3 Resolutions For a Happier Year, by Christine Carter
want to lose weight. Get out of debt. Stop smoking. Eat more kale. Call your grandma more often. I do understand why people don’t like New Year’s resolutions: They can be a source of failure, year after year. Folks often pick resolutions that are inherently unrewarding, that necessitate relentless hard work, or that remind them of their mortality in a way that makes them feel small instead of grateful. I know because I’ve made all of those mistakes. But now? I love New Year’s resolutions. I use them to transform myself in small increments, taking turtle steps toward new habits. I begin slowly around the winter solstice, and inch myself toward a newer, be... posted on Jan 1 2014 (76,210 reads)

What I Learned From My 60 Deliberate Acts In 60 Days Kindness Birthday Challenge, by Glinda
my 60th birthday, I challenged myself to do 60 very deliberate acts of kindness for 60 consecutive days and write about my experiences each day. Now I am no stranger to going out and doing things, but this is the first time I have ever been focused and paid attention to 'Kindness Acts' to the degree that was required in coming up with what I was going to do each day, preparing for it when I needed to, and then writing about it for 60 days. Here is what I want to share. In my experience, there is no such thing as a 'kindness act' There is no separate 'act' that can be called Kindness. I believe our true nature IS kindness and that when we are not acting out o... posted on Feb 13 2015 (36,405 reads)

The Radical Power of Humility, by Nipun Mehta
is transcript of a talk, delivered to four thousand people gathered at the National Jain Convention in Atlanta, Georgia.  Prior to Nipun's talk, civil rights legends John Lewis and Andrew Young shared insights from their journey with Martin Luther King, Jr.] Thank you for this opportunity to speak to all of you.  What an honor to be here with all you today, and a special honor to get to follow John Lewis and Andrew Young. Today I’d like to surface an unpopular virtue. One that’s fallen out of favor in a time of selfies and relentless status updates. The virtue of humility. We live in an era that believes it can no longer afford to be humb... posted on Jul 7 2015 (117,003 reads)

We Can't Eat GDP: Global Trends on Alternative Indicators, by Lorenzo Fioramonti
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the best-known “number” in economic governance. It drives national policies, sets priorities in the social fields (e.g. there exists a ratio between GDP and how much spending in welfare is considered appropriate by many countries) and ultimately affects the societal landscape of a country (e.g. by determining labour-business relations, work-life balances and the type of consumption patterns adopted by citizens). The type of industrial model supported by GDP dominates physical and infrastructural â€‹geography, from the shape of cities and their relation with the countryside to the management of parks and natural resources. Marketing st... posted on Aug 22 2015 (13,371 reads)

The Joys of Giving Large, by Brad Hurley
Kaufman and Julia Wise are a young couple living in Boston. Jeff is a software engineer at Google and Julia is a social worker. For the past few years they've been giving away nearly 60 percent of their after-tax income to charities working to reduce poverty and save lives in developing countries. Despite a combined income well into the six figures, they spend little more than $15,000/year on themselves. Since 2008 they've given away more than $250,000. That's a lot of money, and it sounds like a big sacrifice. But they insist that it isn't. In her blog, Julia writes, "The things we love most--spending time with family and friends, making music, dancing, cookin... posted on Dec 5 2015 (11,051 reads)

Ani Choying: Gratitude and Service, by Nipun Mehta
Choying Drolma was a guest at a ServiceSpace Awakin Circle in Santa Clara on June 7, 2017. The following introduction was sent out in advance of her visit: Steve Tibbetts was meditating in a Nepali monastery, when he heard a nun singing sacred hymns. After requesting permission to record her on his cassette recorder, he was so mesmerized by her voice that he forgot to hit record! "There's a quality in her singing that cuts to the heart of what it's like to be human," the American guitarist said of the Buddhist nun's chants. "That quality, that tonality, just goes right to the center of your chest." Eventually he got a second chance and passed on... posted on Nov 20 2017 (10,631 reads)

