Time To Be A Witness
Two years into his retirement from the U.S. Forest Service, Jim Lockyer is still too busy painting and doing volunteer work to spend the kind of time he'd like on another favorite pastime: recording outdoor sights and sounds in his nature journal. So at journaling workshops in the Philadelphia area and beyond, the Delaware County artist and naturalist urges his students to do as he says, not as he... posted on Sep 6, 2212 reads

Argentina Shoe Drop
Blake Mycoskie wanted to get away from it all. After founding and running four businesses and losing by a sliver on The Amazing Race, he escaped last January to Argentina, where he learned to sail, dance the tango and play competitive polo. He also visited impoverished villages where few, if any, children had shoes. "I was sitting on a field on a farm one day, and I had an epiphany," says Mycoskie... posted on Sep 8, 2901 reads

A Father Teaches Non-Violence
"I was 16 years old and living with my parents 18 miles outside of Durban, South Africa, in the middle of the sugar plantations. We were deep in the country and had no neighbors, so my two sisters and I would always look forward to going to town to visit friends or go to the movies. One day, my father asked me to drive him to town for an all-day conference, and I jumped at the chance. Since I was ... posted on Sep 21, 4215 reads

Bill Clinton & My Commitment
Bill Clinton recently introduced MyCommitment.org, a new initiative which aims to provide all people with the resources to take action and make a real change in their communities and around the world. The website is inspired by the idea that as global citizens, we all have the unprecedented ability to help others achieve their dreams and realize a better future. Anyone -- regardless of age, incom... posted on Sep 30, 3650 reads

Wired For Leadership?
When participants in a trial at Arizona State University were asked to think about the future, levels of brain activity varied significantly between those considered visionaries and non-visionaries. Visionaries showed much higher levels of brain activity than non-visionaries in areas of the brain associated with visual processing and organization of information. The visionary leaders had more effi... posted on Oct 1, 2277 reads

Secrets of the Very Very Old
Any centenarian in the US today has lived to see eighteen presidents serve the United States through two World Wars, the civil rights and womens' liberation movements and the rise and eventual fall of Communism. If s/he worked on a farm, s/he saw the progression from horses to tractors, and a Model T tooted its way down the street. S/he is older than the Empire State Building, bubble gum and Micke... posted on Oct 9, 4480 reads

Art as Attention to Living
"works & conversations," a unique gift-economy art magazine that showcases a series of profound and deeply personal interviews with artists from all walks of life, talks with former museum photographer Nick Hlobeczy. Editor Richard Whittaker’s shared exploration with Hlobeczy pushes and redefines the boundaries of art, bringing it seamlessly into an attention to living. Among other things, the t... posted on Oct 13, 2340 reads

Dying Homeless Man's Lesson in Humanity
A homeless man with a few months left to live and his caregivers have formed an unusual bond. Patrick Conway, with virtually nothing to his name turned out to have a lot to offer others. And in return, Conway, who'd always hated hospitals,is beginning to understand how love and compassion can enter a man's life in unforeseen ways. Dr. Melissa Mattison calls Conway "a breath of fresh air...There he... posted on Nov 2, 3345 reads

My Vision of a Compassion Future
Last week, the Dalai Lama received the highest civilian award in the United States -- the Congressional Gold Medal -- with recognition by the President and members of both the Republican and Democratic party members. As the spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhists, the Dalai Lama has been a courageous and steadfast voice of support for fundamental human rights, particularly the right to freedom ... posted on Oct 27, 1992 reads

Reading Reinvented
It is a more reliable storage device than a hard disk drive, and it sports a sleek user interface. (No instruction manual or "For Dummies" guide needed.) And, it is instant-on and requires no batteries. Many people think it is so perfect an invention that it can't be improved upon, and react with indignation at any implication to the contrary. "The book," says Jeff Bezos, 43, the CEO of Internet ... posted on Dec 3, 2869 reads

Top 10 Celebrity Scientists
They brought us black holes and great whites, gorillas and chimps, footprints and evolution ... and weren't shy about it. This website offers a rundown of 10 of history's greatest 'celebrity scientists' including Richard Feynman, Jane Goodall and Stephen Hawking, complete with snapshots of their contributions and insightful quotations from each.... posted on Dec 18, 4892 reads

The Story of Stuff
From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a fast-paced, fact-filled video that looks at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. It intelligently exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and brings people ... posted on Dec 19, 4638 reads

Competing for Change
Everybody loves a contest, from highbrow tests of knowledge like "Jeopardy," to rollicking displays of artistic ambition like "American Idol". Now, Ashoka's Changemakers.net is tapping into the same sporting instinct to inspire people to think, connect, and help, using one of the Internet's signature movements: open sourcing. The group hosts online competitions in which contestants offer solutions... posted on Jan 15, 1667 reads

