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 (7,868 reads)

is to quietly let the spirit guide you. “Make your choice quickly and step back so that others can come forward.” Further, you do not call attention to what you’ve been given, or show displeasure if someone seems to have gotten something better than you. It is not the gift, but the gestures of giving and receiving that count. It is a very different sort of giving and receiving from that practiced in majority culture, where the giver is often calling attention to his or her generosity, and the gift is often followed by effusive thanks from the receiver. The strengthening of community is much more important in the American Indian practice, a gifting more akin to prayer th... posted on Aug 16 2011 (36,684 reads)

I ate my breakfast, at a certain point, I begin to think about the tip I would leave. Certainly, I’d give the waitress the saved dollar. I’d add it to my usual tip. But why not more? The thought filled me with a little charge of happiness. I’d leave a ten-dollar bill! That would be pretty generous. About $4 on a $6 meal. What would that be? 60% or so.      Then, as I was finishing off a bite of scrambled egg and feeling the pleasure of my planned generosity, something else entered my mind. Maybe the ten dollars was too easy. Didn’t this morning call for something more? It called for something that crossed the boundary into the realm of m... posted on Aug 26 2011 (12,026 reads)

in my wallet. What initially started as a nice conversation piece at parties turned into a pile of kind acts that I just had to unload. Slowly, my perspective started shifting. Instead of looking at how I could manipulate situations to my benefit, my mind was busy trying to think of ways I could make someone's day better. The cards were a pocket-sized prompt to be a better person! I began to realize that what I was carrying wasn't just some nice cards -- I was carrying the potential for generosity in every interaction. All this leads me back to the day I handed the book over to the stranger. It was amazing exactly because it was ordinary. I had experienced a moment where I wanted to ... posted on Sep 11 2011 (23,396 reads)

just searching for ways to express the gratitude we feel. All of our relationships -- with family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances -- become fair game. As do interactions with total strangers. A few years ago, in downtown Chicago, 10 of us had decided to try an experiment. To create an excuse to connect with those we walk by all the time, we'd whipped up 150 bagged lunches, split up into groups of three and hit the streets. Beyond just the lunches, the idea was to really explore our own generosity within each interaction. So with everyone who looked like they could use a lunch, we'd start with making our offering and then letting things happen organically. Some would heartily accept,... posted on Oct 18 2011 (22,841 reads)

describe how while at lunch the two suddenly realize that it is Friday, the day they mail out and post their gifts. Spontaneously, they decide that that week's gift should be a $52 tip to the waitress who had been serving them in the restaurant. The post on the site says that after they wrote the tip on the credit card receipt, they decided to "run away without watching (their) waitress's expression as she opened the leather folio."  That's it right there. That's generosity. Giving in a sacrificial way with the intent of blessing others while seeking nothing in return -- not even recognition, gratitude, or praise. And this lesson is the biggest gift that Giver... posted on Oct 25 2011 (15,790 reads)

more, visit the Communication Insight Center.] Last week, I played the piano for my friend Macy Robison's cabaret-style recital Children Will Listen. The 1,400-seat Browning Center auditorium at Weber State University was sold out. The crowd loved her. I played exceptionally well, but the outcome could have been very different. Prior to this event, we had performed the recital for audiences of no more than fifty people. Each time, nerves bedeviled me. I majored in music in college, but over the last two decades I've played only intermittently, and never professionally. A few months ago when I had worked with Macy in the recording studio, I found the circumstan... posted on Nov 4 2011 (16,186 reads)

life you’d want to read, with a climax and denouement. It’s not told from the end as we discussed. There aren’t a lot of specifics or characters. But even without any specifics in place, perhaps this all tells a story anyway. At the end, this life will have been a journey of perseverance; a century, I hope, of opening to truth and love. I will have cultivated a generous heart, I will have never lost the spirit of fun, I will have loved well, and set an example of love, truth, generosity, beauty, laughter and kindness. I will live and die at peace, confident that I did my very best.  ... posted on Nov 8 2011 (39,051 reads)

fragmentation and lack of connection. Living Economies Forum: Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth LivingEconomiesForum.org “The old economy of greed and domination is dying. A new economy of life and partnership is struggling to be born. The outcome is ours to choose.” ~ Author David Korten • Focus more on matters of family and community and on building trust. • Devote less attention to maximizing incomes and more attention to acts of generosity. • Ask our employers for more time off instead of higher pay. In our local communities, we can find ways to design more relationship-friendly places such as farmers’ markets,... posted on Nov 20 2011 (23,696 reads)

work at the Free Farm because we believe that healthy _local_ food is the foundation of social justice. While 93 percent of the varieties of crops have gone extinct in the part of the Planet we call the U.S. –and all over the World– city kids, like many of us, are learning how to facilitate the growth of food and how to let some crops go to seed.  The concepts of both regeneration (not sustainability) and community are being shared and practiced. We are planting seeds of generosity and harvesting kindness to and from the community. With this growth of soil and community, local neighbors are getting more and more involved. As these neighbors volunteer at the farm and&... posted on Dec 5 2011 (9,156 reads)

should make more money.” “I should lose weight.” “I should volunteer more often.”   In saying “should” so often, I found myself feeling trapped by a sense of obligation and expectation. I felt this vague pressure to conform to external standards, to be someone or do something. It felt like just being me wasn’t okay. I felt pushed to follow a particular path, behave in specific ways, and believe certain things. In observing my mind and growing towards a more compassionate life, I realized that I had internalized both the messages and the method of the “shoulds.” &nbs... posted on Dec 14 2011 (39,527 reads)