From Big Data to Deep Data, by Otto Scharmer
the past ten months I have chaired and co-facilitated MIT’s IDEAS China program—a ten month innovation journey for a group of 30 or so senior Chinese business leaders. This year the IDEAS China program enrolled executives of a major state-owned Chinese bank. One goal of this team was to reinvent the future of their organization in the face of big data and other related disruptive changes, which provided me with a little more exposure to that aspect of the world economy. For example, Jack Ma, the visionary founder of Alibaba, says that “In five years, we anticipate that the human era will move from the information technology era to the data technology era.” But... posted on Oct 4 2017 (10,550 reads)

The Art of Cleaning, by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Art of Cleaning, by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee and Hilary Hart April 29, 2017 Girl Sweeping. William McGregor Paxton, 1912. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts In the busyness of our contemporary life we are drawn into ceaseless activity that often separates us from the deeper dimension of our self. With our smart phones and computer screens we often remain caught on the surface of our lives, amidst the noise and chatter that continually distract us, that stop us from being rooted in our true nature. Unaware, we are drowned deeper and deeper in a culture of soulless materialism. At this time I find it more and more important to have outer activities that can connect us to wh... posted on Nov 25 2017 (25,628 reads)

Great Writers on the Letters of the Alphabet, by Maria Popova
by David Hockney A choral serenade to the building blocks of language starring Susan Sontag, Iris Murdoch, Ian McEwan, Joyce Carol Oates, Martin Amis, Doris Lessing, John Updike, and more titans of literature. In the final years of his life, the English poet, novelist, essayist, and social justice advocate Sir Stephen Spender undertook a playful and poignant labor of love — he asked artist David Hockney to draw each letter of the alphabet, then invited twenty-nine of the greatest writers in the English language to each contribute a short original text for one of the letters. The result was the 1991 out-of-print treasure Hockney’s Alphabet (public library) &m... posted on Dec 16 2017 (7,075 reads)

Less Work, More Living, by Juliet Schor
fewer hours could save our economy, save our sanity, and help save our planet.     Millions of Americans have lost control over the basic rhythm of their daily lives. They work too much, eat too quickly, socialize too little, drive and sit in traffic for too many hours, don’t get enough sleep, and feel harried too much of the time. It’s a way of life that undermines basic sources of wealth and well-being—such as strong family and community ties, a deep sense of meaning, and physical health.   Earn less, spend less, emit and degrade less. That's the formula. The more time a person has, the better his or her quality of l... posted on Jan 12 2012 (45,400 reads)

Top Five Regrets of the Dying, by Bronnie Ware
many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone's capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them. When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again.... posted on Feb 23 2012 (261,979 reads)

9 Essential Skills Kids Should Learn, by Leo Babauta
in today’s school system are not being prepared well for tomorrow’s world. As someone who went from the corporate world and then the government world to the ever-changing online world, I know how the world of yesterday is rapidly becoming irrelevant. I was trained in the newspaper industry, where we all believed we would be relevant forever — and I now believe will go the way of the horse and buggy. Unfortunately, I was educated in a school system that believed the world in which it existed would remain essentially the same, with minor changes in fashion. We were trained with a skill set that was based on what jobs were most in demand in the 1980s, not what ... posted on Mar 10 2012 (188,323 reads)

How to Find Your Purpose and Do What You Love, by Maria Popova
prestige is the enemy of passion, or how to master the balance of setting boundaries and making friends. “Find something more important than you are,” philosopher Dan Dennett once said in discussing the secret of happiness,“and dedicate your life to it.” But how, exactly, do we find that? Surely, it isn’t by luck. I myself am a firm believer in the power of curiosity and choice as the engine of fulfillment, but precisely how you arrive at your true calling is an intricate and highly individual dance of discovery. Still, there are certain factors — certain choices — that make it easier. Gathered here are insights fr... posted on Apr 22 2012 (56,362 reads)

