things seem more American than the pursuit of happiness, but are we going about it all wrong? That’s one of the questions raised by The Myths of Happiness, the new book by Sonja Lyubomirsky. Lyubomirsky is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, and one of the leading researchers in the field of positive psychology. Her previous, best-selling book, The How of Happiness, published in 2008, is chock full of the best research-based practices for increasing happiness. The Myths of Happiness follows up on that work by explaining how our assumptions about what will and won’t bring us happiness are often flat-out wrong. Und... posted on Jun 12 2013 (27,316 reads)

renowned spiritual teacher on getting stuck in the future and saving the planet. To the uninitiated, Eckhart Tolle might be mistaken for a nature photographer. His persona—a soft German-accented voice, a boyish visage, his love of vests—doesn’t exactly scream, “guru!” Yet Tolle is one of the world’s most popular spiritual teachers and a literary powerhouse whose best-selling books The Power of Now and A New Earth have influenced millions. Born in Germany, educated at the universities of London and Cambridge, and now a resident of Vancouver, Canada, Tolle writes and lectures on the evolution of human consciousness. His work syn... posted on Jun 23 2013 (84,224 reads)

human beings are seekers. We seek love, wealth, security, power, happiness, and recognition. We also seek knowledge. Aristotle said, “All people by nature desire to know.” The desire to know can be very ambitious, like that of the scientists who sought to solve the structure of the DNA molecule, or rather modest. It can be enormously satisfying to know and understand things. What does it take to have intellectual success—to come to know and understand something challenging? Well, you need some raw intelligence and memory, and you need to work hard and persevere when it doesn’t come easily. You’ll be better off if you’re surrounded by learned people ... posted on Jul 10 2013 (34,793 reads)

making tacos one evening several years ago, I heard the pitter-patter of my son’s toddler toes scampering toward me, paired with a hearty, mischievous giggle. I remember thinking, “I wonder what’s so funny… He’s been so quiet, playing all by himself.” A quiet toddler? Playing by himself? For 30 minutes? I should have known better: rookie mistake. I turned to greet my then-16-month-old and was shocked to see a sticky, drippy and bronzed version of him stumbling toward me—one chubby hand reaching out for me, the other white-knuckling an empty 16-ounce jar of molasses that he had five-fingered from the pantry while I had been cooking. I... posted on Jun 29 2013 (17,603 reads)

don’t mean love, when I say patriotism,” writes Ursula K. Le Guin in her classic 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness. “I mean fear. The fear of the other. And its expressions are political, not poetical: hate, rivalry, aggression.” In some corners, patriotism has a bad name. “Patriot” is mildly defined in my desktop dictionary as a “supporter of one’s own country”—and yet my thesaurus suggests the word “patriotism” can be synonymous with jingoism, chauvinism, nativism, and xenophobia. Particularly during times of war, patriotism does indeed seem to go hand-in-hand with dehumanization of outsid... posted on Jul 4 2013 (20,332 reads)

a Sand County Almanac essay called The Great Gavilan, Aldo Leopold wrote: There are men charged with the duty of examining the construction of the plants, animals, and soils which are the instruments of the great orchestra. These men are called professors. Each selects one instrument and spends his life taking it apart and describing its strings and sounding boards. This process of dismemberment is called research. The place for dismemberment is called a university. A professor may pluck the strings of his own instrument, but never that of another, and if he listens for music he must never admit it to his fellows or to his students. For all are restrained by an ironbound taboo whi... posted on Jul 26 2013 (21,632 reads)

stunningly graceful, elegant creatures. They've been living on Midway for four million years and never had a predator. So they know no fear. You can walk right up and get so close that if they wanted to, they could peck at your face with their beaks. I got to witness and film babies hatching. And as I went and witnessed this, I realized there was an environmental tragedy happening there, and it was wrapped up in this envelope of exquisite beauty and joy and grace.  LB: Your images of the baby birds are heartbreaking, though. What impact have you seen them have on children?  CJ: That might be the most inspiring part of the whole process for me. I learned that... posted on Jul 29 2013 (83,139 reads)

the old saying goes, “There’s no time like the present.”  In a rural corner of Pennsylvania, Elaine Newkirk has made that saying a way of life. When she was 23, her 14-year-old sister moved in. Shortly after, her sister’s two friends moved in as well. To keep the girls there, she became a foster mom. Since then, she has opened up her home to over 60 foster children, their friends, siblings, and community members. Then, when a young mother was unable to care for her two infants, she immediately took them in as her own—in addition to caring for her own infant. Today, a single mother of 5 teenagers— 4 of whom are adopte... posted on Jul 30 2013 (28,472 reads)

the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough." -- Meister Eckhart When I was in Bali several years ago, I had the good fortune of visiting several temples. Before entering each one, we were asked to tie a sash around our waist as a symbolic gesture of "containing our appetites" as we prayed. It seems that the Balinese believe in the power of prayer, and even more so, in the value of asking only for what is most needed, and not more. I found this ritual and way of thinking quite striking, especially in contrast to the "abundance" mentality in our culture. For years, I've listened to public figures and moti... posted on Aug 19 2013 (34,590 reads)

Emmons, perhaps the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude, argues that gratitude has two key components, which he describes in a Greater Good essay, “Why Gratitude Is Good.” “First,” he writes, “it’s an affirmation of goodness. We affirm that there are good things in the world, gifts and benefits we’ve received.” In the second part of gratitude, he explains, “we recognize that the sources of this goodness are outside of ourselves. … We acknowledge that other people—or even higher powers, if you’re of a spiritual mindset—gave us many gifts, big and small, to help us achieve the goodness ... posted on Nov 28 2013 (44,625 reads)

