your job seem dull and meaningless? Morten Hansen and Dacher Keltner point the way out. Do you experience meaning at work—or just emptiness? In the United States people spend on average 35-40 hours working every week. That’s some 80,000 hours during a career—more time than you will spend with your kids, probably. Beyond the paycheck, what does work give you? Few questions could be more important. It is sad to walk through life and experience work as empty, dreadful, a chore—sapping energy out of your body and soul. Yet many employees do, as evidenced by one large-scale study showing that only 31 percent of employees felt engaged with their work. ... posted on Dec 30 2013 (38,134 reads)

is extremely reluctant to even put on a shirt for the photograph. I point out to the hole in his vest. “That’s me,” he says bluntly. I spot the frown on his face. He doesn’t like talking about himself, his family or the work he does. Extremely reticent, he sticks to his schedule of opening his tea shop on the Ponmeni Narayanan Street in S.S.Colony at 4.30 a.m. sharp and serves the day’s first round of steaming chai to about two-dozen watchmen who do night duty in the area. He runs the shop till 11 p.m. selling over 300 cups of tea, coffee and milk besides biscuits, cakes, laddus, murukkus and other savouries. Communication with customers... posted on Feb 15 2014 (28,099 reads)

150 years since Leo Tolstoy put pen to paper and began writing his epic War and Peace. While most people think of him as one of the 19th century's greatest novelists, few are aware that he was also one of its most radical social and political thinkers. During a long life from 1828 to 1910, Tolstoy gradually rejected the received beliefs of his aristocratic background and embraced a startlingly unconventional worldview that shocked his peers. Tracing his personal transformation offers some wise — and surprising — lessons for how we should approach the art of living today. Tolstoy was born into the Russian nobility. His family had an estate and owned hundreds o... posted on Dec 23 2013 (180,584 reads)

was about 12 years old when I found out that my grandfather was born on 12/12/12. If he were alive, he would be exactly 100 years old today. I found out about his birthday, when he came to stay with us in Munich for an eye surgery. He was a diabetic and had been experiencing deterioration in his vision. At that time, it was very difficult to find an eye surgeon in Pakistan who would be able to perform the surgery. My grandfather spoke many languages, such as Punjabi, Urdu, Persian, English, Arabic and some Sanskrit, but he could not speak German. His visit occurred during my school holidays, so I was designated to be his official translator for the doctor visits and his hospital stay. ... posted on Jan 18 2014 (34,434 reads)

want to lose weight. Get out of debt. Stop smoking. Eat more kale. Call your grandma more often. I do understand why people don’t like New Year’s resolutions: They can be a source of failure, year after year. Folks often pick resolutions that are inherently unrewarding, that necessitate relentless hard work, or that remind them of their mortality in a way that makes them feel small instead of grateful. I know because I’ve made all of those mistakes. But now? I love New Year’s resolutions. I use them to transform myself in small increments, taking turtle steps toward new habits. I begin slowly around the winter solstice, and inch myself toward a newer, be... posted on Jan 1 2014 (76,452 reads)

Ted Smith looks at a smartphone, he doesn’t see a multipurpose gadget. He sees faces. He sees the face of the Indonesian or Ugandan miner who unearthed the raw materials. He sees the face of the factory worker who lives on a corporate campus in China and works long shifts, exposed to hazardous chemicals while assembling miniscule components. He sees the face of the salesperson at Best Buy or Target, and the face of the customer. He sees the faces of those who encounter the product after it’s been jettisoned and shipped halfway around the world to regions awash in electronic waste. Imagine a phone that’s made using conflict-free minerals and is encased in... posted on Feb 17 2014 (13,579 reads)

night was like any other night. It was 8PM, time for “close custody count”(All prisons have ‘institutional counts’ wherein they count each prisoner’s body to ensure no one is missing or has escaped. Not being there for count is considered a serious violation). The officer came to our cell and called my bunkie’s name after which he gave him the last two digits of his CDCR number. The same went for me. Half an hour passed and a neighbor comes to my cell and said they were paging me downstairs. I had not heard them calling for me. I went down to the podium and the cops said to me: “Why were you not in your cell for count!?” an... posted on Apr 5 2014 (13,781 reads)

