Eisenstaedt, Children at a Puppet Theatre, Paris, 1963 Each summer I teach creative writing classes at the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. It’s a wonderful job for many reasons: my colleagues are uniformly, eccentrically brilliant, I’ve taught at campuses all over the country, from Los Angeles to the U.S. Virgin Islands, and since the program is a sleepaway camp, the mood is always more summer vacation than school-day drudgery. But the real reason I love this job, what makes me cross an ocean and leave my spouse behind for six weeks every year, is my students: my breathtakingly intelligent students, radiating curiosity and teenage awkwardness and de... posted on Sep 28 2016 (34,357 reads)

read it in the news every day. From climate change to overfishing to deforestation, it seems that we are on the brink of a natural disaster on an epic scale. If we cannot do something to reverse these trends, we will surely make our planet uninhabitable. But how do we encourage people—especially our kids—to care more and take action? Social scientists are beginning to look for answers to this question with some promising results. Research indicates that motivating people to care takes more than just reciting facts and making doomsday predictions. Instead, it requires promoting compassionate concern for our natural world, which comes from early contact with nature, em... posted on Nov 3 2016 (12,497 reads)

much at home in the academy. The kind of community I am calling for is a community that exists at the heart of knowing, of epistemology, of reaching and learning, of pedagogy; that kind of community depends centrally on two ancient and honorable kinds of love. The first is love of learning itself. The simple ability to take sheer joy in having a new idea reaffirming or discarding an old one, connecting two or more notions that had hitherto seemed alien to each other, sheer joy in building images of reality with mere words that now suddenly seem more like mirrors of truth this is love of learning. And the second kind of love on which this community depends is love of learners, of tho... posted on Nov 13 2016 (13,699 reads)

kids spend less and less time outdoors, and it’s taking a toll on their health and well-being. Research has shown that children do better physically and emotionally when they are in green spaces, benefiting from the positive feelings, stress reduction, and attention restoration nature engenders. No one has brought attention to this issue more than Richard Louv, co-founder and chairman emeritus of the Children & Nature Network and author of Last Child in the Woods, The Nature Principle, and, most recently, Vitamin N: 500 Ways to Enrich the Health & Happiness of Your Family & Community. Louv has written eloquently about the impor... posted on Nov 23 2016 (16,686 reads)

you remember the last time your to-do list was short enough to be, well, do-able? How about the last time you looked at your list and actually wanted to do everything on it? Earlier this spring, I started getting loads of requests for help managing too-long task lists, and so I published this process for organizing them. Ineffective task lists make us feel like we have too much to do in too little time, which makes us feel overwhelmed. Ironically, this makes us worse at planning and managing our time. You might have a perfectly organized task list, though, that is still triggering overwhelm—I just went through one with a client, and frankly I was exhausted just ... posted on Dec 17 2016 (23,034 reads)

your life were a movie, where would the plot be headed right now? You may not be immortalized in film anytime soon, but your life is still a story. According to psychologists, we all have an internalized narrative that explains how we became the person we are today and where we are headed tomorrow. Like any Hollywood blockbuster, this narrative has settings, scenes, a plot, characters, and themes. As we ponder resolutions for the coming year, New Year’s can also be a time to reflect on our life story—and to figure out how everything fits together. Incorporating our goals into the larger narrative of our life can give us more energy to pursue them, and to become the ... posted on Jan 1 2017 (21,034 reads)

had a vivid sense of her as he took his morning bath. Up until then, he seemed always to be thinking of her absence, of the vast hole her absence left in the world. Real, living people have a presence that is so much bigger than what we can see and name. It is so subtle and particular and alive, it slips right through the net of words. After the death of his Joy, Lewis realized that if we are to be as fully alive, we have to let go of our attachment to our cramped and dark little thoughts and images and “stretch out the arms and hands of love.” We have to embrace the mystery of the unknown. Practicing forgiveness, asking and granting forgiveness, is practicing stretching out th... posted on Jan 23 2017 (11,048 reads)

the recent Thanksgiving break, I had the opportunity to meet with friends of extended family members, a couple who are engaged in both disaster relief and community planning work. She is from Nepal and he is from the U.S., and together they relayed a story about their time visiting Nepal during the devastating earthquake of 2015. The two of them were hiking in the mountains when the 7.8 magnitude quake struck. Shaken but not hurt, they made their way back to Katmandu as quickly as possible to check in on family members and then to offer their assistance to others. Originally assigned the task of loading water jugs on trucks, they then volunteered and were enlisted for their... posted on Feb 4 2017 (27,815 reads)

I tell people that I teach a class in law and meditation at UC Berkeley’s law school, I often hear snorts of disbelief. “It’s easier to imagine a kindergarten class sitting in silence for half an hour,” a friend said to me, “than two lawyers sitting together in silence for five minutes.” Charles Halpern (left, foreground) leads a Qigong exercise at a retreat for 75 lawyers at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California.Richard Boswell But the class is no joke. In fact, it’s part of a ground-breaking movement that has quietly been taking hold in the legal profession over the past two decades: a movement to bring mindfulness—a medi... posted on Jan 27 2017 (12,772 reads)

is in the air! When we hear that phrase, we might picture, perhaps, a young giddy couple freshly struck by Cupid's arrow or maybe an older couple holding hands as they stroll quietly along a boardwalk awash in a sunset glow. Perhaps the phrase conjures images of roses, chocolates, and candlelit dinners. But love is so much broader an emotion and action than romance. In this Daily Good Spotlight on Love, we look back through Daily Good features and revisit some of love's many-splendored dimensions and expressions. Love is in the air, alright. Everywhere we look. Love for Students Loving teachers transform classrooms....and students. No one falls... posted on Feb 14 2017 (16,604 reads)

