The Compassionate Instinct
Although many question whether true compassion exists at all, recent studies are showing that compassion is deeply rooted in our brains, our bodies, and in the most basic ways we communicate. Dacher Keltner -- a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley -- shares more about the compassionate side to human nature in this article.... posted on Nov 5, 22749 reads

7 Ideas For Compassionate Communities
Are you looking for inspiring ideas to take action on some of society's broadest and most challenging issues? From addressing homelessness to providing medical care (in exchange for a song), look no further than this list of 7 revolutionary ideas from Yes Magazine.... posted on Nov 20, 19434 reads

When's The Last Time You Unfolded A Map?
When's the last time you pulled out a map to find where you were, or how to get where you were going? As Snigda Manickavel reminds us, "When we gaze at our devices and scurry through the world in thoroughly efficient ways, we are forgetting the most important part of our sojourn on this watery planet. To connect with the other people who are here with us." You may want to dig up some maps or peek ... posted on Nov 11, 23574 reads

The New Farmers
With an environment in crisis, a new generation of young farmers is taking their action from the streets back to the soil. In this article from Orion Magazine, writer Lauren Markham explores the motivations that have driven this newest generation of farmers to relinquish the comforts of urban life, and to take the reins of a new farming movement.... posted on Feb 7, 8262 reads

How Does Grace Happen?
Grace has the capacity to transcend even our darkest of spaces. It is a sudden miracle, basked in the light of loving-kindness. And, grace has the capacity to heal. "These moments of grace," author Mary Traina writes, "teach us that there is always more to life than we can imagine." But, how do we open our hearts to grace? By way of answer, this article offers up a series of simple, yet moving rea... posted on Dec 28, 29593 reads

One Man's Organized Response To Disaster
When tech executive David Campbell learned about the devastation in Thailand caused by the 2004 tsunami, he was moved to action. Armed with a wireless router and duct tape he flew to Thailand where, against the odds he organized a chaotic assortment of people from around the world into a team of effective volunteers. When Campbell returned home to the U.S., Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Us... posted on Dec 10, 20548 reads

Which Countries Are The Happiest?
Is it income or social inclusion that determines the level of happiness one feels? To what extent, if any, does geography contribute to one's happiness? In a study of more than 40,000 students representing 200 countries, researchers examined these questions to try to arrive at the science of happiness. Read on for the results and to see if your country is represented in the study!... posted on Jan 9, 35422 reads

Just One Thing: Be Amazed
Sometimes noticing the little things make us realize how truly amazing life can be. Showing love, being forgiving and taking time to be awed by things we take for granted, like the beauty of a butterfly or the power of a hug, can be powerful reminders to be grateful. Read further to be reminded of how beautiful life can be.... posted on Jan 13, 25775 reads

An Open Letter To The Children Of The World
If you wrote an open letter to the children of the world, would you apologize to them? Following the tragic Newtown shooting that took the lives of 20 children exactly two years ago today, Randall Amster wrote such a letter. In it he addresses not just children but adults, as well: "This is not an excuse for our actions. We've let ourselves get caught up in the pace of our lives, and we've become ... posted on Dec 14, 24044 reads

Brilliant Impersonators: Celebrating The Rip-Off
Inventors are our heroes -- the geniuses who keep progress surging forward. Copycats -- we call them pirates -- are a threat. But according to researchers, throughout human history, innovation has been fueled and sustained by imitation. Copying is the mighty force that has allowed the human race to move from stone knives to remote-guided drones. We're natural-born rip-off artists. To be human is t... posted on Jan 11, 5213 reads

Low On Time? Here's A Surprising Solution
If we want to be high-functioning and happy, we need to re-learn how to be still. When we feel like there isn't enough time in the day for us to get everything done, when we wish for more time... we don't actually need more time. We need more stillness. Stillness to recharge. Stillness so that we can feel whatever it is that we feel. Stillness so that we can actually enjoy this life that we are li... posted on Jan 19, 36552 reads

Unpacking a Gift from 21 Years Ago
While cleaning out her dresser, a woman stumbles across a beautiful handwoven purse that was gifted to her by a special teacher more than two decades ago. A question from her husband leads her to reflect for the first time on what prompted that teacher's thoughtful gesture. What followed was a beautiful insight on the ways in which our lives are supported by the kindness of countless people. Read... posted on Dec 22, 22814 reads

Repaying A Homeless Man's Kindness
After a homeless man offered a college student in England all the money he had so she'd be able to get home safely, the woman is paying it forward -- in a massive way. Throughout the past few days, Dominique Harrison-Bentzen has raised almost $50,000 for the good Samaritan and for other homeless individuals in her community. Read her touching story here.... posted on Dec 24, 23265 reads

