Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy": A Neuropsychology Reading, by Maria Popova
the lyrics of the iconic happiness anthem to find surprising science-tested insights on well-being. In 1988, Bobby McFerrin wrote one of the most beloved anthems to happiness of all time. On September 24 that year, “Don’t Worry Be Happy” became the first a cappella song to reach #1 on the Billboard Top 100 Chart. But more than a mere feel-good tune, the iconic song is brimming with neuroscience and psychology insights on happiness that McFerrin — whose fascinating musings on music and the brain you might recall from World Science Festival’s Notes & Neurons — embedded in its lyrics, whether consciously or not. T... posted on Dec 22 2011 (41,273 reads)

Creativity Blossoms in the Great Migration, by Lily Yeh
HERE to view the photo essay:  How students transformed a school in an industrial backwater into something beautiful. Photos courtesy of Lily Yeh and New Village Press, from Awakening Creativity: Dandelion School Blossoms. A chance meeting in 2003 brought me together with Zheng Hong. Zheng Hong, who holds a PhD in Paleontology, had just earned her Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Moved by the dire situation faced by migrant workers in her beloved city of Beijing, she recruited help from her friends and numerous volunteers to create the Dandelion School for childre... posted on Jan 20 2013 (8,828 reads)

Gardening and the Secret of Happiness, by Maria Popova
is happiness,” Willa Cather’s fictional narrator gasps as he sinks into his grandmother’s garden, “to be dissolved into something complete and great.” A generation later, in a real-life counterpart, Virginia Woolf arrived at the greatest epiphany of her life — and to this day perhaps the finest definition of what it takes to be an artist — while contemplating the completeness and greatness abloom in the garden. Nearly a century later, botanist and nature writer Robin Wall Kimmerer, who has written beautifully about the art of attentiveness to life at all scales, examines the revelations of t... posted on Nov 18 2018 (7,965 reads)

Time Management for Mortals, by On Being
by Heather Wang Krista Tippett, host:What is time? That’s a question for philosophers and physicists, and yet it is also an element by which each and every one of us experiences and orders our days and our lives. At this time of year, many of us are making plans and resolutions, treating time as we’ve been taught: as part taskmaster, part resource — something we could fit everything we want into, if only we had the discipline. In his longtime column for The Guardian, and books with subtitles like Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, my guest Oliver Burkeman has long interrogated the possibilities for absurdity in self-help... posted on Jan 31 2022 (5,345 reads)

Eight Verses for Training the Mind, by Geshe Langri Tangpa (1054-1123)
Prison Mindfulness Institute's mission is to provide prisoners, prison staff and prison volunteers, with the most effective, evidence-based tools for rehabilitation, self-transformation, and personal & professional development. In particular, they provide and promote the use of proven effective mindfulness-based interventions (MBI’s). Their dual focus is on transforming individual lives as well as transforming the corrections system as a whole in order to mitigate its extremely destructive impact on families, communities and the overall social capital of our society. The below text is available for download as a PDF on their website. Composed by the Buddhist Mast... posted on May 31 2020 (19,376 reads)

Nature, Joy and Human Becoming, by On Being
follows is the transcript of an On Being interview between Krista Tippett and Michael McCarthy: KRISTA TIPPETT, HOST: I have rarely discovered a book that so delighted and galvanized me at once. The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy is written by the English naturalist and journalist, Michael McCarthy. “The sudden passionate happiness which the natural world can occasionally trigger in us,” he writes, “may well be the most serious business of all.” We could stop relying on the immobilizing language of statistic and take up joy as a civilizational defense of nature. With a perspective equally infused by science, reportage, and poetry, he reminds u... posted on May 28 2018 (6,654 reads)

Love Leads Into Mystery: Raising A Child With Asperger's, by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
by Nara Simhan. We’re driving home around sunset, late summer. Daniel, age nine, says aloud, “Mom, what do you think is at the end of the universe? Dragonflies? Or just inky blackness?” I write it down. A good moment when what shines in him shines through, but there are plenty of bad moments, too. Daniel, as exquisitely creative, loving, and intelligent as he is, suffers from what experts label an invisible disability, a chemical imbalance, a little extra electricity in his system. To kids his own age he’s a nuisance. To the school district he’... posted on Oct 10 2012 (10,057 reads)

