The Humblest People in Washington
Cloaked in simplicity, Sister Christiana and Mother Therese sleep no more than three and a half hours at a time, on straw mats in six-by-eight foot cells. They rise to prayer bells at five a.m., and pray again at six, noon, six, and half past midnight. In a world splattered with high-powered jobs fueled by prestige and assertiveness, humility is often cast aside a sign of weakness. But the convict... posted on Apr 11, 2400 reads

The Sound of One Hand Clapping
Richard Whittaker reflects on art and coffee with a stranger: "One morning I looked up from my cup of tea in a local coffee shop and was surprised to see a man at work on a little painting sitting at a table nearby. I walked over, took a peek, and was surprised again. It was really good. I complimented him on his work. He seemed to welcome the interruption, and I asked him a few questions. He was ... posted on Apr 29, 4779 reads

Meet the Neighbors
In an age of discount air travel, cheap long distance, and the internet, when we can create community anywhere, why is it that we often don't know the people who live next door? From porch parties in Columbus, Ohio, to community gardening projects in Albany, NY, people across the U.S. are finding creative ways to break down our physical and mental barriers of isolation. Dennis Maxwell of Oregon gi... posted on May 4, 2423 reads

Join the Laughter Club
In one of the world's most challenging economies, two women are setting up laughter clubs to help people cope with the strains of daily life. Last year, a unity government halted the collapse of Zimbabwe's economy - which left the Zimbabwe dollar almost worthless - by allowing the use of foreign currency. How does one respond to such hardship? "You've got to laugh more," says one man at a recent w... posted on May 8, 2587 reads

The World's Happiest People
"I'm always a happy person," says Nina Nielsen, 24, roaming a bustling street with her mother and friends in Denmark's capital of Copenhagen. In more than one study (including a 2009 report from Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development), residents of Denmark have been designated the happiest people in the world. What's their secret? A well-balanced lifestyle. A positive o... posted on May 20, 6497 reads

A Trash-Free Year
"Any time I throw something away, I think of you." It sounds like an insult, but to Amy and Adam Korst, it's a typical compliment. Since July 2009, the young couple have been on a quest to answer the question: "Is it possible for a couple to live an entire year without placing trash in a landfill, in a country that produces more waste each year than any other country in the world?" According to th... posted on May 26, 3688 reads

A Piece of Cowboy Wisdom
"I had come to Elko for their annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering. A first-timer, I was neither a cowboy nor a student of cowboy poetry, but I'd been enjoying the performances and the friendly atmosphere among the ranchers, cowboys and the friends of cowboy culture. It was the second day of the festival and I'd taken a break to visit Capriola's, a place famous for its western gear. Just outside the sto... posted on May 29, 3044 reads

It Starts with a Seed
The seed of the idea, Satish Vijaykumar recalls, started as something tiny and simple: "One day I was just sitting and thinking about how the average Indian is always worrying about something, but we don't do anything." One thing that sounded doable to the young man of Mumbai, India was to pool together rupees with friends, buy a few saplings, and plant them. "It's the least I could do," he though... posted on Jun 4, 1572 reads

More Wrinkles, More Smiles
Happiness increases with age, surveys say! A recent Gallup poll asked 340,000 people across the United States questions ranging from age and gender, health, personal finances, emotions, and general well-being. They found that negative emotions like worry and sadness drop off after age 50, about the same time happiness sets in. Overall, the trends show that young adults start out feeling pretty goo... posted on Jun 10, 3184 reads

The Magic Flute
A pawnshop flute. That's how Marvin Sanders makes art out of uncertainty. From living on the streets to graduating college with a degree in music, Sanders recalls his incredible journey. And how it all started at a gas station: "I was in Denver, Colorado working at a gas station. Those were the days people would pull up and someone would walk out and pump your gas and wipe the windshield. I was wo... posted on Jun 16, 2924 reads