60 Kind Acts For My 60th Birthday
There is little in this world that provides a greater sense of inner peace than taking the time to do something kind for others. And, we shouldn't have to wait for "World Kindness Day" to take advantage of this. Rather, kindness can be something which is gently infused into each day. Read one woman's heart-opening experience as she challenged herself to a 60-day kindness challenge in celebration o... posted on Feb 13, 36409 reads

What Do I Do With IT?
What to do with "It"? There are many "its" in our lives, but no matter what "it" is that we have to face, we always have a choice about how we respond. Through her whimsical art, Deb Koffman reminds us that there's never just one way to deal with the blessings and challenges that greet us along the way.... posted on Jan 21, 29528 reads

Lee Hoinacki: Conscience & Courage
Lee Hoinacki, author of four books, ex-Dominican priest, scholar and deeply connected with Ivan Illich, was a remarkable man. One example: having left academia to become a subsistence farmer he found he needed money to help his daughter. He began looking for a job, "Then it hit me, why am I trying to get one of these respectable jobs? That's the worst thing I could do! That's what I left years ago... posted on Feb 3, 17276 reads

A Letter From Your 14-Year-Old Self
When was the last time you received a hand-written letter? For students of Mr. Farrer, it was a letter that they had written to their future selves 20 years ago, full of their young hopes and dreams as well as memories of people who have since passed away. Bruce Farrer started the assignment when he first started teaching at Bert Fox Community High School in the small Canadian town of Fort Qu'Appe... posted on Jan 1, 6737 reads

Top 10 Kindness Stories of 2014
Sometimes, all it takes is a small reminder to open our eyes to the beauty and wonder that surrounds us. KindSpring -- a portal for stories of kind acts, brims with such reminders every day! In 2014 a steady stream of acts of kindness by KindSpringers touched the lives of thousands of people all over the world. The following stories are some of the favorites from the past year. Enjoy!... posted on Jan 3, 68146 reads

A Gang You'll Want Your Kid to Join
The words 'gang' or 'posse' have negative connotations for most people. But not for Deborah Bial. After an aha-moment with a college drop-out, she would go on to form the Posse Foundation, one of the most comprehensive college access programs in the United States. How successful is the program? The list of former Posse graduates is undeniably impressive: Harvard grads, doctors, a college dean, a f... posted on Mar 27, 6189 reads

How Long Has It Been Since You Smelled A Flower?
For forty years Thom Irving has led writing workshops with prison inmates. He describes it as unlearning the language of excuses and refusal to accept responsibility for one's acts, then building hope that one is not entirely alone or lost as long as swallows can be seen, even from the narrow slot of a cell window.... posted on Mar 8, 5446 reads

Can Connection Cure Addiction?
"It is now one hundred years since drugs were first banned -- and all through this long century of waging war on drugs, we have been told a story about addiction...This story is so deeply ingrained in our minds that we take it for granted: There are strong chemical hooks in these drugs, so if we stopped on day twenty-one, our bodies would need the chemical. We would have a ferocious craving. We wo... posted on Mar 24, 28027 reads

The Promise of Personalized Learning
As public budgets shrink, schools look toward online models for ways to improve student performance but, however cost-effective, they cannot replace the human element in teaching. Here's a hybrid model called blended learning in which computers help students achieve competency by letting them work at their own pace while teachers are freed to do what they do best: guide, engage, and inspire. ... posted on Aug 15, 5092 reads

Definitions of Success Down the Ages
Author Bessie Anderson Stanley once defined a successful person as someone who "has left the world better than he found it." Lao Tzu, on the other hand, argued that success was to be found in the journey, not the destination. No matter your definition, we all aspire to be successful - to be the best version of ourselves, to inspire others, and to leave the world a better place. Read on to be inspi... posted on Apr 2, 20359 reads

The Science of Forgiveness
Forgiveness has been a cornerstone of all major world religions for hundreds of years as well as an increasingly popular subject in modern psychology. But as one researcher and psychologist put it, "I knew exactly how to ask God for forgiveness, but I had no idea how to forgive, or ask forgiveness from the people in my life." This thoughtful essay shares more.... posted on Apr 12, 25544 reads

How Gratitude Beats Materialism
We all know the benefits of a grateful heart. It helps us cultivate a deeper awareness of our true gifts in each moment. And yet, even though we know that the most important things in life aren't "things" -- why do we still have a tendency to want to accumulate material goods? Is there a way to deliberately cultivate gratitude, such that it releases us from our need for those bright, shiny things?... posted on Apr 9, 34764 reads

