From The Story of Stuff To The Story of Solutions, by Annie Leonard
final film in the “Story of Stuff” series asks, What if the goal of our economy wasn’t more, but better—better health, better jobs, and a better chance to survive on the planet? In an ad for a major phone company blanketing TV this year, a circle of doe-eyed children is asked: "Who thinks more is better than less?" You know the one—an eager kindergartener answers, "We want more, we want more," before the commercial voice intones, "It's not complicated..." To economists, there's no distinction between money spent on stuff that makes life better and money spent on stuff that makes life worse. When it comes... posted on Nov 21 2013 (27,469 reads)

Are You Living Your Eulogy or Resume?, by Arianna Huffington
I want every American to see how these men and women lived," President Obama said Sunday, eulogizing the 12 men and women killed in the Washington Navy Yard shooting. He spoke of volunteers who made time to give back to their communities, like "Frank Kohler, giving dictionaries to every third-grader in his county," and "Marty Bodrog, leading the children's Bible study at church." There were fathers like Mike Ridgell, "coaching his daughters' softball teams and joining Facebook just to keep up with his girls, one of whom said he was always the cool dad." There were mothers like Mary Francis Knight, "devoted to her daughters ... who h... posted on Dec 4 2013 (60,348 reads)

My Mother's last words to me, by Sohaib Alvi
wrote this a few days after my mother passed away today on October 2, 1989. I have carried it with me since not knowing if what I wrote was meant only for me. As the memories of that night flood me again, I feel that the heaviness of carrying it for so long has made me weak. I also don’t know when I might join her (and my dad), and this true story will go down with me. I suppose by sharing this with you I can tell you what a fine woman she was, and how all she had in her heart and on her mind, was the other person. Perhaps my mom’s last words deserve a wider audience…especially of sons for we have no idea what goes on in a mother’s heart, even when we think w... posted on Feb 19 2014 (40,349 reads)

How To Stay Sane: The Art of Revising Your Inner Storytelling, by Maria Popova
stories give shape to our inchoate, disparate, fleeting impressions of everyday life.” “I pray to Jesus to preserve my sanity,” Jack Kerouac professed in discussing his writing routine. But those of us who fall on the more secular end of the spectrum might need a slightly more potent sanity-preservation tool than prayer. That’s precisely what writer and psychotherapist Philippa Perry offers in How To Stay Sane (public library; UK), part of The School of Life’s wonderful series reclaiming the traditional self-help genre as intelligent, non-self-helpy, yet immensely helpful guides to modern living. At the heart of Perry’s argument &mdash... posted on Feb 11 2014 (36,827 reads)

Why Are We So Wired to Connect?, by Jill Suttie
new book outlines the evidence for the primacy of social connections in our lives, and presents guidelines improving workplaces, schools, and personal well-being. Why is loneliness so painful? Why do we care how others treat us? And, why do we spend so much time perseverating on past and future relationships? These are some of the questions addressed in Matthew Lieberman’s new book, Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect. Lieberman, a social neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, outlines the fascinating neurological evidence for the primacy of social connections in our lives, and presents guidelines for how we can use this information to improve our ... posted on Feb 24 2014 (20,905 reads)

How To Foster Generosity In Students, by Vicki Zakrzewski
suggestions for keeping your students’ holiday spirit going throughout the year. With the holidays upon us, many teachers use this time to encourage students to express the spirit of generosity and kindness—and with good reason: it’s not only a selfless way to help others, research suggests it can also help them enhance their own relationships, health, and happiness. But encouraging the spirit of giving among your students doesn’t have to start and end with holiday-time. The key, though, is for teachers to create a classroom environment that fosters children’s natural altruistic tendencies—which researchers have documented in children a... posted on May 16 2014 (15,145 reads)

How Social Connections Keep Seniors Healthy, by Jill Suttie
we age, we tend to shed family and friends—which can hurt our mental and physical health. How can we design communities for seniors that facilitate social connections? Vonda is an energetic 73-year-old woman with a friendly smile and a sharp wit. For the last two decades she’s been living in an intentional farming community called “Potluck Farm” with other individuals and families on 170 acres in rural North Carolina.  Vonda Frantz (foreground, in pink shirt) putting the roof on the common house for Potluck Farm's new Elderberry community. But recently, she realized something: She’s getting older. Though she loves the farm, l... posted on May 8 2014 (19,068 reads)

