Being and Doing, by Patty de Llosa
14, 2017 Sometimes life seems a bit like a never-ending battle between doing and being. if I wish to be present, I need to turn my attention toward myself, noticing my thoughts, reactions, sensations, as I try to answer with my whole self the question: Who am I? But who has time for that? I’ve got all these obligations. All of us have work that must be done, much of it with deadlines. Plus there are those things we want to do that give life its juices, like write the Great American Novel, convince a prospective client ours is the best product, or simply get those to-do items checked off the list. So we have to tear ourselves away from larger questions and focus our ... posted on Dec 13 2017 (12,962 reads)

Finding Your Moment of Obligation, by Lara Galinsky
who successfully tackle big social, environmental, and economic problems are driven by what I call a moment of obligation — a specific time in their life when they felt compelled to act. These moments become their North Star; they keep them going in a positive direction when everything seems dark. The obligation is not only to the world but also to themselves. Activists or social entrepreneurs aren't the only ones who are moved this way. We all have experiences that deeply inform who we are and what we are supposed to do. But only if we allow them to. Take Socheata Poeuv. She borrowed a bulky video camera from her office job at a television studio a... posted on Oct 6 2017 (10,028 reads)

The Impermanence of Broccoli, by ALANDA GREENE
transplanting tiny broccoli seedlings, moving them from a densely planted row in a large tray to four-compartment seedling holders. They have paired heartshaped leaves, deep dusty green, with what is called ‘true’ leaves just beginning to emerge between these two. In the fourpack tray they will continue to grow until the outside temperature warms enough to set them in the garden. No matter how many times I plant the tiny round black seeds, this small miracle excites me, to see them emerge as little knobs of green, then continue changing to the heartshaped leaf pairs, to become magnificent heads of beaded clusters that I will eat. When I miss getting the heads at ... posted on Dec 18 2017 (10,339 reads)

The Myth of the Risk-Taker: You Don't Have To Be Bold To Succeed , by Heleo Editors
Grant is a renowned Wharton psychology professor and bestselling author of Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World. He recently joined Ryan Hawk, host of The Learning Leader Show, to talk about what makes an Original, the role of creativity and curiosity in non-conformity, and what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. This conversation has been edited and condensed. To listen to Adam and Ryan’s full conversation, click here. Adam: The most consistent common attribute of people who have been widely successful and done it again and again is that they’re dedicated learners. What’s fascinating about them is, no matter how much... posted on Jan 19 2018 (12,821 reads)

Nancy Colier: Waking Up from Our Addiction to Technology, by Tami Simon
Colier is a psychotherapist, interfaith minister, meditation teacher, and the celebrated author of books such as Inviting a Monkey to Tea: Befriending Your Mind. With Sounds True, Nancy has written a new book called The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and Nancy have a frank discussion of the large-scale modern addiction to cell phones, email, and social media. Nancy offers ways one can recognize addictive behavior and how we can break out of compulsive cycles around technology. They also talk about parenting in the digital age and the importance setting appropriate boundaries whe... posted on Feb 8 2018 (18,412 reads)

Joan Halifax: Buoyancy Rather than Burnout in Our Lives, by On Being
following is the transcript of an interview between On Being's Krista Tippett and Roshi Joan Halifax Krista Tippett, host: Roshi Joan Halifax has said, “I am not a ‘nice’ Buddhist. I’m much more interested in a kind of plain rice, get-down-in-the-street Buddhism.” She is a Zen teacher and a medical anthropologist who’s been formed by cultures from the Sahara Desert to the hallways of American prisons. She founded the project on Being with Dying, and now she’s taking on the problem of compassion fatigue, though she doesn’t like that phrase. Whatever you call it, for all of us overwhelmed by bad news and by the attention we want... posted on Jan 23 2018 (16,311 reads)

Head, Heart and Hands: 25 Years of Schumacher College, by Andrea Kuhn
is not like any other place that I have studied in,” says Pauline Steisel, a 23-year old post graduate student from Belgium, as she chops carrots in a steamy kitchen with several of her fellow students. “I did not expect to learn so much here about myself, about others, about sharing learning and working with others. It’s like learning about life,” she adds. Pauline has only been in Schumacher College for a few weeks but already the transformation has begun. Set in the grounds of the historic Dartington Hall in rural south west England, the college has gained an international reputation as much for its pioneering approach to student life as for its i... posted on Dec 11 2017 (9,240 reads)