What is Gratitude?, by The Greater Good Science Center
Emmons, perhaps the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude, argues that gratitude has two key components, which he describes in a Greater Good essay, “Why Gratitude Is Good.” “First,” he writes, “it’s an affirmation of goodness. We affirm that there are good things in the world, gifts and benefits we’ve received.” In the second part of gratitude, he explains, “we recognize that the sources of this goodness are outside of ourselves. … We acknowledge that other people—or even higher powers, if you’re of a spiritual mindset—gave us many gifts, big and small, to help us achieve the goodness ... posted on Nov 28 2013 (44,677 reads)

How To Bounce Back From Failure , by Carolyn Gregoire
is rough, no matter how you slice it. But it's also an inescapable fact of life, and our ability to deal with failure and rejection has a hand in determining how successful and happy we are. Happiness isn't the opposite of depression -- resilience is, according to psychologist Peter Kramer. Think of the people you most admire -- many of them didn’t get where they are just by sailing through life without any negative experiences or failures. Most of them distinguished themselves by their ability to get right back up every time they fall, a truism reflected in countless inspirational quotations on the power of perseverance (In the words of Winston Churchill, ... posted on Jan 2 2014 (163,697 reads)

How Good Habits Can Make You Happier, by Cassie Mogilner
more sleep. Stop procrastinating. Save more. Eat more healthfully. Many of us aspire to change our habits, but we often find current habits hard to break and new ones a challenge to make. In bestselling author Gretchen Rubin’s new book, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, she explains why habits can make us happier. Wharton marketing professor Cassie Mogilner recently interviewed Rubin when she visited campus as a guest lecturer in the Authors@Wharton series. An edited transcript of the conversation follows. Cassie Mogilner: What drove you to write this book? Gretchen Rubin: I wrote The Happiness Project andHappier At Home. For years I had b... posted on Sep 6 2015 (20,099 reads)

Neuroplasticity: Changing our Belief about Change, by Joanna Holsten
dangerous belief in our culture is that we can't change. We’ve all heard the disempowered statements: “He’s just grumpy. He can’t change that.” or “I will always be anxious. It's the way I was born.” While we most certainly have genetic predispositions, the brains of individuals’ young and old can change in amazing ways.   Neuroplasticity is a fancy way of saying that our brains can change. We are not victims of our neurons or genes. We are empowered creators of our mental states. The erroneous belief that we are "set in stone" can stop people from trying to change and take away their responsibility. In the s... posted on Apr 23 2012 (148,612 reads)

How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Spoiled, by Ron Lieber
can parents help kids have a healthy relationship to money? It starts with overcoming shyness and discomfort about financial issues. All parents want their kids to have the skills they need to thrive in the world. But, while most parents feel comfortable talking about the importance of safety, health, schoolwork, and relationships, when it comes to the importance of money, many fall silent. In fact, most parents feel more comfortable talking about sex with their kids than about how much money they make. Tearsa Joy Hammock, San Francisco Public Press Perhaps that’s because money can bring up extremely strong emotions. How much we have or don’t have, an... posted on Mar 19 2015 (22,140 reads)

Why Play With Koans, by Sam Mowe
would your life change if you stopped believing all of your thoughts? What if your problems aren’t real? What if your goals are just distractions? Perhaps you have everything you need right now. It’s questions and possibilities like these—rather than answers—to which Zen koan practice gives rise. For over 30 years, Zen teacher John Tarrant has been teaching people how to meditate with koans. He has developed ways to practice with koans—traditionally reserved for advanced Zen students—that beginners might find useful. Tarrant is the author of Bring Me the Rhinoceros and The Light Inside the Dark and is the editor of the new... posted on Jul 6 2016 (17,812 reads)