Wednesday evening last fall, I found myself sautéing sage leaves. I can’t claim to do this with any regularity; my October Bon Appetit just happened to show up as I was trying to decide what to cook for my relatives, who would be getting off a plane at ten-thirty that night. I was looking for food that would satisfy them if they hadn’t had a decent meal since Pittsburgh, that would say “I’m so glad you’re here!” and that wouldn’t reproach them if all they really wanted to do was say goodnight and go to bed. Who wouldn’t fry sage leaves in that situation? By the time I left for the airport I had chilled the champagne and&... posted on Oct 9 2013 (19,872 reads)

built a career on making millions for the rich, but her true achievement has been using her legal and financial nous to make money for the world’s poorest. David Leser meets the ISIS Foundation’s Audette Exel in Kathmandu. To enter the Alice in Wonderland-like existence of Audette Exel, you could do worse than go down the rabbit hole and poke your head up into the ancient former kingdom of Nepal. Weddings are erupting around the capital, Kathmandu, with flourishes of trumpets and beating drums. Cows amble across the street amid dust storms and endless traffic jams, vying for space... posted on Oct 28 2013 (29,569 reads)

empathy a limited resource, easily depleted and restricted to those closest to us? That’s the argument psychologist Paul Bloom makes in an essay for this week’s New Yorker, subtitled “The case against empathy.” He admits that empathy can do a lot of good: Decades of research shows that feeling empathy can lead us to be more caring, forgiving, and altruistic. But according to Bloom, empathy also can do a lot of bad. It’s an untrustworthy moral compass because it is “parochial, narrow-minded, and innumerate.” Empathy seems tuned to only one frequency, that of a single identifiable victim, with whom we feel some personal connection. According t... posted on Oct 1 2013 (18,595 reads)

Bennett-Goleman and Daniel Goleman explain the science behind "mind whispering"—a technique for overcoming self-defeating habits of mind. Tara Bennett-Goleman and her husband Daniel Goleman form a kind of intellectual dream team—one almost exclusively preoccupied with emotions. In best-selling books like Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence, Daniel Goleman has laid out the cognitive science and theories behind our emotions and social interactions. In her work as a psychotherapist and in her best-selling book Emotional Alchemy, Bennett-Goleman has applied those theories to overcoming self-defeating habits of mind and improving our relationships. ... posted on Oct 6 2013 (30,943 reads)

that we are in a moment she calls "The Great Turning" — a transition from society shaped primarily by industrial growth to a society structured to be life-sustaining. She finds nourishment for this vision in Rilke. He also chronicled a turn-of-century, world-altering moment in time. Ms. Macy: From the beginning, Rilke, in his first poems that he stayed loyal to in the Book of Hours, he foresaw — he had this strong inkling and he gave visions, you know, metaphors and images to it that this 20th century that was opening up would be very dark. He didn't know about the world wars. He didn't know about the concentration camps, the death camps, the nuclear bomb... posted on Nov 3 2013 (35,150 reads)

the Nile delta and its lucrative fishery, and the diversion of water to marginally arable lands forced the city of Cairo to draw down its freshwater aquifers. The result is that the salts underground are rising and eroding the foundations of Cairo's ancient mosques, churches, and some of the pyramids themselves. Hard to see how this does not spell pure catastrophe, but for now at least the Nile is still alive. The next day I went to Saqqarah. The tombs of Ti and Ptah-hotep are full of images of life along the river—fishermen with their nets and narrow boats above a world of teeming fish, each kind rendered with extraodinary exactness—and there were scenes of bird-catchi... posted on Oct 20 2013 (22,059 reads)

I was awakened by the sound of shuffling feet. It was my early-bird riser in her big sister’s pajamas that drug across the floor. I wanted to pull the covers over my head and feign sleep. But instead I got up and made toaster waffles that she said tasted “divine.” She kissed me with syrupy sweet lips. Getting up wasn’t my first response. But I did it. Today I lived. Today she lost her shoes for the 37th time in two weeks. It was right before we needed to head out the door. I wanted to scream, to scold, to throw my hands in the air. But instead I held her. I held her. My shoeless girl. Together we found them wet with dew in the backyard and she w... posted on Nov 14 2013 (98,326 reads)

So it was Steve who really pushed me. And then when I got to Antarctica there were no people, so I decided to photograph everything as if I was making a portrait. And just that simple intention, which resonated with my upbringing—you know, seeing a tree as an individual—worked perfectly. Every penguin that I saw was a unique individual; every hut, every rock, every piece of ice. I could connect with it. And I think somehow, because of my intention, that this communicates through my images in a way that has not for other iceberg photographers. RW:  What you’re saying is very interesting. And I suspect that there are levels of sensitivity which we don’t have wo... posted on Dec 1 2013 (22,144 reads)

remember one evening, when my life was pretty different and I was overweight and deeply in debt and a smoker and had such a hard time changing things … I wasn’t feeling too good about my life. I felt horrible about myself, and wondered why I was stuck. I felt hopeless and helpless, and generally depressed about the state of things around me. Then I looked up at the sky, and saw the stars set in a deep blue-black canvas. And I thought, what a miracle life is. And I resolved to mentally list the things I had in my life that were good. My list of good things was something like this: - I had a wonderful wife - I had 5 amazing children (now 6) - I had... posted on Dec 14 2013 (83,771 reads)

been inspired by recent news stories of children who are working to make a difference in the world, committed to projects much bigger than themselves. There’s Malala Yousufzai, the young advocate for girls’ education in Pakistan; Craig Kielburger, who advocates for the abolishment of child labor; and Ryan Hreljac, who raises money to build wells in developing countries. The list goes on and on. But there’s a flip side to these stories. Research suggests that some young people in the United States are actually becoming more self-absorbed and less connected to others. A recent study that examined the empathy levels of almost 14,00... posted on Dec 19 2013 (108,908 reads)