10 Ways We Get the Odds Wrong
These days, it seems like everything is risky, and worry itself is bad for your health. The more we learn, the less we seem to know -- and if anything makes us anxious, it's uncertainty. At the same time, we're living longer, healthier lives. So why does it feel like even the lettuce is out to get us? The human brain is exquisitely adapted to respond to risk -- faced with a precipice or a predator... posted on Feb 13, 6265 reads

Science Reinvented
The explosively growing World Wide Web has rapidly transformed retailing, publishing, personal communication and much more. Innovations have forced old-line institutions to adopt whole new ways of thinking, working and doing business. Science could be next. A small but growing number of researchers -- and not just the younger ones -- have begun to carry out their work via the wide-open blogs, wiki... posted on Mar 10, 2579 reads

The Power of Mindsight
Our childhood shapes our brain in many ways -- and so it determines our most basic ways of reacting to others, for better and for worse. According to UCLA psychiatrist Daniel Siegel, if parents consistently fail to acknowledge and discuss the connections between a child's behavior and her emotions, the child won't gain any insight into her own thoughts and feelings, nor will she appreciate other p... posted on Mar 11, 3484 reads

Garden Variety Revolution
Earthworms are the original recyclers. They eat garbage, shred plant residue, and then spread the broken-down matter as they burrow into the ground.The worms also mix and aerate the soil, improve its drainage, and provide channels for roots to take hold. With the help of a talented social entrepreneur, hard work, and good luck, earthworms are making history again at TerraCycle Inc. The eco-friendl... posted on Mar 28, 2491 reads

From Good to Great
Jim Collins, perhaps the most influential management expert alive today, has served as a teacher to senior executives and CEOs at more than a hundred corporations and non-profits worldwide. Collins' 2001 book, "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't," attained long-running positions. In 2005, Collins, a former Stanford University business school professor, wrote a 3... posted on Dec 30, 4055 reads

Kids for Peace
Hana Craft likes to sing, play the piano, and play sports at school. But at just 9 years old, she's also focused on making the world better. "Peace is important to me because when I grow up, I want my kids to live in a safe and kind world," she says. Hana is an original member of Kids for Peace, an organization cofounded by her mom, Jill McManigal, and a local teen who's passionate about promoting... posted on Apr 29, 2575 reads

Playing Doctor: Interview with Patch Adams
Patch Adams first became famous within medical circles, and then to the rest of the world, as a doctor in clown's clothing, a social activist who uses humor and his medical training to advocate for a more humane, affordable, and even playful health care system. Shortly after graduating from medical school in the early 1970s, he founded what would become the Gesundheit Institute, which started as a... posted on May 14, 3028 reads

Designs on the Future
An important player in the design world, Valerie Casey had been pitching new packaging and product-design strategies to corporate giants with less-than-stellar environmental resumes. Hesitant to even broach the topic of sustainability at the risk of scaring off her potential clients, and anguished at her own cowardice, she began, there on the plane, to write a "Kyoto Treaty" of design, a call to a... posted on Jun 26, 2055 reads

Germany's Very Unusual Traffic Solution
Like countless other communities, this west German town lived for years with a miserable traffic problem. Each day, thousands of cars and big trucks barreled along the two-lane main street, forcing pedestrians and cyclists to scamper for their lives. The usual remedies -- from safety crossings to speed traps -- did no good. So the citizens of Bohmte decided to take a big risk. Since September, the... posted on Jul 3, 3630 reads

Easing Childrens' Hospital Fears
It seems logical and reasonable, now, that in a children's hospital, it should be someone's job to make kids with serious illnesses less fearful and more comfortable as a boon to their treatment and recovery. But 44 years ago, when Myra Fox started working at Boston Children's Hospital, it was something new. "It was a whole different way of looking at the whole child, and not just the medical prob... posted on Jul 11, 2260 reads

A Story of Five Million Steps
In 1996, Terry Hitchcock ran from Minneapolis to Atlanta in 75 consecutive days, covering the equivalent of a marathon or more each day. He ran because he wanted to bring attention to all everyday heroes, because he wanted to make towns and cities and even the whole country aware that 35 million people struggle everyday with the extraordinary challenges of being part of a single-parent family. He ... posted on Jul 16, 2685 reads

The 112 Year-Old Artist
Frank Calloway spends his days turning visions from his youth into lively murals -- and at 112 years old, the images of his childhood are a window to another time. Drawn on sheets of butcher paper and sometimes stretching to more than 30 feet long, his scenes give a glimpse into the early 20th century. Calloway, diagnosed with schizophrenia, lived about half his life in state mental health centers... posted on Jul 29, 2636 reads