From Fitzgerald to Reagan: Five Letters of Fatherly Advice, by Maria Popova
secret of success is concentrating interest in life… interest in the small things of nature… In other words to be fully awake to everything.” With Father’s Day around the corner, let’s take a moment to pay heed to some of the wisest, most heart-warming advice from history’s famous dads. Gathered here are five timeless favorites, further perpetuating my well-documented love of the art of letter-writing. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD In a 1933 letter to his 11-year-old daughter Scottie, F. Scott Fitzgeraldproduced this poignant and wise list of things to worry, not worry, and think about, found in the altogether excellent F. ... posted on Jun 17 2012 (20,067 reads)

Happiness: Getting Our Priorities Right, by Mark Williamson
is a vitally important shift underway in how we think about progress. Growing numbers of economists, political leaders and expert commentators are calling for better measures of how well society is doing; measures that track not just our economic standard of living, but our overall quality of life. This shift also mirrors the way many of us are feeling too: that the modern consumer economy has failed to deliver fair outcomes and fulfilling lives. In recent decades our lives have become increasingly orientated in the service of the economy, rather than the other way around. Yet economic growth is really just a means to an end; it only matters if it contributes to social... posted on Jul 25 2012 (16,163 reads)

What Is Your Philosophy of Time?, by Robert Levine
is money in the West. Workers are paid by the hour, lawyers charge by the minute, and advertising is sold by the second ($117,000 per second at this year's Super Bowl). Think about this: The civilized mind has reduced time, the most obscure and amorphous of all intangibles, to the most objective of all quantities -- money. With time and things on the same value scale, I can tell you how many of my working hours equal the price of the computer I am typing on. Can I really? As a social scientist, I've spent much of the last 25 years studying the "personalities" of places. Much of this work has focused on the attitudes toward time held by those who inhabit tho... posted on Nov 9 2012 (24,259 reads)

History's Finest Letters of Motherly Advice, by Maria Popova
year, we celebrated Father’s Day with an omnibus of history’s finest letters of fatherly advice, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Jackson Pollock, and Neil Armstrong. Later adding to them was more timeless epistolary advice from notable dads likeTed Hughes, Sherwood Anderson, Richard Dawkins, and Charles Dickens. It’s only fitting to honor Mother’s Day with a similarly spirited selection of history’s finest motherly advice, spanning nearly half a millennium of poignant and prescient counsel from notable moms. From Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters (public library), which also gave us the author’s... posted on May 12 2013 (20,562 reads)

Love's Micro Moments of Connection, by Michael Edwards
sculpture by Robert Indiana in New York. Photo from Wikimedia commons. Can love be a positive force for change in the public sphere as well as in our private lives? If not, Transformation is in trouble: openDemocracy’s new section has staked its future on demonstrating that radical changes are possible in politics and economics when approached in a spirit of human connection and solidarity.  At first glance, there’s an obvious problem with this thesis: can we really “love our enemies,” or even our friends and colleagues who we don’t know very well? Is there any scientific basis for believing that love can stretch beyond the boundaries of our ... posted on Oct 17 2013 (23,364 reads)

Bertrand Russell's 10 Commandments of Teaching, by Maria Popova
not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.” British philosopher, mathematician, historian, and social critic Bertrand Russell endures as one of the most intellectually diverse and influential thinkers in modern history, his philosophy of religion in particular having shaped the work of such modern atheism champions as Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Richard Dawkins. From the third volume of The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1944-1969 comes this remarkable micro-manifesto, entitled A Liberal Decalogue — a vision for responsibilities of a teacher, in which Russell touches on a number of recurring themes fr... posted on Dec 9 2013 (51,009 reads)

The Real Life Courage of Harry Potter Fans, by Katrina Rabeler
Slack finally read the Harry Potter series when he gave in to pressure from his students who were obsessed with Harry, the teenage wizard who uses magic, courage, and wit to confront dark forces and save the world. Though the plot is fantastical, Slack, like millions before him, couldn't stop talking about the books. But then he realized that if Harry Potter were a real person, he wouldn't just stand around talking about himself. Harry Potter, Slack said, would "fight injustice in our world the way he fought injustice in his." That's when Slack had the idea to mobilize Harry Potter fans around real-world problems—and it was easy for Slack to find ... posted on Feb 25 2014 (30,449 reads)