overweight. He is treated very badly by other kids and even by the teachers. For several nights this week Emma came home from school upset about the fact that Jake gets picked on so much. She also mentioned that he had no school supplies as his family could not afford... posted on Oct 4, 6588 reads

How to Work With Someone You Don't Like
How do you work with someone you don't like? The old adage, "grin and bear it", is almost impossible to do. In this article Peter Bregman describes an alternative strategy that is centred on self-reflection, self-awareness, and compassion... ultimately transforming dislike to like.... posted on Oct 22, 43242 reads

Solving Gen Y's Passion Problem
"This simple phrase, "follow your passion," turns out to be surprisingly pernicious...The verb "follow" implies that you start by identifying a passion and then match this preexisting calling to a job. Because the passion precedes the job, it stands to reason that you should love your work from the very first day. It's this final implication that causes damage. When I studied people who love what ... posted on Oct 18, 12204 reads

6-Year-Old Nico: Halloween's Real Life Hero
"Six-year-old Nico Castro from California isn't letting his battle with brain cancer affect his spirit of giving this Halloween. After his doctor gave him the green light to go trick-or-treating thanks to a break in his chemotherapy, he was jumping for jack-o'-lanterns, what a treat! But here's where it gets tricky. "Even though he's worse off than some of these other kids in the hospital, he's wo... posted on Nov 1, 12711 reads

The Connection Between Business & Poetry
"Dana Gioia (pronounced Joy-a) claims to be the only person in history who went to business school to be a poet. Having earned a degree from Stanford's graduate school of business, he worked 15 years in corporate life, eventually becoming vice president of General Foods. In 1991, Gioia wrote an influential collection of essays titled, "Can Poetry Matter?" in which he explored, among other themes, ... posted on Jan 28, 15263 reads

Trevor's Law: The Boy Who Did Not Give Up
At 13 Trevor Schaefer was diagnosed with brain cancer and the world as he knew it changed overnight. Not only did Trevor end up beating the cancer -- he found a calling. Now 22, Schaefer is an inspiring advocate for children with cancer, and the driving force behind "Trevor's Law." This bill now pending in Congress would increase government authority to determine if environmental toxins are respon... posted on Dec 11, 13296 reads

Happiness the Hard Way
People prior to the late 17th century thought happiness was a matter of luck or virtue or divine favor. Today we think of happiness as a right and a skill that can be developed. This has been liberating, in some respects, because it asks us to strive to improve our lots in life, individually and collectively. But there have been downsides as well. It seems that when we want to be happy all of the ... posted on Mar 7, 13585 reads

Grandmother Power: A Global Phenomenon
"All over the world grandmothers are forming activist groups to tackle intractable issues: poverty, illiteracy, environmental degradation, disease, injustice and violence. Never before have grandmothers campaigned so vigorously or universally to make the world a better place." Paola Gianturco spent three years interviewing and photographing 120 activist grandmothers across 15 countries on 5 contin... posted on Dec 13, 0 reads

Grandmother Power: A Global Phenomenon
"All over the world grandmothers are forming activist groups to tackle intractable issues: poverty, illiteracy, environmental degradation, disease, injustice and violence. Never before have grandmothers campaigned so vigorously or universally to make the world a better place." Paola Gianturco spent three years interviewing and photographing 120 activist grandmothers across 15 countries on 5 contin... posted on Dec 15, 17047 reads

In response to Newtown, A Call for Spiritual Activism
Rev. Charles Howard, chaplain at the University of Pennsylvania, offers a reflection on the recent tragedy in Connecticut. In his own search for how to respond, he comes to the intersection of inner transformation and social activism: "I am fasting for the next 27 days. One day for each life lost in Newtown -- including the gunman's. Fasting has been a part of my spiritual life for some time, bu... posted on Dec 17, 13660 reads

The Empathy Machine
When you think about Sherlock Holmes, chances are it's not his big, warm heart and his generous nature that come to mind. In fact, you might think of him as a cold fish. Yet in 'Silver Blaze', Arthur Conan Doyle's story of the gallant racehorse who disappeared, Holmes takes an imaginative leap, not only into another human mind, but into the mind of an animal. This perspective-taking, being able to... posted on Mar 15, 7614 reads

What Grown Ups Can Learn From Kids' Books
"My copy of Le Petit Prince looks like it has been through a natural disaster. Or two. The dust jacket is torn at every edge. What's not torn is frayed. A piece of scotch tape holds together the e and r of Exupery. The white background can't really be called white anymore. And inside, little pencil markings lurk throughout the text ...The book, in other words, has been well loved. That's not surpr... posted on Feb 25, 6315 reads