Hockey Hero With A Big Heart
"Our son is my newest "Hockey Hero." He plays goalie on his small hometown ice hockey team. One weekend on matchday, we arrived a bit late and quickly found our seats and settled in. As I looked around, I noticed we were sitting with a family who had a mentally and physically handicapped child. We could hear the exciement in his voice when he said, "Mom, look the goalie is going to get the puck... posted on Sep 18, 3348 reads

Why I Blog
"For centuries, writers have experimented with forms that evoke the imperfection of thought, the inconstancy of human affairs, and the chastening passage of time. But as blogging evolves as a literary form, it is generating a new and quintessentially postmodern idiom that's enabling writers to express themselves in ways that have never been seen or understood before. Its truths are provisional, an... posted on Nov 8, 2637 reads

The Balance Needed To Lead Change
One reason leading change is so difficult is the tension it sets up between managing business issues and managing people issues. Most managers are trained to deal with structural and operational issues, and they are evaluated on and rewarded for their ability to innovate and to deliver business results. But the pressures generated by major structural or operational change compel leaders to pay par... posted on Dec 21, 5972 reads

The Psychology of New Year's Resolutions
As we put the holidays behind us and dig out from underneath all of the wrapping paper, many of us turn to the New Year's celebration to engage in a ritual that any visiting alien might be puzzled by -- New Year's resolutions. Why do humans pick a single point in time each year to try and change certain things in their life -- behaviors, attitudes -- make resolutions about them, and then proceed t... posted on Jan 3, 6354 reads

How We Think About Risk
A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? Almost everyone feels the temptation to answer "10 cents" because the sum $1.10 so neatly separates into $1 and 10 cents, and 10 cents seems the right price for a ball relative to a bat. In fact, more than half of a group of students at Princeton and at the University of Michigan gave precisely ... posted on Jan 7, 6097 reads

Life (Mostly) Off the Grid
They live on one-fifth of an acre in Pasadena, Calif., a block away from a multilane highway. On this tiny sliver of land, they manage to be mostly self-sufficient. Jules Dervaes, 60, and three of his adult children harvest 6,000 pounds and more than 350 separate varieties of fruits, vegetables and edible flowers annually. They brew the biodiesel fuel that powers the family car. Solar panels on t... posted on Jan 30, 4958 reads

Sixty-five Roses: A Sister's Memoir
Heather Summerhayes Cariou's sister Pam was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at the age of four and given only a short time to live. "Sixtyfive Roses" is the way Pam pronounced the disease that altered the lives of her siblings and parents, who in turn helped alter the community's response to the disease by founding the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Heather's book "Sixty-five Roses" offers a ... posted on Feb 14, 2820 reads

Creating Knowledge More Consciously
The coauthor of 'Managing Flow: A Process Theory of the Knowledge-Based Firm', Tokyo-based business scholar Ikujiro Nonaka strives to help organizations create knowledge more consciously, drawing on Western and Eastern philosophic traditions. Nonaka summarizes and extends a body of work that could change the prevailing view of knowledge management to that of an enabler of in-depth learning. "Compa... posted on Feb 17, 3267 reads

Trading Guns for Nail Polish
In the most dangerous neighborhood of Guayaquil -- Ecuador's largest and most crime-ridden city -- a dozen youths are busy working in the Paz Urbana Print Shop. By the entrance, a young man designs a T-shirt logo with graffiti paint. In the back, amid the hip-hop music and paint fumes, tattooed young men with baggy pants and baseball caps compile an order of worksheets for schools. The print shop ... posted on Feb 21, 3351 reads

CEO of the People
There's a lot of resentment these days against executive compensation and all the perks taken by corporate heads. Maybe there's something to be learned from the boss of Japan Airlines, Haruka Nishimatsu, who takes the bus to work. Nishimatsu knocked down his office walls so people can walk up and talk to him, and he works from a desk with an old-fashioned wooden in-and-out box. Got an idea? Tell h... posted on Feb 25, 4669 reads

Australian Slumdog Millionaires
Mark and Cathy Delaney don't need to see the hit movie Slumdog Millionaire. The Australian couple experience slum life in India every day. For the last 13 years they have lived in the shanty towns of the Indian capital, New Delhi, raising their children and sharing their lives with the locals. Their two sons, Tom, 12, and Oscar, 7, were born in India and have lived most of their lives in slums. ... posted on Mar 6, 9588 reads

How Thoughts Change our Brains
In the 90's, neuroscientists overthrew the dogma that the adult brain can't change. To the contrary, its structure and activity can morph in response to experience, an ability called neuroplasticity. The discovery has led to promising new treatments for many, including stroke patients. But the brain changes discovered reflected input from the outside world. The Dalai Lama wondered, could it work t... posted on Mar 10, 8077 reads