The Dalai Lama On Why I Laugh, by The Dalai Lama
have been confronted with many difficulties throughout the course of my life, and my country is going through a critical period. But I laugh often, and my laughter is contagious. When people ask me how I find the strength to laugh now, I reply that I am a professional laugher. [...] The life of exile is an unfortunate life, but I have always tried to cultivate a happy state of mind, appreciating the opportunities this existence without a settled home, far from all protocol, has offered me. This way I have been able to preserve my inner peace. If we are content just to think that compassion, rationality, and patience are good, that is not actually enough to develop the... posted on Jun 27 2014 (64,244 reads)

Social Science's 10 Findings on Facebook, by Katherine Thorson
science is just beginning to understand how Facebook has changed our social lives since it was born ten years ago. Over the past ten years, Facebook has added a new dimension to the social lives of over a billion people—and together with other social media like Twitter and Instagram, it has created an entirely new category of social ties. Given their popularity, social media have become the topic of a growing body of research in the social sciences. For Facebook’s tenth birthday, I collected ten discoveries this research has yielded. If you’re on Facebook, then these studies apply to you! 1. Facebook might increase dissatisfaction with your life. Th... posted on Nov 16 2014 (29,046 reads)

Good Night Margaret: A Love Story Against The Odds, by Melissa McGlensey
conquers all, and few people better understand that than the couple in this poignant film. The 11-and-a-half-minute-long New York Times documentary, entitled, "Good Night Margaret," shows a glimpse into the lives of Margaret "Muffi" Lavigne and Chris Plum. Both Lavigne and Plum have muscular dystrophy, and the two met and fell in love at the Hospital for Special Care in New Britain, Connecticut. "I realized all the suffering in the hospital led up to me meeting her," Plum says in the film, "and finding the love of my life, and really finding true happiness." Watch their touching love story above, which will have you reaching for... posted on Sep 8 2014 (19,840 reads)

How To Help Kids Listen to Their Minds, by Richard Schiffman
to help enlighten children is being introduced into classrooms worldwide.   THERE are two jobs that have become a lot more difficult in recent years. One is being a teacher, which was never easy at the best of times. But in an age of virtually unlimited opportunities for distraction and shrinking attention spans, getting kids to focus on their schoolwork can be (with apologies to dentists) like pulling teeth. I know: as a former school aide working with young children in inner-city schools, it was often all that I could manage just to break up fights and keep the decibel level below that of an international airport. Any learning that took place in such an environmen... posted on Sep 10 2014 (25,947 reads)

A Father's Letter To His Five-Year-Old Daughter, by Posted on February 12, 2014 by Kindness Blog
Attwater is dying of a brain tumor, but he isn’t worried about his cancer. Instead, he is trying to save his 5 year-old daughter from her own. Tom Attwater with daughter Kelli and wife Joely He has vowed to raise approximately $820,200.00 for her cancer treatment, even if he wouldn’t be around to see her go through it. Now Tom is almost half way to his fundraising target he is more adamant than ever to reach it. Tragically his deadline is short as his latest scans show his brain tumour is growing. He says: “These days people make bucket lists, and the very top of mine – the one that matters most – is raising money to make sure Kelli gets the ... posted on Nov 12 2014 (64,693 reads)

34 Examples of Heart-Warming Humanity, by Posted on November 3, 2014 by Kindness Blog
You Imagine? Just before aliens finally visit planet Earth, they decide to watch the Earthling’s mainstream news and try and suss us out. If they did, perhaps they would get the impression that we are…less than friendly beings? Even for us Earthlings, watching the constant stream of negativity pumped out in the ‘news’, we can be left feeling despondent, anxious and with less hope for the future. However, the media’s version of events is heavily skewed in favor of those types of negative story. Why is that? Well, that’s a subject for another post. In reality, deep down inside, most of us know that the good outweighs the bad by some distance. Simp... posted on Dec 9 2014 (212,507 reads)

