boy who raised over a million dollars to help find a cure for his friend’s rare disease. We can also find inspiration in the mother who forgave her son’s murderers and promised to help them change their lives. Stories like these fill me with hope and an appreciation for what’s best in humankind. Pioneering studies by Haidt and others find that moral elevation doesn’t just make you feel good. It actually encourages more compassion and generosity. In other words, it breaks down the barriers between people—something that Americans need right now. Stories of goodness have the capacity to touch us all, filling us with hope for hu... posted on Aug 28 2018 (10,368 reads)

do service and make a difference. In my freshman year of college, Irene, one of the co-founders, and I, flew out to California and met with the author of ‘Pay It Forward.’  She talked about how the book came to be.  She was stranded on the side of a road with a car fire.  A random stranger put out the fire, said ‘pay it forward,’ and left. She still has no idea who that person was.  It just kind of resonated on a give-first mentality, the generosity of doing things for others without asking anything in return, just hoping the small acts of kindness make ripples. And that's why I resonate with the ServiceSpace movement -- because th... posted on Jan 2 2019 (3,347 reads)

things are connected, that we are all related, that everything depends on everything else, we start to see solutions. Why do we have crises between Palestine and Israel, between Sunni and Shia, between America and Russia, India and Pakistan, Christians and Muslims? Because we see ourselves as being separate from others. When all our interactions are embedded in friend­ ships and loving relationships, then we will act from a po­sition of patience, acceptance, tolerance, forgiveness, and generosity. When I was 27, I spent two and a half years walking around the world, which I have described in Chapter Two. I walked for eight thousand miles, without any money, com­pletely depend... posted on Apr 4 2019 (7,588 reads)

natural world is one of the most resplendent and consistent sources of generosity in our lives — whether we experience it directly moment-to-moment or not. When we allow ourselves to tune in and pay attention, our Earth is perpetually nourishing and providing for us, sustaining life and offering its abundant gifts with a breathtaking and consistent flourish. We are fed, literally and figuratively, by the Earth’s offerings every day. All manner of things born of the Earth can awaken us to perspective. All manner of moments in Nature can offer us gratitude for life’s preciousness and remind us of our fragile and powerful bonds of connection. Amidst oceans, fields, rain, t... posted on Nov 25 2019 (6,717 reads)

today, is powerful medicine. It leaves me, to use a favorite phrase cribbed from my friend Jill (Letter #10), “suffused with a sense of well-being.” Despite its profound impact, the Thank-You Project comes down to three simple steps, done repeatedly: See the people, places, and things that make your life richer.  Say something to acknowledge your good fortune in your letters. And, by keeping copies of the letters to reread, Savor the generosity and support that surrounds you. The first letter I wrote when I started my project was to my mom. I figured I owed her that, having lived rent-free in her uterus for nine months. I have ... posted on Dec 9 2019 (8,759 reads)

for a stipend that comes with strict conditions. The crisis could usher in totalitarianism or solidarity; medical martial law or a holistic renaissance; greater fear of the microbial world, or greater resiliency in participation in it; permanent norms of social distancing, or a renewed desire to come together. What can guide us, as individuals and as a society, as we walk the garden of forking paths? At each junction, we can be aware of what we follow: fear or love, self-preservation or generosity. Shall we live in fear and build a society based on it? Shall we live to preserve our separate selves? Shall we use the crisis as a weapon against our political enemies? These are not all-o... posted on Apr 16 2020 (14,294 reads)

she is quite confident that the end of our civilization is closer than we might like to think. And she is doing something about it… something radical. Wheatley is building an army of 'warriors for the human spirit' with people who want to lessen the suffering in the world - whether it be from natural disasters, political strife, war, famine, or from the tyranny of daily injustices in modern life. Her warriors are trained as leaders with compassion, kindness, servitude and generosity as prime requirements. Wheatley has amassed a library of resources - articles, podcasts, videos, and even poems - to help inspire your inner warrior. S... posted on Jun 17 2020 (9,462 reads)

themselves would be mortified to see how their ideas had been contorted. We could start, for example, with Adam Smith in 1776 writing The Wealth of Nations.  He wrote this very famous sentence, which has come to underpin the power of self-interest in market economics: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Meaning that people don’t provide things out of generosity, but their own interest and it is the market that ingeniously allows this to happen. Well the wonderful irony was that Adam was aged 43 when he wrote his classic book. He’d never marr... posted on Jul 19 2020 (8,356 reads)

humanity and the web of life.  Every culture has its creation stories, whether they are of the Garden of Eden of Judeo- Christianity, or the Great Light of the Skywoman falling to Earth of the Haudenosaunee people. [2] They tell us where we belong in the beginning, and how this beginning is then woven into our lives. And for many centuries we live this story: we are a people after the Fall, banished from Eden, living by the “sweat of our brow”; or we are present in the generosity of a land where the Good Spirit protects Her people. And now, at the end of an era, when these stories are mostly just remembered in books, and we live without our feet touching the earth, ... posted on Sep 20 2020 (7,175 reads)

ritual-art designs called 'kolam,' at the thresholds of their homes, as a tribute to Mother Earth and an offering to Goddess Lakshmi. A Tamil word that means beauty, form, play, disguise or ritual design-- a kolam is anchored in the Hindu belief that householders have a karmic obligation to "feed a thousand souls." By creating the kolam with rice flour, a woman provides food for birds, rodents, ants and other tiny life forms -- greeting each day with 'a ritual of generosity', that blesses both the household, and the greater community. Kolams are a deliberately transient form of art. They are created anew each dawn with a combination of reverence, mathemati... posted on May 20 2021 (16,716 reads)

