are finding out how sadness works in the brain—and they're discovering that it can confer important advantages. Sadness is not usually valued in our current culture. Self-help books promote the benefits of positive thinking, positive attitude, and positive behaviors, labeling sadness as a “problem emotion” that needs to be kept at bay or eliminated. Evolution must have had something else in mind, though, or sadness wouldn’t still be with us. Being sad from time to time serves some kind of purpose in helping our species to survive. Yet, while other so-called “negative emotions,” like fear, anger, and disgust, seem clearly ad... posted on Aug 29 2014 (29,204 reads)

program to make an even larger fund for community projects. They built their own school – they did, not Tostan. They are advocating on a regional level for human rights. And I thought to myself, even if I just came to that one community and had that one result, it was worth everything. Even if it took a long time, even if it was just one village, it was all worth it. _ This story, written by Brittany Koteles (@koteles2), was brought to you in partnership with Forbes.com. All images are courtesy of Tostan.   ... posted on Oct 5 2014 (4,051 reads)

he’s painted over 4,800 and on track to complete all 5,500 by this fall. Though Mark had always been a dog lover, he’d never imagined taking on such a large project until his own dog, Santina, passed away at the age of 21. Mark was grieving and Marina thought she could help ease some of the grief by finding another dog to adopt. Though Mark wasn’t ready, Marina searched the internet anyways. But she didn’t find many dogs up for adoption. Instead she was struck by images, stories and an online outcry about the cruelty and killing taking place in the shelter system. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, is this really going on in this country?’” Marina... posted on Sep 2 2014 (35,236 reads)

Attwater is dying of a brain tumor, but he isn’t worried about his cancer. Instead, he is trying to save his 5 year-old daughter from her own. Tom Attwater with daughter Kelli and wife Joely He has vowed to raise approximately $820,200.00 for her cancer treatment, even if he wouldn’t be around to see her go through it. Now Tom is almost half way to his fundraising target he is more adamant than ever to reach it. Tragically his deadline is short as his latest scans show his brain tumour is growing. He says: “These days people make bucket lists, and the very top of mine – the one that matters most – is raising money to make sure Kelli gets the ... posted on Nov 12 2014 (65,082 reads)

warps for a young surgeon with metastatic lung cancer In residency, there’s a saying: The days are long, but the years are short. In neurosurgical training, the day usually began a little before 6 a.m., and lasted until the operating was done, which depended, in part, on how quick you were in the OR. Time at home. Time well spent A resident’s surgical skill is judged by his technique and his speed. You can’t be sloppy and you can’t be slow. From your first wound closure onward, spend too much time being precise and the scrub tech will announce, “Looks like we’ve got a plastic surgeon on our hands!” Or say: “I get y... posted on Mar 30 2015 (66,623 reads)

yourself with grand and austere ideas of beauty that feed the soul… Seek solitude.” “One can never be alone enough to write,” Susan Sontag lamented in her journal. “People who grow bored in their own company seem to me in danger,” the great Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky admonished the young. And yet despite the vast creative and psychological benefits of boredom, we have grown so afraid of it that we have unlearned — or refused to learn altogether — the essential art of being alone, so very necessary for contemplation and creative work. The great French artist and dedicated diarist Eugène Delacroi... posted on Jun 24 2015 (14,126 reads)

is transcript of a talk, delivered to four thousand people gathered at the National Jain Convention in Atlanta, Georgia.  Prior to Nipun's talk, civil rights legends John Lewis and Andrew Young shared insights from their journey with Martin Luther King, Jr.] Thank you for this opportunity to speak to all of you.  What an honor to be here with all you today, and a special honor to get to follow John Lewis and Andrew Young. Today I’d like to surface an unpopular virtue. One that’s fallen out of favor in a time of selfies and relentless status updates. The virtue of humility. We live in an era that believes it can no longer afford to be humb... posted on Jul 7 2015 (117,758 reads)

are the key research-based principles for turning gratitude into a lasting habit, drawing from the GGSC’s new website, Greater Good in Action. Over the past two decades, much of the research on happiness can be boiled down to one main prescription: give thanks. Across hundreds of studies, practicing gratitude has been found to increasepositive emotions, reduce the risk of depression, heighten relationship satisfaction, and increase resilience in the face of stressful life events, among other benefits. The problem is, gratitude doesn’t always come naturally. The negatives in our lives—the disappointments, resentments, and fears—sometimes ... posted on Jul 27 2015 (49,928 reads)

19 years old, Godfrey Minot Camille was a tall redheaded boy with a charming manner who planned to enter medicine or the ministry. In 1938, Camille enrolled in a study that would follow him for the rest of his life, along with 267 other Harvard College sophomores deemed by recruiters as likely to lead “successful” lives. This essay is adapted fromTriumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study Only gradually did the study’s staff discover that the allegedly “normal” Godfrey was an intractable and unhappy hypochondriac. On the 10th anniversary of his joining the study, each man was given an A through E rating anticipating future personality st... posted on Oct 25 2015 (30,554 reads)

another person hurts us, it can upend our lives. This essay has been adapted from 8 Keys to Forgiveness (W. W. Norton & Company, 2015) Sometimes the hurt is very deep, such as when a spouse or a parent betrays our trust, or when we are victims of crime, or when we’ve been harshly bullied. Anyone who has suffered a grievous hurt knows that when our inner world is badly disrupted, it’s difficult to concentrate on anything other than our turmoil or pain. When we hold on to hurt, we are emotionally and cognitively hobbled, and our relationships suffer. Forgiveness is strong medicine for this. When life hits us hard, there isnothing as effective as forgiveness for he... posted on Aug 27 2023 (38,638 reads)

the holiday season upon us, it's easy to feel pressure that you aren't spending enough, doing enough or otherwise keeping up with everyone else around you. If that's the case, log out of Pinterest, take some deep breaths and remind yourself that true holiday spirit can't be bought — no matter how good the bargains get. For a refreshing antidote to the consumer hoopla, check out the ad-free, volunteer-run website Kindspring.org, which is "dedicated to fostering and celebrating small acts of kindness around the world." The site, part of the nonprofit Service Space, lists hundreds of ways to show compassion for others, which are organized by theme... posted on Dec 24 2015 (14,024 reads)