Where Strangers Become Family, by Kim Eckart
Chainey, right, prepares dinner for roughly 50 people every Wednesday for “Happiness Hour,” when families and elders convene for a meal, conversation, and, later, playtime. Credit: YES! Magazine/Paul Dunn.  After a long day of preschool, five-year-old Joaquin Crowell still has energy to burn. He bounds from a TV cartoon to a magnetic fishing game, from blowing up a green balloon to listening to his favorite story, Bedtime for Frances. And 73-year-old Chris Conners is only too happy to oblige. To Joaquin, she is his oma— “grandma” in her native German. And to Conners, “He’s like my grandson. I fell in love with him the f... posted on Jan 25 2017 (10,500 reads)

How Small Moments of Empathy Affect Your Life, by Jill Suttie
is one of many skills that help us build better relationships. When we resonate with people’s feelings, consider their perspective, or feel compassion for them, we are more likely to be generous and altruistic, and less likely to be prejudiced against them. But empathy can sometimes feel like a lofty concept. While it may be good for us and others, what does it actually look like in real life, and how can we cultivate it? Findings from lab studies don’t give us the full picture, often suffering from narrow definitions of empathy and not reflecting people’s everyday empathy experiences. To fill this void in the research, Greg Depow... posted on Sep 8 2021 (6,701 reads)

The Meaning of Death - Stephen Jenkinson, by Ian Mackenzie
January this year, I flew out to attend my first full session of the Orphan Wisdom school, founded by Stephen Jenkinson and his wife Nathalie. The term “orphan” is a odd one to combine with wisdom, a juxtaposition that Stephen is fond of replicating according to the 9 months I’ve known him. An orphan after all, is not someone who has no parents. An orphan is one who does not know their parents. On the surface, it’s hard to remember exactly what transpired during those seven days. I gathered in the Ger (a traditional Mongolian yurt) each day on Stephen’s ice-covered land, hugging the Bonnechere River, joined by other scholars. We discussed the ancient ... posted on Aug 7 2013 (34,135 reads)

Marcus Aurelius and the Key to Happiness, by Carolyn Gregoire
of the greatest texts about happiness and living well wasn't written by a self-help expert, spiritual leader or psychologist. It was written by Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, and it may completely change your perspective on dealing with life's challenges. In 167 AD, Aurelius wrote The Meditations, a 12-book compendium of personal writings, originally written in Greek, that reflect his extensive study of Stoic philosophy. Aurelius is now regarded as one of the most famous proponents and philosophers of Stoicism, an ancient Greek and Roman school of thought originating in the Hellenic period concerned with how to cultivate a mindset to deal effectively with an... posted on Mar 29 2014 (106,779 reads)

The Power of Words to Save Us, by Marie Howe
moral life, Marie Howe says, is lived out in what we say as much as what we do. She became known for her poetry collection What the Living Do, about her brother’s death at 28 from AIDS. Now she has a new book, Magdalene. Poetry is her exuberant and open-hearted way into the words and the silences we live by. She works and plays with a Catholic upbringing, the universal drama of family, the ordinary rituals that sustain us — and how language, again and again, has a power to save us. TRANSCRIPT May 4, 2017 MS. MARIE HOWE: Emily Dickinson wrote those amazing poems. “I felt a Funeral in my Brain, / And Mourners, to and fro / Kept treading — t... posted on Jul 23 2017 (8,839 reads)

Muhammad Yunus: Revolutionized Banking, by Mele-Ane Havea
Havea on Muhammad Yunus I first came across the work of Professor Muhammad Yunus in 2009 when a friend gave me a copy of his book, Creating a World Without Poverty. I read it at a time of transition, having just moved to the Middle East to start a job helping set up an office of an international company in a young country. It was with the backdrop of this fledgling economy, where the promises of capitalism and development were alive and strong, that I heard Professor Yunus’ clarion call: “What if you could harness the power of the free market to solve the problems of poverty, hunger and inequality?” His answer was clear, yes we can, and hi... posted on Jul 24 2018 (7,545 reads)

Balancing The Brain & The Power of Choice, by Tami Simon
Simon: You're listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor—called by many who know her "Dr. Jill"—is a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist who experienced a severe hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of her brain in 1996. On the afternoon of this rare form of stroke, she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life. It took eight years for Dr. Jill to completely recover all of her physical function and thinking ability. She's the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey. Dr. Jill will also be a featured presenter at Sounds ... posted on Aug 24 2014 (35,793 reads)