Soul Food: So All May Eat
In a world where a bite of fast food is cheaper than fresh fruits and vegetables, processed goods line the walls of food banks and soup kitchen gruel lacks key nutrients, being low-income means running on a toxin-rich diet. But at the SAME (So All May Eat) Cafe in Denver, Colorado, customers can walk in with empty wallets and leave nourished by healthy, organic food that otherwise would have broke... posted on Jul 3, 2754 reads

Oprah: A Case Study Comes Alive
Intuitively, there's something very powerful about Oprah Winfrey. At least that's what Professor Nancy Koehn of Harvard Business School thought. Of the entrepreneur who juggles her own talk show, magazine, and book club, one might ask, What exactly is Oprah in the business of? Why is she such a compelling leader? According to Koehn, it boils down to two elements: Purpose and Service. "It is a stor... posted on Jul 29, 8951 reads

365 Days of Happiness
"Great wife, amazing kids, a full head of hair - like so many people I felt I had no real grounds for feeling unhappy. But all too often I did, and it was getting me down." At 44, Cathal Morrow found himself getting bogged down by the trials and tribulations of daily life and spending "a decent amount of time veering between mildly piqued and downright upset." But then it dawned on him: he was hap... posted on Jul 20, 6300 reads

Less Give More
As the saying goes, life at the bottom is nasty, brutish and short. For this reason, some might assume that people in lower social classes will be more self-interested and less inclined to consider the welfare of others than upper-class individuals. A recent study, however, flips this idea on its head. Experiments by Paul Piff and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley concludes ... posted on Aug 7, 4153 reads

Pasta for All
It all started when his mother came to visit from Italy. Before then, Bruno Serato, owner of an upscale restaurant in California, admits he had a pretty carefree life- hosting and hobnobbing with Orange Country's most rich and famous. At the time, Serato was on the board of the local Boys and Girls Club, and thought his mother would like to see it. During the visit, he informed her that the club s... posted on Sep 7, 2559 reads

Knocking on Doors
As back-to-school season gets into full swing, Houston students who aren't back can expect an early morning knock on the door. It might be the mayor, the superintendent, or a group of volunteers showing up at the door, and they'll know exactly which credits a student needs and a variety of options for how to get them. "For too long a lot of these young people have felt no one cared about them," sa... posted on Sep 12, 1437 reads

Classroom on a Pushcart
Not many recognized Efren Penaflorida as he left the Philippines for a Hollywood gala for CNN Heroes. But when Penaflorida returned from the event as CNN's Hero of the Year, he was greeted by hundreds of screaming fans at Manila airport. Penaflorida was honored for creating mobile "pushcart classrooms," stocked with books, chalkboards and other supplies that bring education to poor Filipino childr... posted on Sep 26, 2047 reads

Packing Lunch with Love
For years, Marcia Merrick began her day making lunches for her two children. Her kids are grown up now, but Ms. Merrick still makes lunches every morning - 400 of them. Each decorated paper bag contains a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich or a bean burrito, chips, fruit, and two homemade cookies. She also includes a note of encouragement - and then distributes them to the homeless of Kansas City, M... posted on Sep 28, 3927 reads

A Year Without Money
By choice, Mark Boyle basically doesn't have a cent- or, more accurately, a pence- to his name. Boyle lives in rural England in a trailer he spotted on Freecycle.org. He feeds himself by growing everything from barley to potatoes, foraging wild edibles like berries and nettles, and occasionally dumpster-diving for luxuries like margarine and bread. He brushes his teeth with homemade toothpaste and... posted on Oct 23, 6232 reads

Facebook Friends Save Hermit Crabs
Leanne Sarco, a ranger at Grand Isle State Park located on a barrier island off the coast of Louisiana, remembers the day she discovered oil in her lagoons, after the April 20 explosion of a BP oil rig. While countless government, university and wildlife organizations drew up plans to solve the litany of complex problems created by the huge spill, Ms. Sarco thought small. She decided her best con... posted on Dec 2, 3353 reads