The Beautiful Fragility of Language
"I remember my first day of school with such clarity that it might as well have happened last week. I was five, and I was starting in the local kindergarten, along with all the other kids my age. Except for one difference: I didn't speak a word of English. Not a one. The only thing I knew how to do was write my own name-- M-A-R-I-A -- so that I could recognize it if the need arose. I practiced it ... posted on Feb 17, 24645 reads

The Little Girl Who Stood Up for a Mountain
"Faith, they say, can move mountains, but sometimes it takes hard work and dedication to help ensure that they don't go anywhere. In 1915, the town of Orogrande, New Mexico, was once a thriving gold rush community, home to several mining operations -- though the hum of heavy machinery in the nearby mines have since been silenced, replaced by the chatter of wildlife. Recently, however, ten-year-old... posted on Mar 2, 8216 reads

7 Ways to Make Happiness Last
When neurosurgeon Allan Hamilton was diagnosed with cancer, the "c-word" that he had used so often in his practice suddenly became personal and life-changing. Like many other cancer patients, his treatment journey was a mix of emotions. "Each time, the battery of tests would roll around again, I would find myself transported. I would want to hold on to the magic of that moment but, hard as I might... posted on Jan 22, 51760 reads

Rocky Anna: Love Is The Only Currency
Rocky Braat is no one special. He'd tell you that himself his friends say. His emails are full of misspellings and typos. But he has given his life to the love of others. This is a guy who didn't even particularly like kids to begin with. But then he had his heart broken -- open. Today the 30-something-year-old graphic designer from Pittsburgh lives in a cement hut and has dedicated the rest of hi... posted on Dec 27, 4639 reads

A Neighborhood's Christmas Kindness
On Dec. 1, a neighbor of Melissa Bemis and her family stopped in to tell her a gaily-wrapped package sat on her doorstep. Her two sons, Max, 7 and Mace, 2, were eager to find out what was inside, as was she. The attached card read, "On the first day of Christmas, Secret Santa left for me, games to play instead of watching TV." The anonymous gifting continued through Dec. 12 as "neighborhood elves"... posted on Dec 25, 7103 reads

Self-Taught Teen Wows MIT
In Sierra Leone, West Africa, the lights may come on once in a week, with the rest of the month, dark. So, Kelvin Doe made his own battery to power lights in people's houses from recycled parts he found in the trash. He also made his own FM radio transmitter and a generator to power it so that he can give voice to the youth in his country. David Sengeh discovered Kelvin at an innovation camp he ru... posted on Jan 5, 5460 reads

A Man Who Gave Away His Home To a Family in Need
A 51-year-old man is moving back in with his parents so a homeless family can live in his house instead. Tony Tolbert's offer is good for one full year. According to CBS, the spare bedroom in his childhood home in Los Angeles frequently went to people in need, which inspired his own version of the act. "You don't have to be Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or Oprah," Tolbert, a Harvard-educated attorne... posted on Jan 6, 48125 reads

14 Year-Old Gets Photos of Space
A Lego man encased in a homemade weather balloon ended his journey to the edge of space on a New Hampshire driveway, bringing with him a trove of atmospheric data as well as stunning images of the curvature of the Earth. The balloon, which landed on August 25, is the brainchild of a 14-year-old student named Jack Miron from Bedford, New Hampshire. He didn't know that NASA is using this technology ... posted on Jan 8, 10984 reads

Far From The Tree
How do you find meaning in difficulty? This video trailer for the book, "Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity," by Andrew Solomon, shows some poignant vignettes of interviews with parents and children who were born "different." Solomon learns that although individual differences can be isolating, the fact of difference is universal. His other great discovery is joy - m... posted on Jan 21, 4658 reads

The Gift That Matters
"From a very young age, my oldest daughter has been a gift giver. Like most children, her offerings consisted of items that adults wouldn't ordinarily classify as gifts. Broken seashells, traumatized frogs, dying weeds, and misshapen rocks were often presented in small, dirt-laden hands beneath a wide smile. In the past two years my child's gift giving practices have moved up a notch. Gifts are no... posted on Feb 8, 0 reads