Torres clings to a well-worn notebook covered with a photograph of his two children as though it were a lifeline. He beams at the image of his kids, ages 5 and 8, and scans the papers inside, which are his notes on how to communicate with their school, a schedule for their after-school activities, general guidelines for helping them with homework and important contact information in case Torres has a panicked moment. One year ago, Torres was in serious trouble. The single father could barely keep his head afloat at his construction job, let alone handle the seemingly endless reports of his son’s violent explosions at school. After a tumultuous few months, the children were ta... posted on Feb 24 2017 (9,565 reads)

the end of her first day at her first job at a prestigious design firm in Mumbai, 20-year-old Miti Desai came home and wept for five hours straight. Questioned by her concerned parents, the explanation that instinctively rose to her lips was this: “Every aspect of what happens there ultimately comes down to a financial transaction. I can’t live my life that way.” Twelve days later she quit. A few months later she flew to Atlanta, Georgia, a freshly enrolled graduate student of the Portfolio Center. A week after classes began she turned up at the dean’s office with an announcement: “I think I need to leave the school.” Why? “Everythi... posted on Mar 1 2017 (9,196 reads)

I was nine years old, I came down with a serious case of encephalitis. I spent a couple of weeks drifting in and out of sleep, hooked up to tubes and IVs, unable to talk—and then I slipped into a coma. A doctor warned my mom and dad that I might not come out “normal” or be able to walk again. When I came through a week later, I was happy to see my parents and my aunt standing in front of me, masks covering their mouths, their eyes open with relief and trembling with concern. I figured something was wrong, but didn’t understand what. “I want pizza,” I uttered. I had to wait a week before I could eat regular food. But my parents and relatives ... posted on Mar 14 2017 (9,245 reads)

gardens and parks, biodiversity projects, and ‘green’ designs are on the rise across Indiana. Visit downtown Indy for yourself, to see what reimagining urban living looks like. This is due to our expanded understanding of the correlation between Greenspace and our physical, mental, and economic well-being. Studies across multiple disciplines reveal feelings of contentment, interconnectedness, and wellbeing increase in correlation to exposure to natural, green space. But it shouldn’t take reams of scientific data to support what we already know. Greenspace makes us feel good. Why? In an age of amped up 24/7 stimulation, whole industries have materialized over... posted on Mar 21 2017 (11,537 reads)

beneath the surface, waiting like dormant seeds in the desert for summer rains. The perfect storm came in 2002, when during a hitchhiking trip Luc bought a used guitar in San Francisco and discovered his calling. His love for music broke into blossom. He dedicated himself to honing his craft, but it would still be a few more years before he discovered music wasn't just something he loved.  Music could be a force of love. Luc was working at a construction site in 2005 when he saw images of the havoc being wreaked by Hurricane Katrina. Unable to fathom that kind of suffering in his country, and so close to home, he went to his boss to ask for a leave of absence. Two days later ... posted on Mar 29 2017 (10,348 reads)

we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” --Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning Few books of the last century have had a greater impact on our quest for meaning than Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. This all-time bestseller was written by a Jewish man who had just lost everything in the Holocaust.  When Frankl, emaciated from concentration camps, returned to his beloved Vi... posted on Apr 14 2017 (59,001 reads)

Francisco Bay Area artist, Robert Bengtson, expresses his love for beauty through the mediums of photography, interactive art, wood, metal, plaster... and puts his creativity into inspiring the human spirit. Robert is a visual artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area who's been creating fine-art commercial photography for over 20 years.  Focusing on details that some may not see the beauty in – such as an imprint in the sidewalk or a pair of clasped hands – he chronicles the exquisite details of people, places and objects.  He applies his fine-art photography skills to personal, residential and commercial projects, and is also known for his stun... posted on May 3 2017 (11,316 reads)

and Mark, photo courtesy Mark Barone Artist Mark Barone burned through his retirement savings for a mission he believed in. Now, he is hoping people who love animals as much as he does will step up to help him complete that dream. Barone’s life took an unexpected turn in 2011, when his partner, Marina Dervan, alerted him to the fact that approximately 5,500 dogs were killed in U.S. shelters every day. She obtained this information by contacting all the large U.S. humane societies and learning that between 4 and 6 million dogs were put down annually. “Since shelters do not have to report the number of animals killed, that was a best guess,” she said. (According ... posted on Jun 14 2017 (11,025 reads)

my own nature in the name of nobility is a condition called burnout. Though usually regarded as the result of trying to give too much, burnout in my experience results from trying to give what I do not possess - the ultimate in giving too little! Burnout is a state of emptiness, to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have; it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place.  May Sarton, in her poem "Now I Become Myself," uses images from the natural world to describe a different kind of giving, grounded in a different way of being, a way that results not in burnout but in fecundity and abundance: As slowly as the r... posted on Jun 12 2017 (12,832 reads)

shared the story below at an Awakin Circle in Santa Clara, CA. I'm grateful to volunteers who made the transcription below possible, and who continually encourage such stories of transformation.] A couple of months ago I was taking my regular afternoon walk along the coastal trail, and heading back home. My wife and son were waiting for me and I was a little late, so I was walking fast and thinking about getting there on time, not really noticing what was going on around me.  Then I thought, this isn’t much fun! What if I just slow down?  What if I can just be present and start noticing what's going on around me? So I did that. I was about ... posted on Jul 3 2017 (10,215 reads)