Ken Cloke: There Is No Them. There Is Just Us., by Awakin Call Editors
children are playing on a playground and they're fighting, the very first thing that we tend to do is separate them. Separation works to stop the fighting, but it doesn't work to settle the issues that they're fighting over. So there are relatively primitive and relatively advanced methods for handling any particular type of conflict. And those are endless -- throughout our lives, we have nothing but opportunities for transcendence and transformation! To change the form of the thing, and by changing it, we learn from it and discover some higher order of capacity, to come to terms with this thing that was giving us the most trouble.” Ken Cloke is Director ... posted on Nov 27 2017 (14,805 reads)

The Songs of Trees, by Maria Popova
speak to the mind, and tell us many things, and teach us many good lessons,” an English gardener wrote in the seventeenth century. “When we have learned how to listen to trees,” Hermann Hesse rhapsodized two centuries later in his lyrical love letter to our arboreal companions, “then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy.” For biologist David George Haskell, the notion of listening to trees is neither metaphysical abstraction nor mere metaphor. In The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature’s Great Connectors (public library), Haskell... posted on Jan 4 2018 (16,145 reads)

Never Too Late to Grow a Garden, by Rev. Dr. Charles Howard, Charissa Faith Howard
Ellen in her rocking chair, photo by Annalise Hope Howard There is a defiance and a fragility about the small backyard garden that she leads us to.  We descend the three or four steps off of the rear of her beautiful row home in the museum district of the city, and we find a master’s work.  It is subtly inspiring.  Not powerful like a sweeping five-hundred page novel.  More like a beautiful haiku – one that makes you want to go home and write one yourself.  And because of its accessible holiness – you can. We sat in the backyard of the home of Mary Ellen Graham.  She is the founder and first executive director of My Pla... posted on Feb 12 2018 (12,134 reads)

Remarkable Beings, by Eleanor O'Hanlon
by Laura M. Brown, Desert Elephant Conservation Beneath the arid surface of northern Namibia run hidden veins of water that rise through a network of dry river beds during brief periods of rain. This austere landscape, the most ancient of all the world’s deserts, is home to a small number of elephant families, who have learned to survive on its sparse resources. They bring the underground water sources seeping to the surface by digging in the sand river beds with their tusks and trunk, and feed on the trees and bushes that grow along the banks. Despite human persecution and the increasing fragmentation of their habitat, these elephants endure through their steadfast love ... posted on Mar 25 2018 (16,754 reads)

The Unplanned Organization: Learning from Nature's Emergent Creativity, by Margaret Wheatley
UNPLANNED ORGANIZATION: LEARNING FROM NATURE'S EMERGENT CREATIVITY From Noetic Sciences Review #37, Spring 1996   In my work with large organizations, one of the questions we often ask is, "How would we work differently if we really understood that we are truly self-organizing?" The first thing we recognize is that, just like individuals, the organizations we create have a natural tendency to change, to develop. This is completely counter to the current mantra of organizational life: "People resist change. People fear change. People hate change." Instead, in a self-organizing world, we see change as a power, a pre... posted on Jun 15 2018 (9,509 reads)

The Town that Fought Big Ag and Won, by Philip Ackerman-Leist
a small town in the Italian Alps said “Yes!” to a pesticide-free future. The following excerpt is adapted from A Precautionary Tale: How One Small Town Banned Pesticides, Preserved Its Food Heritage, and Inspired a Movement (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2017) and is reprinted with permission from the publisher. For hundreds of years, the people of Mals — a tiny village in the South Tyrol province of northern Italy — had cherished their traditional foodways and kept their local agriculture organic. Yet the town is located high up in the Alps, and the conventional apple producers, heavily dependent on pesticides, were steadily overtaking the valley below. Aid... posted on Mar 2 2018 (13,749 reads)