The Gift That Matters
"From a very young age, my oldest daughter has been a gift giver. Like most children, her offerings consisted of items that adults wouldn't ordinarily classify as gifts. Broken seashells, traumatized frogs, dying weeds, and misshapen rocks were often presented in small, dirt-laden hands beneath a wide smile. In the past two years my child's gift giving practices have moved up a notch. Gifts are no... posted on Feb 9, 26327 reads

Gratitude, Gifting and Grandpa
A picture of John Styn's grandfather, Rev. Caleb Elroy Shikles, with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had a huge impact on John Styn's life growing up. It made him realize that great people are not "them" - they are "us." In this funny, emotional TEDx talk, Styn shares his grandpa's lessons of living life in intense gratitude and the joy that comes from gifting. He reminds us of the choice we all have... posted on Feb 20, 4367 reads

The Science of Storytelling
"For over 27,000 years, since the first cave paintings were discovered, telling stories has been one of our most fundamental communication methods. Recently a good friend of mine gave me an introduction to the power of storytelling, and I wanted to learn more. Here is the science around storytelling and how we can use it to make better decisions every day." This intriguing article shares more.... posted on Feb 21, 54317 reads

A Pep Talk From Kid President To You
The effervescent "Kid President" (AKA Robbie Novak) serves-up a half-time pep talk guaranteed to light your fire. He chides us for being boring and encourages us to "take the path that leads to awesome." We have work to do, he says, "and we can cry about it or we can dance about it... It is everybody's duty to give the world a reason to dance."... posted on Feb 26, 4558 reads

Feynman On The Beauty Of Not Knowing
The simple beauty of a flower captivates artist and scientist alike. Where our world exists without answers, without definitions, we seek answers and definitions. Sometimes we find them but when we don't, what does that mean? What does it say about us? What does it say about our existence? This short video explores the world through the eyes of Richard Feynman: emotional, visually beautiful, intel... posted on Mar 4, 5609 reads

Letters From Strangers Save Teen's Life
"Words have power. They can tear a person down, or build someone back up -- as we found on the road in Columbia, Maryland "There are a lot of kids out there that suffer depression and anxiety," said seventh-grader Noah Brocklebank. And not many are willing to talk about it on national television. "Not many are willing to talk about it, period," said Noah." When Noah posted a note on Facebook about... posted on Mar 14, 7409 reads

Our Planet Through the Eyes of Children
"A competition launched by a National Geographic photographer titled Children's Eyes On Earth has drawn an astonishing number of striking images from children in 90 countries around the world. Over 4,000 photographs, on the themes I Love Nature and I Fear Pollution, were submitted by young people under the age of 17, from regions as diverse as the USA, Romania, Australia and Iran. The winning entr... posted on Mar 21, 12123 reads

My Manifesto For A Happier World
Today is the first ever United Nations International Day of Happiness. All across the planet people are taking steps towards our greater collective well-being, and are celebrating their "Happy Heroes"! In honor of this special day, the head of UK-based initiative Action for Happiness has created a 12-step Manifesto For A Happier World -- and it calls for change not just from world leaders but from... posted on Mar 20, 24227 reads

A Writer, a Plumber and a Plan to Save the Planet
"Aabid Surti is an odd character. A few years ago, the angular, bearded author was invited to meet the President of India to receive a national award for literature at a ceremony in the capital, New Delhi. He politely declined. Absorbed in writing the first draft of his new novel, he cited the reason that he did not have time. But what he has made time for every Sunday for seven years now, is goin... posted on Mar 25, 14409 reads

Why Sleeping May Be More Important Than Studying
"Getting enough sleep is an under-valued but crucial part of learning. Contrary to students' belief that staying up all night to cram for an exam will lead to higher scores, truth is, the need for a good night's rest is even more important than finishing homework or studying for a test. A recent study in the journal Child Development showed that sacrificing sleep in order to study will actually ba... posted on Apr 3, 10319 reads

Rumi, Grace & Human Friendship
"Tami Simon speaks with Coleman Barks, a leading scholar and translator of the 13th century Persian mystic, Jelaluddin Rumi. Coleman's work was the subject of an hour-long segment in Bill Moyers' Language of Life series with PBS. In this episode, Simon speaks with Coleman about the extraordinary friendship between Rumi and his teacher Shams Tabriz. ... posted on Dec 29, 36217 reads

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Love
"The vision of love that emerges from the latest science requires a radical shift. I learned that I need to ask people to step back from their current views of love long enough to consider it from a different perspective: their body's perspective. Love is not romance. It's not desire. It's not even that special bond you feel with family or significant others. And perhaps most challenging of all, l... posted on Apr 19, 44203 reads