a Georgia bride canceled her lavish wedding last minute, she decided to still a find a way to bring joy to her big day. With just 40 days to go until her wedding,Carol and Willie Fowler’s daughter called off her wedding for reasons she declined to share, ABC News reported. Rather than cancel the entire affair, the do-gooder family decided to invite 200 homeless women, children and families from Hosea Feed the Hungry, an organization that helps the needy, to revel in an afternoon of delicious food and entertainment. “Events are canceled, and sometimes for unknown reasons,” Carol Fowler told WBUR. “Do not allow that opportunity to go to waste.... posted on Feb 21 2014 (2,474 reads)

Slack finally read the Harry Potter series when he gave in to pressure from his students who were obsessed with Harry, the teenage wizard who uses magic, courage, and wit to confront dark forces and save the world. Though the plot is fantastical, Slack, like millions before him, couldn't stop talking about the books. But then he realized that if Harry Potter were a real person, he wouldn't just stand around talking about himself. Harry Potter, Slack said, would "fight injustice in our world the way he fought injustice in his." That's when Slack had the idea to mobilize Harry Potter fans around real-world problems—and it was easy for Slack to find ... posted on Feb 25 2014 (30,593 reads)

is so much a part of the fabric of our lives, reflecting our health, lifestyle, time, and values. Like so many of us, my childhood memories of specific events revolve around food and meals shared. Sunday dinners with my Polish grandmother preparing pierogis and czarnina. Luscious cream puffs eaten greedily at the Wisconsin State Fair. Ruby red tomatoes and thorny kohlrabi plucked from our backyard garden, fried fresh for that evening's dinner. Food was a bond of love, care, and connection to our families and the wider community. But what if we re-imagine food today? In what new ways might food bring meaning and purpose to our busy, fragmented lives? And how might food make us w... posted on Mar 11 2014 (13,892 reads)

used to ask the question, 'Am I an activist or a writer?' I don't ask that anymore. I am simply a human being engaged." "I am leaving you all my journals, but you must promise me you won't look at them until after I'm gone." This is what Terry Tempest Williams's mother told her the week before she died of cancer at the age of 54, bequeathing three shelves of colorful, clothbound volumes. Williams waited a full month after the death to open them, only to discover that each one was blank, containing page upon page of emptiness. The way she speaks mirrors her writing—fragmented, aligning pieces of ideas like a mosaic. Williams us... posted on Mar 22 2014 (12,658 reads)

Tippett, host: In a culture where we like to fix or prevent vulnerability, Brené Brown is reviving the knowledge that our struggles make us who we are. And it's based on data — social scientific research she conducted first into shame and then into qualities that distinguish lives with a strong sense of worthiness. She's frank about the resistance her own findings awakened in her, a classic American perfectionist who wore exhaustion as a status symbol. She also discovered a stark gulf between what we want to be true — and what is true — in vulnerability between men and women. And she exquisitely uncomfortably describes the difference between m... posted on Mar 21 2014 (33,782 reads)

equinox has come and gone, and I find myself thinking about spring cleaning. You’ve likely seen the emerging body of research espousing the psycho-emotional value of keeping a clean home or workspace. I agree with the notion that if we de-clutter our closets our minds will follow. I’m also fond of the stories of the Buddhist monks who make a meditative practice out of scrubbing their bowls and am intrigued by the idea that doing dishes might be a pathway to enlightenment. That said, although I love a clean space, I have never really loved cleaning, and I’ve always judged it as an unsavory ‘chore’. But after meeting Tolulope Ilesanmi, all of that is chan... posted on May 11 2014 (25,246 reads)

letting go of past hurts, we can heal not only ourselves, but our families, our communities, and our world. There were so many nights when I, as a young boy, had to watch helplessly as my father verbally and physically abused my mother. I can still recall the smell of alcohol, see the fear in my mother’s eyes, and feel the hopeless despair that comes when we see people we love hurting each other in incomprehensible ways. If I dwell in those memories, I can feel myself wanting to hurt my father back, in the same ways he hurt my mother, and in ways of which I was incapable as a small boy. I see my mother’s face and I see this gentle human being whom I loved so very much a... posted on May 6 2014 (53,253 reads)