A Second Look at First Impressions
Why do we admire, envy, or disparage certain social groups and people? Why hire Kurt instead of Kyra? How do students choose study partners? "Within less than a second, using facial features, people make what are called 'spontaneous trait inferences,'" says social psychologist Amy Cuddy. Through investigating perceptions of warmth and competence, Cuddy explains how men and women rise to the top- o... posted on Dec 14, 7555 reads

Not Your Grandfather's Retirement
Retirement: Golf, knitting, rocking chairs, ...and changing the world? While notions of retirement have traditionally conjured up images of relaxing, traveling, and enjoying leisure time and recreation, more and more people at the age of retirement are committing the second half of their lives to projects that serve society. This year's recipients of the Purpose Prize, an award that honors people ... posted on Dec 5, 6114 reads

A Blessing from A Homeless Man
On the way back from work every evening, a homeless man would often be at the exit of the freeway. His eyes were brown and had a sparkle, like an inside light beaming out of his eyes. He always waved at every car, he was always happy and smiling and sometimes almost dancing. A feeling of joy would come over me every time I saw him, as I came off the ramp. He had that effect. Then one day, I w... posted on Dec 10, 7002 reads

A Biologist's Solution For A Troubled City
To many residents Binghamton, New York, appears to be on the decline. The once thriving community was struck hard by the economic downturn. It now has a shrinking population, rising crime rates and increasing drug use among youth. But recently, the city's quality of life got a boost from an unusual source: an evolutionary biologist who has studied microbes, zooplankton, and birds. Professor David ... posted on Jun 2, 11655 reads

30 Years of Work Bears Fruit
Thanks to decades-long effort, the variety of fruit-bearing shrubs and trees in Wattles' common areas is staggering: bananas, mangos, papayas, nectarines, apples, guavas, key lime, dwarf tangerines, olive, figs, Oro Blanco grapefruit, Washington navel oranges, blood oranges, persimmons, pomegranates, Chinese pear, cherimoya, peach, apricot. The list of multicultural delights goes on and on. As hea... posted on May 2, 2797 reads

Costumed Crusaders Taking it to the Streets
Crusaders costumed in tights, capes, cowls and other accoutrements are turning up with surprising regularity in American cities to fight what they consider their biggest enemy: public apathy. They call themselves Real Life Superheroes and, with names like Dark Guardian, Red Dragon, and Viper, they might be right at home on the pages of comic books. But unlike their ink-and-paper counterparts, they... posted on Mar 15, 3350 reads

5 Ways Laughter is Good For Health
Ever felt lighter after a good laugh? Physiologically speaking, that's no coincidence. Laughter is shown to increase blood flow, strengthen immune system, reduce muscle pain, lower blood sugar and shed calories. Along similar lines, singing or listening to music can improve the brain's auditory and language processing functions, and decrease insomnia, stress and stroke. Regular grounding practices... posted on Apr 21, 5480 reads

Pedaling For Peace
"I grew up in Lancaster, PA, joined the Navy and ended up on an aircraft carrier doing intelligence work in Japan, got married to my first wife in the Czech Republic, sold health club memberships (got to hang out with Magic Johnson almost everyday for a few months :)), started a screenplay competition, made a million in real estate and let it go in my second divorce, was a lifeguard in Australia a... posted on Apr 5, 7850 reads

Connecting for Good: Social Networks in 2015
New networks are emerging everywhere. It's exciting, and daunting. What is this new network-centric world? What could it mean for community and social change? A new report by the Knight Foundation and Monitor Institute explores how an increasingly connected world - where social networks are proliferating on and off-line- will affect the way people push for social change by 2015. Drawing from more ... posted on Apr 14, 5126 reads

The Sharing Economy Emerges
Peer to peer exchange of goods and services has skyrocketed way beyond craigslist.org and Couch Surfing. Now, access to goods and skills is becoming more important than ownership of them. And that has sparked a "Sharing Economy". Gartner Group researchers estimate that the peer-to-peer financial-lending market will reach $5 billion by 2013. Botsman says the consumer peer-to-peer rental market wil... posted on Apr 22, 3908 reads

