Sides Now”, I certainly appreciated the diverse emotional moods of different formations, some light and fluffy while others dark and stormy. Some clouds evoked a sense of letting go while others appeared to be bottling up strong emotions inside. It wasn’t until after we returned home to Maryland that I appreciated the irony of focusing my heavy camera on airy mountain clouds while trudging along those steep trails to our purely self-imposed destination. As I viewed the images that I had made, I thought back to those hikes and wondered, were the clouds gently bemused by my continuous striving against gravity as I scrambled over and around the rocks that impeded my fo... posted on May 9 2024 (351 reads)

are worth solving.” Age-diverse workplace friendships can also strengthen work performance by building social capital and defusing generational conflict. Connecting with older colleagues can reduce ageism. Research suggests that frequent intergenerational contact can reduce age biases. “The more contact young people have with older adults, the less anxious they are about their own aging, and the less ageist they are,” notes one study. Some research finds that positive images of people on television and in the movies, media, and advertising can do the same. Both types of contact—the real-life ones and the ones we absorb through media—can shift stereotype... posted on Jun 18 2024 (2,044 reads)

that my whole life, lived and as yet unlived, was spread out for examination, that my life was being read like a book, weighed like a stone in the palm of a hand. I saw that everything counted—or, everything real, every tear, all our suffering. That I didn’t “believe” in any of this—that I was too cool, too skeptical, too educated to be dazzled by experiences that were clearly, had to be, subjective, that I would never resort to hackneyed religious metaphors, and images like weighing and reading—that also didn’t count. My opinions about what I believed or didn’t believe, what I was capable of or not capable of, were just smoke to be brushed a... posted on Jul 3 2024 (3,796 reads)

has offered much hope to the world throughout history. The birthplace of the Buddha himself, it has since been a place of global pilgrimage for people from all walks of life, searching for inner peace and enlightenment. However, despite a promising history, within its own borders civil conflict has been rife. The country suffers from severe poverty and economic insecurity, and has clearly been in need of a breath of fresh air, a breeze of hope, and a path towards prosperity for some time. Cue Sushil Koirala who describes himself as one of the world's biggest dreamers says he is driven by daring ambitions and a deep passion to create a more just and peaceful society, not only for ... posted on Apr 23 2011 (8,605 reads)

many, cheap flights overseas are a guilty pleasure. Aircraft currently produce 4% of Europe’s CO2 emissions and recent research by Jeff Gazzard, of the Aviation Environment Federation, has found that aircraft emissions have up to 2.7 times more impact on the air than ground emissions due to the delicate nature of the upper atmosphere. SCOTLAND - When planes were grounded across Europe last spring, due to the ash cloud from Iceland’s volcanic eruption, people were looking for alternative routes home over land and sea. During this period, Tom and Lorraine McMillan witnessed a 700% increase in visits to their website. Although visitor levels normalised after the cloud passed,... posted on May 29 2011 (7,255 reads)

interview of Jacob Needleman with Steve Heilig: Listen (mp3):     (Click the play button above to start the audio recording.)   Jacob Needleman is a professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University and the author of many books, including The American Soul, The Wisdom of Love, Time and the Soul, The Heart of Philosophy, Lost Christianity, and Money and The Meaning of Life. In addition to his teaching and writing, he serves as a consultant in the fields of psychology, educat... posted on Apr 28 2011 (12,511 reads)

2008, an interviewer admitted to Alfie Kohn that she considers herself a competitive person. “As long as you acknowledge that’s a problem to be solved; it’s not a good thing about us,” he responded. “People say to me, ‘Oh I’m really a competitive person,’ not realizing that it’s as if they’re saying, ‘I have a drinking problem.” Competition, which Kohn defines as any situation where one person can succeed only when others fail, seems to be something of a state religion in the United States. But Kohn is convinced that we’ve all bought into dangerous myths about the value of competition in our personal lives, wor... posted on Sep 23 2011 (18,403 reads)

a kid, patience was not my thing. In fifth grade, when Mr. Gardner asked a question, my hand would often shoot up in enthusiasm. After giving me a few opportunities, he would try to give other students a chance. My hand, though, would remain in the air, and after some time, I'd impatiently start waving it around; at some point, that move got dubbed, "The Viral." Then, there was the time I enrolled in drumming classes. I was excited to jam, but all we were allowed to do in the first class was practice one beat over and over again. I never went back. I would've done terribly in the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. In this classic study, researchers gave children a choice bet... posted on Jul 25 2011 (40,240 reads)

billion bits of information. In an average lifetime, this is what the human brain is capable of processing; according to the famous psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: "It is out of this total that everything in our life must come -- every thought, memory, feeling or action. It seems like a huge amount, but in reality it does not go that far." With any limited resource, the fact that it's in short supply can quickly create a feeling of scarcity. But it can also snap us back to attention and foster wise use. In what "Time Magazine" dubbed as one of the best commencement speeches ever, the late author, David Foster Wallace, went as far as to say that honin... posted on Aug 22 2011 (24,232 reads)