Dad Carries His Son With Disabilities 9 Miles Every Day So That He Can Go To School Let’s all agree to extend an early Happy Father’s Day to this Chinese dad who will do just about anything to give his son with disabilities every opportunity in the world. Yu Xukang, 40, a single dad from the Sichuan Province in China, walks 9 miles every day with his son, Xiao Qiang, strapped to his back so that the boy can get an education. The 12-year-old has a disorder that has caused his arms and legs to become twisted and his back to be hunched over, and there is no public transportation available to take him to class, Central European News (CEN) told The Huffington Post in an e... posted on Apr 10 2014 (45,331 reads)

Tippett, Host: Father Greg Boyle makes amazingly winsome connections between things like service and delight, and compassion and awe. Amazing because he works in an urban setting others describe in terms of crime and despair. He landed as an idealistic young Jesuit in a gang-heavy neighborhood of Los Angeles over two decades ago. Now he heads Homeboy Industries, which employs former gang members in a constellation of businesses from screen printing to a farmers market to a bakery. An op-ed in the Los Angeles Timessaid of Homeboy Industries, "How much bleaker and meaner would LA be without it?" Father Greg says service is not an end in itself but a beginning, towards f... posted on May 4 2014 (21,036 reads)

Ponce de León spent his life searching for the fountain of youth. I have spent mine searching for the ideal daily routine. But as years of color-coded paper calendars have given way to cloud-based scheduling apps, routine has continued to elude me; each day is a new day, as unpredictable as a ride on a rodeo bull and over seemingly as quickly. Naturally, I was fascinated by the recent book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. Author Mason Curry examines the schedules of 161 painters, writers, and composers, as well as philosophers, scientists, and other exceptional thinkers. As I read, I became convinced that for these geniuses, a routine was more than ... posted on Apr 14 2014 (64,589 reads)

we fail at something important to us, whether in relationships, at school, or at work, it can be very painful. These experiences can threaten the very core of who we think we are and who we want to be. To cope with failure, we often turn to self-protective strategies. We rationalize what happened so that it places us in a more positive light, we blame other people, and we discount the importance of the event. These strategies may make us feel better about ourselves in the short term, but they are less likely to help us improve or avoid repeating our mistakes in the future. Research shows that people who have an overly inflated view of their performance on an academic task show... posted on Apr 16 2014 (47,503 reads)

a long term view of success is critical, and it doesn’t take a psychologist to tell you that discipline is how you get from Point A to the sometimes elusive Point B. Or as Aristotle would so aptly put it… We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit. Since that’s the case, how can we actually form good habits and make them stick? If you’ve asked yourself the same question, you’re in luck—today I’ll be covering a large selection of research on the psychology of planning and keeping the habits that matter. Let’s dive in! A Big Misconception About Building Habits First thi... posted on May 14 2014 (29,769 reads)

BY Gina Murdock Gina Murdock: Can you give us a snapshot of where Khan Academy is now and where you see yourself if five years? Sal Khan: In this past month, Khan Academy has had 10 million unique viewers to the site and 10 million registered users; those numbers just happen to be the same. What people get at the site is a large collection of videos, primarily focused on math and science, but we actually have a large collection of art history videos. Actually, it’s the largest collection of art history videos. We have partnerships with folks like the Met and the Getty. We also have an interactive exercise platform, which is primarily focused on math right now, where... posted on May 15 2014 (16,256 reads)