10 Worst Listening Habits -- and Their Cure
We spend up to 80% of our waking hours in some form of communication, and 45% of that time is spent listening. And yet, it is the skill in which we have the least training. It isn't surprising, then, that studies show how poor and inefficient we can be as listeners. Apart from lack of explicit training, other reasons factor in. To start with, we think faster than we speak or listen, leaving us wit... posted on Jun 3, 50903 reads

Alone But Not Lonely
An emerging body of research is suggesting that spending time alone can be good for us. Just as regular exercise and healthy eating make our minds and bodies work better, solitude, experts say, so can being alone. Sherry Turkle, director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, makes the case for people to mindfully set aside time everyday when they are not engaged in so-called "social snacki... posted on Aug 5, 5412 reads

Making a Case for Mindfulness
Growing numbers of attorneys are embracing some form of practice to achieve mindfulness. Their reasons for doing so are varied, but chief among them are stress management and improved mental and physical health. This is a hopeful shift, given the well-known Johns Hopkins study which found that lawyers are more prone to depression than members of any other profession. In the most recent study, Har... posted on May 28, 4148 reads

Family Finds $45K -- And Returns It
Josh Ferrin picked up the keys to his family's first home last week, and as he opened the attic door hatch and climbed up, he saw a box that looked like a WWII ammunition case. Then he found seven more, all stuffed full with tightly wound rolls of cash -- about $45,000 in all. Ferrin thought about how such a large sum of money could go a long way, pay bills, buy things he never thought he could af... posted on May 21, 7328 reads

Global Trends in Social Good
There is a rising consciousness to do good in a world recovering from recession and facing global challenges. But what does social good mean? Traditionally, it is a good or service that benefits the largest number of people in the largest possible way. As more and more organizations and individuals wake up to the groundswell of social good, the realm is expanding. Many innovations are emerging, wh... posted on Jul 15, 4348 reads

A Low Electron Diet
Author Shannon Hayes turns her computer off every morning around 9 am, once her workday is complete. Then she tunes out the rest of the world and tunes into her family, home, and farm. Very often the telephone gets turned off, too. So does the radio. "I shut out the wide world to tend to my immediate world." Hayes continues: "Radical homemakers are not one-person wonders, single-handedly capable o... posted on Jul 26, 10524 reads

Attention as an Art Form
185 billion bits of information. In an average lifetime, this is what the human brain is capable of processing. With any limited resource, the fact that it's in short supply can quickly create a feeling of scarcity. But it can also motivate wiser use of our attention, one of the fundamental building blocks of human experience. This article breaks attention down into four key aspects: Awareness, th... posted on Aug 22, 24393 reads

How Nature Affects the Brain
"For the first time in three days in the wilderness, Todd Braver is not wearing his watch. "I forgot," he says. It is a small thing, the kind of change many vacationers notice in themselves as they unwind and lose track of time. But for Braver and his companions, these moments lead to a question: What is happening to our brains? Braver, a psychology professor at Washington University in St. Louis,... posted on Aug 27, 13826 reads

Blooming in the Whirlwhind
"'Conduct your blooming in the noise and whip of the whirlwind.' Strange message in a stranger place. I don't know who said it, but this pronouncement suddenly appeared on a huge wall of the 59th St. subway tunnel connecting the Lexington Avenue trains to the N and R lines. For many months I'd passed the area, which was roped off and covered over with heavy paper -- reconstruction in progress. Wha... posted on Sep 15, 2993 reads

The Flip Side of Your Signature Strength
"As an executive coach interested in exploring what drives people to successes and failures, I have worked with hundreds of ambitious people including business executives, sports legends and Nobel laureates. One key discovery I made repeatedly over the last fifteen years is that there is a common driver to the successes and failures of the people I studied. I call this driver, the 'Signature Stren... posted on Sep 25, 12373 reads