Old Skool Cafe
As a juvenile corrections officer, it broke Teresa Goine's heart to see young offenders coming back through the California prison system time and again. Sending these youth back home without a support system to keep them on the right track seemed to be setting them up for systematic failure. Eventually, Goines came up with the idea of Old Skool Cafe, a 1940s-style supper club run entirely by at-ri... posted on Apr 16, 2672 reads

How To Forge A Mentoring Relationship
Author Paulo Coelho once wrote that a teacher isn't someone who simply teaches something, but rather someone who inspires the student to give their best. To that end, we must consider those who have most inspired our lives - and the benefits they've shared as we've grown. In this article, Patrick Cook-Deegan explores the many ways in which we might deepen the mentoring relationship, in order to cr... posted on May 22, 27866 reads

The 5 Conditions for the Emergence of Collective Wisdom
There is immense transformative power in the collective if we can learn to skillfully harness the energy that emerges when we gather. In this piece, author and leadership consultant Alan Briskin outlines five conditions for the emergence of collective wisdom. Read on to see which elements you can leverage in your life.... posted on Apr 29, 23898 reads

A Seizure of Happiness: Mary Oliver On Life's Magic
No one captures the humble grace of presence in daily life better than Mary Oliver. Read a few bewitching passages from her altogether enchanting book, Long Life: Essays and Other Writings... posted on Apr 30, 19814 reads

A Secular Person's Search For Prayer
After years of trying to manage all of the variables in her life, busy Heather Havrilesky wanted to be in touch with something bigger than her own fluctuating moods and needs, but without a belief system that required her to suspend disbelief. Most of all, she wanted to find a prayer that reminded her to serve other people more. Read more about her quest for a prayer.... posted on May 1, 12879 reads

Reforming The Prison System: Shaka Senghor & #Cut50
Convicted of the murder of a fellow drug dealer, Shaka Senghor spent seven of his 19 years in prison in solitary confinement -- a bare six by eight-foot cell. Today he leads a new initiative to transform the justice system by cutting the U.S. prison population in half by 2025. His message of personal and political transformation provides us with an opportunity to question the enormous costs of cag... posted on May 18, 12525 reads

Photos of Indigenous Americans Without Stereotypes
Three years ago photographer Matika Wilbur, a member of the Tulalip and Swinomish tribes, set out on a vast road trip across America to photograph members of all 562 of America's federally-recognized tribes. (That number is now 566.) Her collection so far includes images from more than 200 tribes she has visited in the course of traveling 80,000 miles around the western United States. ... posted on Sep 11, 14884 reads

The Biggest Reason We Steal Other People's Ideas
Because of the way human memory works, we tend to pay more attention to the content of an idea than to the source of it. Learn how this peculiarity leads to what psychologist Dan Gilbert calls keptomnesia, or the generating of an idea that you think is original but was actually unconsciously "stolen" from someone else, and how to minimize the chances of committing this error.... posted on Jun 14, 12966 reads

I Wish My Teacher Had Known...
Elementary teacher Kyle Schwartz recently came up with an activity for her third-grade class in a school where 92 percent of kids qualify for free or reduced lunch. She handed out notecards and asked them to finish this sentence: "I wish my teacher knew..." The results, which went viral, will tear at your heart. ... posted on May 28, 27440 reads

Michael Lerner: Whispers of a Wounded Healer
Meet Michael Lerner, one of the founding members of Commonweal -- an organization founded on the principle of engendering hope through service. "We can't know what the future will actually be," he shares. "but living in service and doing what we can engenders a form of hope, a form of resilience that is part of creating a global consciousness that can move us through these very difficult times." R... posted on Jun 1, 32585 reads

How to Transform Stress Into Courage and Connection
"Stress doesn't always lead to fight-or-flight, says Kelly McGonigal. It can also activate brain systems that help us connect with other people." In this article, McGonigal summarizes the social science research that explains how a certain response to stress changes the brain's biochemistry in surprising ways.... posted on Jun 29, 22354 reads

The Music In You
With those who say, 'I can't carry a tune,' music cognition expert Elizabeth Margulis begs to differ. Psychologists discover that nearly all of us are musical experts in quite a startling sense... So why don't we realize how much we know? And what does that hidden mass of knowledge tell us about the nature of music itself?... posted on Jun 7, 8437 reads