The Beauty of Craft, by Unnikrishnan Raveendranathen
the creative process with master artists and craftspeople in the San Francisco Bay Area. "I want my pots to express timelessness and spontaneity." - Sandy Simon   Simon works at her pottery wheel.   Potter Sandy Simon in her Berkeley studio.   Simon has been a specialist in handmade studio pottery for over 30 years.   Pomo basket weaver Edward Willie sharpens his knife in his Petaluma studio.   Willie first studied basket weaving so he could teach his daughters the dying craft and soon realized that it was a whole lifestyle. He h... posted on Feb 20 2015 (15,648 reads)

Just One Thing: Be Amazed, by Rick Hanson
Hanson reminds us to see existence with delight, awe, gratitude, and wow! We are pleased to bring you another installment of Rick Hanson's Just One Thing (JOT) newsletter, which each week offers a simple practice designed to bring you more joy, more fulfilling relationships, and more peace of mind and heart. Last night, stressing about undone tasks, I glanced in a mirror and saw my T-shirt, with its picture of a galaxy and a little sign sticking up out of its outer swirls, saying “You are here.” A joke gift from my wife, I’ve worn this shirt many times—yet for once it stopped me in my tracks. In William Blake’s phrase, the d... posted on Jan 13 2015 (25,775 reads)

A New Way To Practice Our Values, by Audrey Lin, Birju Pandya
all experienced that moment when something shifts. Often times it’s triggered by the smallest of things. A smile that disarms. A friendly greeting. A grateful pause before a meal. An unexpected compliment, surprise gift, thank-you card, or phone call from an out-of-touch friend.  These micro-moments of lived intention-- small exchanges of kindness, tiny catalysts of gratitude, or brief seconds of mindful attention-- hold incredible potential to transform the trajectory of a day, week, year, or even a life. We notice this a lot around New Years. Whether it’s weight loss, giving up smoking, deepening mindfulness, or any other personal goal, each January 1s... posted on Dec 19 2014 (27,229 reads)

Science Proves That Hugs Can Boost Your Immune System, by Carolyn Gregoire
know that hugs make us feel warm and fuzzy inside. And this feeling, it turns out, could actually ward off stress and protect the immune system, according to new research from Carnegie Mellon University. It's a well-known fact that stress can weaken the immune system. In this study, the researchers sought to determine whether hugs -- like social support more broadly -- could protect individuals from the increased susceptibility to illness brought on by the particular stress that comes with interpersonal conflict. "We know that people experiencing ongoing conflicts with others are less able to fight off cold viruses. We also know that people who report having social ... posted on Jan 30 2015 (35,172 reads)

Happiness Goals Countdown, by lifecoachhub
... posted on Mar 20 2015 (35,483 reads)

Wendell Berry on Climate Change: To Save the Future, Live in the Present, by Wendell Berry
Berry. Photo by Guy Mendes. Editor’s note: This excerpt consists of two parts. The first was written in 2013 and the second in 2014. I. [2013] So far as I am concerned, the future has no narrative. The future does not exist until it has become the past. To a very limited extent, prediction has worked. The sun, so far, has set and risen as we have expected it to do. And the world, I suppose, will predictably end, but all of its predicted deadlines, so far, have been wrong. The End of Something—history, the novel, Christianity, the human race, the world—has long been an irresistible subject. Many of the things predicted to end have so far c... posted on May 5 2015 (10,963 reads)

"I Wish My Teacher Had Known..." - Adults on How Teacher Empathy Could Have Changed Their Lives, by Lindsey Weedston
by U.S. Department of Education Kyle Schwartz, an elementary school teacher in Denver, recently came up with an activity for her third-grade class that went viral. Employed at a school where 92 percent of kids qualify for free or reduced lunch , Schwartz was looking for a way to better understand her students. She handed out notecards and asked them to finish this sentence: “I wish my teacher knew…” The results were heart-wrenching: Although it’s a minor problem in comparison to what some of Schwartz’s students are going through, to this day I still wish my teachers had known how hard it was for me to give presentations. ... posted on May 28 2015 (27,439 reads)