The Benefits of Being a Misfit, by Knowledge@wharton
Isaacson is a gifted storyteller. A career journalist who has steered both Time magazine and CNN, Isaacson has written biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Henry Kissinger, Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein. His latest biography, published last year, looks at the life of Leonardo da Vinci. Isaacson, now a history professor at Tulane University, recently visited Wharton to be interviewed by his friend and management professor Adam Grant as part of the Authors@Wharton speakers series. Grant has also written several bestsellers, including Give and Take and Option B, which he co-authored with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Grant and Isaacson shared a lively discussion on topics ranging from ... posted on Apr 6 2018 (12,675 reads)

Muhammad Yunus: A World of Three Zeroes, by Knowledge@Wharton
world without poverty, unemployment or environmental devastation seems like a utopian dream. But it doesn’t have to be. In his new book, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus shares his vision for a kinder, gentler planet. It starts with recognizing what he describes as the inherent cruelty of capitalism, the need to value the abilities of every human being and understanding that saving the environment must be a collective effort. Yunus, who won the Nobel for his work in microfinance, encourages us to see the world not through the lens of profit, but of social impact. He spoke about his book, A World of Three Zeroes: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment... posted on May 5 2018 (9,950 reads)

When Things Fall Apart, by Maria Popova
every life, there comes a time when we are razed to the bone of our resilience by losses beyond our control — lacerations of the heart that feel barely bearable, that leave us bereft of solid ground. What then? “In art,” Kafka assured his teenage walking companion, “one must throw one’s life away in order to gain it.” As in art, so in life — so suggests the American Tibetan Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chödrön. In When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times(public library), she draws on her own confrontation with personal crisis and on the ancient teachings of Tibetan Buddhism to offer ... posted on Mar 13 2018 (17,554 reads)

Health 3.0: Where Medicine Needs to Go, by Venu Julapalli
rip-off Have you or any of your loved ones experienced our health care system lately? If so, how was that experience for you? Were you pleased with your care? Were you able to access the system easily? Did it treat you with dignity, respect, and competence? Did you feel well after your engagement with the system? And were you satisfied afterward that you got what you paid for? Or did you feel like the system failed you? That it addressed your acute illness but not your overall health? That it moved you around like a cog in a vast machine? That it never met your unique need? And ransacked your pocketbook in the process? According to a study by Fidelity Investments, a m... posted on Aug 25 2018 (9,569 reads)

Fritjof Capra on Life and Leadership for a Sustainable Community, by Fritjof Capra
is not an individual property, but is a property of an entire web of relationships. It is a community practice. This is the profound lesson we need to learn from nature. The way to sustain life is to build and nurture community. A sustainable human community interacts with other communities — human and nonhuman — in ways that enable them to live and develop according to their natures. Sustainability does not mean that things do not change. It is a dynamic process of coevolution rather than a static state. Because of the close connection between sustainability and community, basic principles of ecology can also be understood as principles of community. In part... posted on Feb 28 2018 (10,605 reads)

How Do We Respond? A Question to Artists, by Mirka Knaster
artist has not reflected on her/his intention in creating art? We ask ourselves what the purpose of our work is and the effect we hope to achieve. Talk to a dozen artists and you'll get a dozen different answers to this question. Some of us could be engaging in a formal exploration of themes, colors, techniques, materials, or styles. Others are recording observations of places, people, animals, and events. Perhaps we simply want to decorate space or capture beauty. Maybe we're expressing dreams, exorcising inner demons, evoking emotions, moving toward healing. We might be attempting to make visible what's spiritually invisible and to understand our place in the world. If ... posted on Mar 16 2018 (7,873 reads)

In Praise of Crooked Things, by Patty de Llosa
time to celebrate crooked things. We often seek perfection but will we ever get it all straight? I don’t think so. Maybe we once believed that “straight is the gate and narrow is the way” and went in search of it. But by now most of us are pretty sure we’re not going to find it. And even if we did manage to squeeze through that narrow aperture from time to time, didn’t our pathbecome pretty crooked from then on? How often do we stray from our intention out of curiosity or stupor or to smell the roses! Nature moves in curves and curlicues. Perhaps that’s why I love the many crooked trees even more than the few arrow-straight ones. They look li... posted on Apr 16 2018 (10,675 reads)