15 People Who Saved the Lives of Millions
Whether it be due to a lifetime of work or research, or perhaps just because of an incredible 'in the moment' decision, the following 15 people have been credited with saving the lives of millions of people worldwide. Find out more about these extraordinary -- and sometimes seemingly just ordinary -- people who have helped shape the course of history. ... posted on Jun 23, 53744 reads

Rescuing Social Change From the Cult of Technology
"Technology is terrific...But in the end, there's no real progress without change in people." This is the conclusion that Kentaro Toyama, leader of Microsoft Research India, reached after five years of working to implement technological solutions for social change. Hear his reflections on progress, technology, and the human will.... posted on Aug 12, 14371 reads

I Like Being 98
Evelyn (no last name given) was 97 when her driver's license was taken away from her for no other reason than her age. So, at age 98, she decided to get it back in order to fulfill a promise to a neighbor to get her to the grocery store once a week after their retirement community's bus service was discontinued. "When you make a promise, it's important for me to keep that promise if it's possible.... posted on Jun 20, 6951 reads

Everyone Has A Story The World Needs To Hear
Dave Isay opened the first StoryCorps booth in New Yorks Grand Central Terminal in 2003 with the intention of creating a quiet place where a person could honor someone who mattered to them by listening to their story. Since then, StoryCorps has evolved into the single largest collection of human voices ever recorded. Isay is the 2015 TED Prize winner, with an award of $1 million to fulfill a wish:... posted on Jul 25, 3916 reads

Can Compassion Change the World?
Can compassion change the world? In celebration of his 80th birthday, the Dalai Lama reached out to author, Daniel Goleman for assistance in capturing his compassionate vision. The result of their collaboration, "A Force for Good: The Dalai Lama's Vision for Our World", a book that is both a translation of the Dalai Lama's ideals and a call to action.... posted on Sep 4, 16171 reads

Where Children Play: Photographs of Playgrounds of the World
Photographer James Mollison captures the sacred spaces of childhood around the world in Playground. He became fascinated by how the great diversity of playgrounds around the world has shaped the experience of childhood, calling them "a space of excitement, games,bullying, laughing, tears, teasing, fun, and fear."This post shares more.... posted on Jul 18, 0 reads

Getting Hands On With Nature
The joy of children encountering the natural world on their own terms is becoming a lost idyll, no longer an integral part of growing up. There are many reasons for this loss -- urbanization, the changing social structure of families, the fear of stranger danger. But also much of environmental education has become restrictive and rule bound, taking on a museum mentality, where nature is a composed... posted on Jul 29, 8106 reads

The Art Pioneer Once Expelled for 'Doodling'
Adarsh Alphons rose to success from relative obscurity. After 'doodling' got him kicked out of one school,his diehard love of art soon led him to the chance of a lifetime: an opportunity to present his work to Nelson Mandela. It's no wonder then, that Adarsh has dedicated his life to giving other kids a chance to discover themselves and transform their world through art.... posted on Jul 17, 5131 reads

When You Give a Tree an Email Address
Given the chance to speak to a tree, what would you say? Recently, officials in Melbourne assigned trees in the city limits each an email addresses to help locals report broken limbs and other potential dangers. It turns out though, that people weren't as concerned with communicating about the trees as they were interested in communicating with them. Hear what people had to share, heart to heartwo... posted on Aug 10, 9388 reads

How Groups Shape Individual Judgement
Peer pressure, herd mentality, groupthink -- all various phrases that hint at a central truth: the mind of the group often sways the mind of the individual. But how and why does this happen? The scientists at the Greater Good Science Center of UC Berkeley endeavor to find out.... posted on Aug 26, 12830 reads

Peter Kingsley on Remembering What We Have Forgotten
In this interview author Peter Kingsley points out that "there's something infinitely precious at the origins of (Western) civilization. The trouble is that it's been lost because we started taking it for granted...The challenge (is) to wake up now and take responsibility for what we have been given." ... posted on Aug 6, 3588 reads

The WE-economy: Value Creation in the Age of Networks
"Underlying the collaborative economy are a handful of very strong and general trends that are challenging the conventional business models in just about every sector of the economy --not just in the types of transactions that we usually think of as the sharing economy. Focus is shifting from selling stand-alone, physical products to creating services that enable users to make the most of the reso... posted on Sep 1, 12778 reads

Say It Like It Is
There is no holding back in this powerful film featuring spoken-word artist Prince Ea. His lyrics are on point, wrapping all of society's faults and failings into a tight little ball before firing it straight at us. He lays out the problems but also the solution - "real love, true love, boundless love." ... posted on Sep 15, 4161 reads