Reflections from a Five Day Walk
"I recently walked about 60 miles over 5 days, from Oakland to Santa Clara. This certainly isn't anything unique. In a way, I was imitating many inspirations that came before, and probably many iterations will come after. Still, 'we love to make music of this puzzle' of our artful work of life. For me, the walk was many things. It was an expression of wandering. It was a pilgrimage [...] It was a ... posted on Oct 28, 8798 reads

The Potential for Design
"Design is an inescapable dimension of human activity. To adapt one of my favorite quotes by Reyner Banham, like the weather it is always there, but we speak about it only when it is exceptionally bad or exceptionally good. Design is also a powerful political tool, as pharaohs, queens, presidents, and dictators throughout history have taught us. It comes not only in very visible and traditional ap... posted on Nov 2, 4138 reads

Multivariate Bridges and Metaphysical Mangoes
"Last weekend, my friend Nimo came to the group with a problem. On the main pathway between a slum and the nonprofit Manav Sadhna (MS), a stream had built up due to the persistent rain we've been getting lately. The issue was that kids from the slum trying to get to MS had to cross the stream daily or more with no proper way to walk, and between the water's filthiness and the pressure it was rushi... posted on Nov 18, 5873 reads

A 14-yr-old's Clothing Closet for All
Like many 14-year-olds, Katelyn Eystad has a lot of clothes in her closet -- but hers are to give away. In 2009, Katelyn founded a Clothing Closet to provide clothing, diapers, deodorant and more to people in need in her community. With the help of her sisters and mother, she has already served 1,500 families. "What a blessing this child has been to many. Katelyn is always volunteering and giving ... posted on Nov 25, 9079 reads

What a 10-Year-Old Did for the Tar Sands
10-yr-old Ta'Kaiya Blaney stood outside Enbridge Northern Gateway's office on July 6, waiting for officials to grant her access to the building. She thought she could hand deliver an envelope containing an important message about the company's pipeline construction. But the doors remained locked. "I don't know what they find so scary about me," she said, as she was ushered off the property by secu... posted on Dec 10, 8094 reads

Stepping Out of the "Should" Trap
"'I should make more money. I should lose weight. I should volunteer more often.' In saying 'should' so often, I found myself feeling trapped by a sense of obligation and expectation. I felt this vague pressure to conform to external standards, to be someone or do something. It felt like just being me wasn't okay. I felt pushed to follow a particular path, behave in specific ways, and believe cert... posted on Dec 14, 39504 reads

4 Misconceptions About the Simple Life
"It is important to recognize inaccurate stereotypes about the simple life because they make it seem impractical and ill suited for responding to increasingly critical breakdowns in world systems. Four misconceptions about the simple life are so common they deserve special attention. These are, equating simplicity with: poverty, rural living, living without beauty and economic stagnation. A centra... posted on Dec 24, 32330 reads

How Vulnerability Can Be a Strength
The word vulnerable itself comes from the Latin 'vulnerare' which means 'to wound', and so at the root of vulnerability is our own sense of wounded-ness. To be authentic in a moment in which we feel wounded, we have to honestly acknowledge the places where we feel hurt and then muster up the strength to just be with the pain. If we can embrace this vulnerability, we can fully accept the discomfort... posted on Jan 13, 30277 reads

Inside Tim Tebow's World of Kindness
"I've come to believe in Tim Tebow for what he does off a football field, which is represent the best parts of us, the parts I want to be and so rarely am. Who among us is this selfless? Every week, Tebow picks out someone who is suffering, or who is dying, or who is injured." He flies these people and their families to the Broncos game, and gives them a treat of a lifetime. This ESPN article shar... posted on Jan 25, 18061 reads

Vinny Ferraro: The Heartful Dodger
One bitter night, in the rough end of New Haven, fifteen-year-old Vinny Ferraro and his gang were hanging out as usual by the projects when a chance encounter with a homeless man (who they were assaulting) changed the course of the rest of his life. "I didn't know what compassion meant when I was fifteen. But I knew that that homeless guy had seen my heart. And that was scary. I had done my best t... posted on Feb 2, 16478 reads