Scilla Elworthy, Jean Houston and Rama Mani first met in 2012 there was a perfect synchronicity of temperaments and ideas. Clinical psychologist and business consultant, Dr Hamira Riaz, talks to the three founders of Rising Women Rising World about the goals of this global community of remarkable women and the art of a life well lived. It is an unusual occurrence when the roll call of achievements of just three women includes several nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize; training roles for UN Development Programmes, and advice-giving to NATO military officers and government officials. That the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and the Clintons, to name just a few, have sought them out ... posted on Mar 8 2016 (15,789 reads)

It's a word that has tumbled out of use and favor in today's world. And humanity has paid a high price for that loss. In this piece, eight writers, including Wendell Berry and Mary Oliver, speak up in voices that are lyrical, incisive, and urgent, drawing us back to the luminous heart of what it means to live reverently.  So ... why does reverence matter? Paul Woodruff: Because It Is A Forgotten Virtue Power without reverence is aflame with arrogance, while service without reverence is smoldering toward rebellion. Politics without reverence is blind to the general good and deaf to advice from people who are powerless. (…) Because reverence fosters lead... posted on Apr 14 2016 (38,334 reads)

know in our gut when we’re hearing a good story—and research is starting to explain why. Stories are told in the body. It doesn’t seem that way. We tend to think of stories as emerging from consciousness—from dreams or fantasies—and traveling through words or images to other minds. We see them outside of us, on paper or on screen, never under the skin. But we do feel stories. We know in our gut when we’re hearing a good one—and science is starting to explain why. Experiencing a story alters our neurochemical processes, and stories are a powerful force in shaping human behavior. In this way, stories are not just instruments of... posted on Jun 9 2016 (19,833 reads)

Then, there's the other perspective which prevails today, which is Thomas Huxley, who was an early advocate of Charles Darwin in Victorian England, that compassion is a social construct, that we're really selfish and base and greedy at our core. Compassion is this ethical principle that we invent as part of culture. What our lab has done is chart the mammalian origins of compassion. We bring people to our lab in Berkeley, and other people are doing this work now. We'll show them images of suffering -- for example, kids with cancer or classic images of kids in a famine, really tough stuff to look at. What we find really requires us to revise our thinking about the human nervou... posted on Nov 4 2016 (31,552 reads)

on – including an old dictionary with the cover and many pages torn from it that someone gave me. I began trying out the new words I acquired in my conversations with guys here, much to their annoyance for they couldn’t understand why I would use what they would call a Five Dollar word for a Two Cents conversation. But I knew that what I wanted to do was master the art of communication. Some years later I began to write poetry and articles but began noticing that I thought in images that couldn’t be conveyed in words. Yet I lacked any measure of visual language. I began scratching around trying to find my voice. Some of my early influences and the people who encou... posted on Aug 9 2016 (16,059 reads)

meet in the parking lot of a grocery store in Ashland, Oregon on Sunday morning. It is the 17th of July, a date I’ve celebrated as long as I can remember. The day I was born. I have driven 5 hours south to meet a group of strangers in anticipation of a different kind of birth. I am here, exactly 42 years after entering the world, to finally become a man. Nervous hellos. Final checks. Cars and trucks packed with camping equipment, rations, and gallon bottles of water. We snake up into the hills in convoy. Shops and signs and other vehicles gradually fall away until the tarmac becomes a dusty track. Huge pines tower above us, almost blocking out the clear blue sky.... posted on Oct 19 2016 (10,825 reads)

I choose characters that can be very expressive, especially with a bigger brush. The big brush has great potential because it can be very explosive, or very energetic. But the big brush, also, with lots of ink, has quite a bit of limitations because it is very difficult to show subtlety in line. And certain words have great meaning for me personally, because I studied Buddhism; so words from Buddhism are very meaningful for me. Or words from my ancestral past; my family is from Okinawa, so images and metaphors from Okinawa have great meaning for me, they resonate. So I would choose those characters. Or ideograms, or words that I think are meaningful for the viewer, because I am not only... posted on Feb 22 2017 (8,038 reads)

April of 2017, volunteers from ServiceSpace convened a special circle on Healing + Transformation in Berkeley. Below are three stories that were shared in the circle. A Lesson in Service from an Art Store What inspired me to become a physician was watching my twin cousins suffer through Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, which is a very severe, debilitating and mostly seen in boys. They grew up with that. As a child, I just saw how their mother would care for her two children, and it really propelled me to go out and really help people who needed it. In my third year of med school, my uncle contracted glioblastoma, very severe brain tumor. As I entered my clinical years, I w... posted on Aug 3 2017 (11,230 reads)

Samen has been a Nurse Practitioner in Maternal Fetal Medicine for over 33 years. In 1997, Arlene met the Dalai Lama and showed him what Interplast could offer children of Tibet. He said to her, "You must go into Tibet and help rural people. When you are on the path of service, all doors will open to you." That meeting deeply impacted the trajectory of Arlene's life of service. In 2004, she left behind her clinical practice to dedicate her life to serving pregnant women living in the most vulnerable conditions in the most remote places of the world. By 2009, she started One Heart World-Wide, which spread its life saving "network of safety" model to 60,000 women... posted on Jul 11 2017 (7,796 reads)