missing out on the richness of communal experiences with others. When faced with a challenging or boring moment in a relationship, try being curious about the person you’re with, rather than controlling. Curiosity is a stance well-suited to the inherent unpredictability of life with others, because it can be satisfied by their behaving in ways you like or dislike—whereas if you demand a certain result instead, you’ll often be frustrated.   Cultivate instantaneous generosity Whenever a generous impulse arises in your mind, give in to it right away rather than putting it off. Don’t wait to figure out if the recipient deserves your generosity or if you r... posted on Dec 12 2021 (13,911 reads)

the hypocrisy and the lies and so much of that. But this is why I think Julian would count on us also to go deeper. And of course, we meditate not just on the failures or failed people that usually make the headlines, but on the great people we honor. In the Catholic church, they're called saints and often in other cultures, too. As I was alluding to a few minutes ago, we honor King, Gandhi, Mandela and Dorothy Day. There are just so many wonderful people who have lived lives of generosity. And of course, we all fail at times, but that's not the end of the story. So, I think John Lewis was talking about wisdom. What is really deep wisdom doesn't get old. I think yo... posted on Sep 8 2022 (3,238 reads)

they have received. Gratitude can flourish only if people are secure enough in themselves and sufficiently trusting to allow it to do so. Another obstacle to gratitude is often called a sense of entitlement. Instead of experiencing a benefaction as a good turn, people sometimes regard it as a mere payment of what they are owed, for which no one deserves any moral credit. While seeing that justice is done is important, supplanting all opportunities for genuine feelings and expressions of generosity can also produce a more impersonal and fragmented community. Practicing gratitude There are a number of practical steps anyone can take to promote a sense of gratitude. One is simply ... posted on Nov 13 2022 (5,136 reads)

I’m an activist for, not against, and I’m committed to pulling people through the pain into their vision, because that’s where I stand and I know that works. So even the things that many people are against, I see them. I want to hospice their natural death with some respect and dignity. Respect comes from re-see, re-spectate, re-look and they’ll die faster. I don’t attack. I think I have found that to be enormously effective, it takes a lot of patience, generosity, and kindness. But it’s good for me to be that way and it actually is very practical. So pain pushes until vision pulls and I have a muscle that I’ve developed to help people... posted on Dec 31 2022 (4,213 reads)

FUERTH LEMLE April 11,1916---April 17, 2011 For the first 58 years of my life, I would have to say that my relationship to my mother was a complex and difficult one. She was a huge personality, full of great passions, creativity, rages, and generosity. I remember saying to friends that I loved my mother in small doses, but that she didn't come in small doses. She was a force of nature. She had no sense of boundaries; my memory of going to restaurants with Edna, was that as the waiter placed my plate in front of me, her fork would be in my food before I was even able to lift my own. She would often just show up at my house anywhere in the world, uninvited. She was also very contro... posted on Jul 1 2016 (47,010 reads)

there. Everybody search “Mark Peters quotes” as soon as we’re done here. [laughs] Anyway, so I came into the world with some wonderful gifts that I really didn’t know how to handle or manage, being just a very sensitive soul, sensitive to, I think really, the needs of the human spirit to have just incredibly unconditionally loving and accepting environments around each other, and just kind of sensitive to the potential of people to be these wellsprings of love and generosity, and I really felt that, and then this incredible discrepancy between that possibility and the way that things often play out in relationships. And so I had a keen perception of truth an... posted on Apr 1 2023 (4,953 reads)

a marriage and children. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without getting through it intact enough, and that was only through the grace of other people. TS: Someone’s listening to this—and believe me, this was my experience reading the book: I started feeling into traumatic experiences in my own life and the self-blame and shame that came up and have realized that like you just described, whatever healing has happened has happened through the love, kindness, generosity of others and the privilege that I have in my life to have reached out and gotten some really good therapy over the years. What else? What else helps someone? As they’re listening and... posted on May 17 2023 (8,918 reads)

about an optimal way of being. It is a win-win situation: you will enjoy lasting well-being for yourself, you’ll act in altruistic ways towards others, and you’ll be perceived as a good human being. If altruistic love is based on an understanding of the interdependence of all beings and of their natural aspiration to happiness, and if this love extends impartially to all beings, then it is a source of genuine happiness. Acts of overflowing love, of pure, disinterested generosity—as when you make a child happy or help someone in need, even if nobody knows what you have done—generate a deep and heartwarming fulfillment. &nbs... posted on Oct 20 2009 (19,259 reads)

trigger release of oxytocin, aka “the love hormone.” In a study by Jim Coan and Richard Davidson, participants laying in an fMRI brain scanner, anticipating a painful blast of white noise, showed heightened brain activity in regions associated with threat and stress. But participants whose romantic partner stroked their arm while they waited didn’t show this reaction at all. Touch had turned off the threat switch. Touch can even have economic effects, promoting trust and generosity. When psychologist Robert Kurzban had participants play the “prisoner’s dilemma” game, in which they could choose either to cooperate or compete with a partner for a limit... posted on Feb 24 2011 (43,911 reads)

Bornstein started pedaling his way toward peace in August. He had no timeline and didn't know exactly where the road would take him. Seven months later, after biking to Santa Barbara from Pennsylvania Dutch Country, he has a greater idea of what his goals are and how far he hopes to carry his message of peace -- he hopes to ride around the world.   Mr. Bornstein, 34, told the the News-Press he is an adopted child who was raised in Lancaster, Pa., and joined the Navy at 18. For four years he served on the USS Independence in Yokosuka, Japan.   After his Navy stint, he moved to Arizona, but two marriages, a couple of business ventures and part of a bachelor's degree later,... posted on Apr 5 2011 (7,867 reads)