Senge - Founding Chairperson - Society for Organizational Learning Dr. Peter M. Senge is the founding chairperson of SoL and a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Senge is the author of The Fifth Discipline: the Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. He has lectured extensively throughout the world, translating the abstract ideas of systems theory into tools for better understanding of economic and organizational change. He has worked with leaders in business, education, health care and government. The Journal of Business Strategy (September/October 1999) named Dr. Senge as one of the 24 people who had the greatest influence on bus... posted on Aug 28 2011 (11,731 reads)

idea of having concrete, achievable goals seem to be deeply ingrained in our culture. I know I lived with goals for many years, and in fact a big part of my writings here on Zen Habits are about how to set and achieve goals. These days, however, I live without goals, for the most part. It’s absolutely liberating, and contrary to what you might have been taught, it absolutely doesn’t mean you stop achieving things. It means you stop letting yourself be limited by goals. Consider this common belief: “You’ll never get anywhere unless you know where you’re going.” This seems so common sensical, and yet it’s obviously not true if you stop to think ... posted on Sep 1 2011 (28,789 reads)

you sure you aren't making a mistake?" I had just announced to one of my dearest friends that I planned to walk away from Wall Street and my seven-figure salary. "Yes, I'm sure." But was I? Years earlier, I had moved to New York City with a degree in music and a husband who was beginning a Ph.D. program. My first job, and the best job I could get, had been as a secretary at a brokerage house. By working 70-80 hours a week, taking business courses at night, and doggedly pursuing a jump to the professional track, I finally got a break, and moved into investment banking. When I decided to leave Wall Street, I was the Senior Media and Telecom analyst for Latin America... posted on Sep 4 2011 (15,055 reads)

was a cold night in a wooded area, extremely dark, with no moon in the sky. I must've strayed off of the path at some point. I shuffled my feet around, trying to feel for the smoothness of the trail. But there was just wet grass. The moment I realized I was lost, there was an immediate surge of fear. In situations like these, where we suddenly experience an intense emotion, we often find ourselves facing a storm of "what-if" scenarios: "What if I don't find the trail? What if I can't find my way back? What if I have to be outside in the freezing cold all night?" Before we know it, we are feeding these negative thoughts, which in turn strengthens the emotional response... posted on Sep 19 2011 (68,625 reads)

week I arrived home from work to see my 8th grade son toiling away on a science fair project with his classmate Marc. As I observed their breezy back-and-forth, one at the computer, the other laying out the poster board, both fully engaged, no ego involved, I found myself taken back. In part, because as a parent, I'm always a little surprised when children do their homework without parental micro-management, but also because these two 8th graders made collaboration look like child's play.   And yet that's not always our experience in the office. Rather than the free-wheeling interchange of ideas and labor we anticipate — we're grown-ups after all — working together is... posted on Sep 27 2011 (13,806 reads)

to arcs, circles and spirals to find our way home Nina Simons exemplifies Mahatma Gandhi’s guidance to “Be the change you want to see in the world.” She’s always felt called to transform culture, to make it more inclusive, tolerant and just. And now, decades after a life rich with experience, she is being the change she wants to see by modeling women’s leadership in the world. Simons’ life path has been neither a straight nor logical line. A New Yorker, she originally sought to change the world through theater, music and film. But when she and her husband (social entrepreneur and filmmaker Kenny Ausubel) visited Gila, New Mexico, she “fe... posted on Oct 2 2011 (12,010 reads)

Andover High School cross-country runner Josh Ripley heard the screams of Lakeville South runner Mark Paulauskas, Josh knew he needed to help. While other competitors in the Applejack Invite in Lakeville ran by, Josh stopped to see what was wrong. In the first mile of a 2-mile junior varsity race held Sept. 16, Josh found Mark holding his ankle and bleeding profusely. Worried that Mark had punctured his Achilles heel, Josh carried the wounded runner for a half a mile to get him to his coach and parents. After making sure Mark was in good hands, Josh jumped back into the race. It turns out Mark had been “spiked,” meaning he was stepped on or came in contact with pointed met... posted on Sep 30 2011 (9,346 reads)

all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.’ ~Alexander Graham Bell Many of us grew up in the age of multi-tasking, where you couldn’t call yourself productive if you weren’t a good multi-tasker. We learned to always have several balls in the air at once — while writing something on the computer, we had a phone call going, we were writing something on a notepad or paper form, we were reviewing documents, sometimes even holding a meeting at the same time. That’s the productive worker, the effective executive. When email and Instant Messaging and blogs and the rest of the Internet came al... posted on Oct 5 2011 (39,404 reads)

two years ago, at the start of my junior year at USC, my left lung spontaneously collapsed unexpectedly (pneumothorax).  After being admitted to the ER, I spent four days at the Good Samaritan Hospital with an uncomfortable chest tube jutting out of my body.  This was my first, real, and personal encounter of the true fragility of life: the fact that I could possess perfect health one day then instantly have to cling on for dear life the next - without any warning whatsoever. I recovered quickly, and I did my best to learn the lessons from this challenging but extremely revealing experience.  Lessons like: being grateful for good health, keeping a powerfully positive... posted on Nov 9 2011 (8,741 reads)

known them for a long time. We've been friends for years. Shared laughs, went to each other's weddings, had play dates for our kids. We're close and I share that not simply for full disclosure, but because it colors my perspective on this most inspiring story. I'm not sure it really hit me until I found myself on the phone speaking with one of these old friends of mine about the yearlong charitable project that she and her husband began this past January. The person on the other end of the phone line is a writer who has chosen to only be known as "Giver Girl." She and husband "Giver Boy" are the mysterious yet inspiring duo behind the website and project 52time... posted on Oct 25 2011 (15,681 reads)

years I’ve been asked, “Since you wrote Diet for a Small Planet in 1971, have things gotten better or worse?” Hoping I don’t sound glib, my response is always the same: “Both.” As food growers, sellers and eaters, we’re moving in two directions at once. The number of hungry people has soared to nearly 1 billion, despite strong global harvests. And for even more people, sustenance has become a health hazard—with the US diet implicated in four out of our top ten deadly diseases. Power over soil, seeds and food sales is ever more tightly held, and farmland in the global South is being snatched away from indigenous people by spe... posted on Nov 1 2011 (12,571 reads)