Why Stress is Not Always Bad
Is stress always bad? It can be, but it can be good for you, too. Certainly, much can be done to unlearn stressful behaviors and gain both perspective and balance. But according to this Newsweek article, people (including scientists) fail to see the full picture. The other view is that the stress response -- the body's hormonal reaction to danger, uncertainty or change -- evolved to help us surviv... posted on Mar 15, 4565 reads

NBA Player turned Farmer-Activist
At 6 feet 7 inches tall and 280 pounds, Will Allen is a former NBA basketball player with the biceps of an NFL lineman. The son of an illiterate laborer, Allen is now a farmer-activist, and founder of Growing Power, a nonprofit farm in the middle of Milwaukee that raises fresh produce for under-served populations with high rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Allen has been a leading figu... posted on Mar 22, 2539 reads

Questioning Self-Discipline
If there is one character trait whose benefits are endorsed by traditional and progressive educators alike, it may well be self-discipline. Just about everyone wants students to override their unconstructive impulses, resist temptation, and do what needs to be done. The only question is how best to accomplish this. Author and scholar Alfie Kohn further explores what he sees as the troubling theory... posted on Oct 27, 6309 reads

The Tale of A Lost & Found Camera
Rhonda Surman and her husband were hiking around some Bronze Age ruins in western Scotland when they found an Olympus digital camera, lying on the ground. The couple turned the camera over to the local police but when it was returned to them unclaimed they took matters into their own hands. Ms. Surman posted several of the 600 pictures on the camera on the Internet and, organized a group of amat... posted on May 1, 2692 reads

A Taxi Driver Turns it Around
"A couple weeks ago I was standing out on a cold evening in New York City waiting for a cab to come take me to a nightclub. After about 5 minutes of waiting, I was picked up by a gentleman in his 30's, and he was clearly angry. Swear words left and right about how horrible New Yorkers were. I knew my cab ride would only be about 10 minutes and there was a part of me that wanted to be silent and... posted on May 13, 7691 reads

Advocate of the Unwatched Life
"The practice of painting...I'm very involved in it, and so its natural outcome is this spiritual concern. If you consider it long enough and deeply enough a conversion experience will occur. On the other side of that conversion experience, or transformation, is this understanding of our fragility of being -- that we're just specks. And, really, we're just witnesses. [...] In the simplest way, usi... posted on May 16, 2011 reads

You are Brilliant -- and the Earth is Hiring
An excerpt from Paul Hawken's 2009 commencement address at the University of Portland: "There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn't bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING. The earth couldn't afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherri... posted on May 20, 21414 reads

How Much Sleep Do We Need?
"An amazing paradox exists in our educational system. We have learned that the consequences of pervasive sleep deprivation and undiagnosed sleep disorders are collectively one of our nation's biggest and most serious problems. Falling asleep at the wheel and in other hazardous situations is a leading cause of death and disability. [...] The paradox is that our society remains a vast reservoir of i... posted on May 21, 8552 reads

Drucker's Advice on Managing Oneself
When it comes to managing careers, the advice isn't surprising: "We must each be our own chief executive officer. Simply put, it's up to you to carve out your place in the work world and know when to change course. And it's up to you to keep yourself engaged and productive during a work life that may span some 50 years. To do all of these things well, you'll need to cultivate a deep understanding... posted on May 23, 4687 reads

Why Fiction Can Be Good For You
"For more than two thousand years people have insisted that reading fiction is good for you. Aristotle claimed that poetry -- he meant the epics of Homer and the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, which we would now call fiction -- is a more serious business than history. History, he argued, tells us only what has happened, whereas fiction tells us what can happen, which can stretch... posted on Jul 6, 4527 reads

From Bush to Bike: A Bamboo Revolution
"We planted this bamboo last year," he says, "and now the stems are taller than me. When it's ready we'll cut it, cure it and then turn it into frames." Mr Banda, is the caretaker for Zambikes, a company set up by two Californians and two Zambians which aimed to build bikes tough enough to handle the local terrain. Co-founder Vaughn Spethmann, 24, recalls how it all started with a game of football... posted on Jul 26, 3665 reads

Polly's Walk Around the World
"The definition of walking around the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, is that you have to walk at least 14,000 miles, and you need to start and finish in the same place and walk across at least four continents, and they say that when you get to the end of a continent you can fly," Polly Letofsky explains in the film her brother P.J. made to document her journey around the w... posted on Aug 8, 2483 reads

A Snowballing of Generosity
Imagine this: shopper Jenni Ware gets $207 of groceries at Trader Joe's and realizes only at the checkout line that she has lost her wallet. Carolee Hazard, in line behind the distressed woman, spontaneously covers the tab! Jenni goes home and sends Carolee a check for $300, and suggests that her benefactress treat herself to a massage with the leftover cash. Hazard turned to her online Facebook c... posted on Aug 29, 2660 reads