39 Ways to Live, and Not Merely Exist, by Leo Babauta
proper function of man is to live - not to exist." -- Jack London Too often we go through life on autopilot, going through the motions and having each day pass like the one before it. That's fine, and comfortable, until you have gone through another year without having done anything, without having really lived life. That's fine, until you have reached old age and look back on life with regrets. That's fine, until you see your kids go off to college and realize that you missed their childhoods. What follows is just a list of ideas, obvious ones mostly that you could have thought of yourself, but that I hope are useful reminders. We all need r... posted on Jul 28 2013 (300,195 reads)

Confessions of a Late Bloomer, by Scott Barry Kaufman
have fixed notions about the time course of success and the nature of talent that encourage us to write off the very people who are most likely to (eventually) change the world. "This is you," the elderly school psychologist said as he pushed up his horn-rimmed glasses and pointed to the left side of what looked like the outline of a camel's hump. I sat closer, trying to make sense of what I was being shown. "And this," he said, moving his finger toward the far right of the hump, "is gifted." Leaning forward, I patiently explained to him that maybe this was me, at age 11, but 6 years later, it was no longer me. "You see," I ex... posted on Sep 24 2013 (37,113 reads)

8 Ways to Overcome Your Leadership Blindspots, by Bruna Martinuzzi
be a successful leader or entrepreneur, we need to become intimate not only with our strengths but also with our blind spots, those aspects of our personality that can derail us. John C. Maxwell defines a blind spot as "an area in the lives of people in which they continually do not see themselves or their situation realistically." All of us have blind spots. A Hay Group study shows that the senior leaders in an organization are more likely to overrate themselves and to develop blind spots that can hinder their effectiveness as leaders. Another study by Development Dimensions International Inc. found that 89 percent of front-line leaders have at least one blind spot in th... posted on Sep 18 2013 (38,276 reads)

The Work of Local Culture, by Wendell Berry
year the Iowa Humanities Board offers a talk by a distinguished humanities scholar focusing on a theme important to the people of Iowa. Under the theme of the Exemplary Project, "A Sense of Place," the 1988 Iowa Humanities Lecture featured Wendell Berry. FOR MANY YEARS MY WALKS HAVE TAKEN ME down an old fencerow in a wooded hollow on what was once my grandfather's farm. A battered galvanized bucket is hanging on a fence post near the head of the hollow, and I never go by it without stopping to look inside. For what is going on in that bucket is the most momentous thing I know, the greatest miracle that I have ever heard of: it is making earth. The old bucket has hun... posted on Mar 4 2014 (21,969 reads)

From ego-system to eco-system economies, by Otto Scharmer
ego-system to eco-system economies Photo credit: Shutterstock.  We live in an age of profound disruptions. Global crises in finance, food, fuel, water, resource scarcity and poverty challenge every aspect of our societies. These disruptions also open up the possibilities for personal and societal renewal. To seize these possibilities we need to stop and ask ourselves some basic questions: why do our actions collectively create results that so few people want? What keeps us locked into old ways of operating? And what can we do to transform the root problems that keep us trapped in the patterns of the past? Here’s a clue to the answers to these questions: the r... posted on Nov 5 2013 (27,701 reads)

How Sleep Makes You Smart, by Jill Suttie
Americans are against sleep, equating it with laziness. But one of the world's leading experts on sleep says that's hurting our relationships and our ability to solve problems. We spend almost a third of our lives asleep, giving more time to sleep than any other activity. Some of us are blessed with easy sleep; others of us suffer from insomnia or sleep disturbance. Yet, until recently, scientists have known very little about the purpose of sleep or how it affects our brains and day-to-day functioning. Matt Walker is an associate professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and Principal Investigator at the Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory. With the advent of functi... posted on Dec 24 2013 (70,862 reads)

Steve Karlin and Susie Bear, by Anne Veh
the past year Pavi Mehta, Chris Johnnidis and I have been visiting a wildlife sanctuary in Half Moon Bay to listen to and record the remarkable animal stories and personal journey of founder, Steve Karlin. Sitting on his back porch one day last spring, Steve casually alerted us to the piercing cries of a young red-tailed hawk above and motioned us, mid-sentence, to look beyond the fence at a bobcat moving stealthily in the tall grass. To be in Steve’s company is to be reminded that the vast play of nature is all around us, and visible if only we cultivate our ears to hear and our eyes to see it. Together over many months we experienced an expanded space of listening and learni... posted on Jan 6 2014 (53,481 reads)

18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently, by Carolyn Gregoire
works in mysterious and often paradoxical ways. Creative thinking is a stable, defining characteristic in some personalities, but it may also change based on situation and context. Inspiration and ideas often arise seemingly out of nowhere and then fail to show up when we most need them, and creative thinking requires complex cognition yet is completely distinct from the thinking process. Neuroscience paints a complicated picture of creativity. As scientists now understand it, creativity is far more complex than the right-left brain distinction would have us think (the theory being that left brain = rational and analytical, right brain = creative and emotional). In fa... posted on Mar 24 2014 (179,720 reads)

Reflections On Journalism, by Richard Whittaker
Van Slambrouck is a distinguished journalist. He began working for the Christian Science Monitor in 1976. From 1989 to 1997 he was with the San Jose Mercury News. In 1997 he returned to the Monitor as San Francisco bureau chief. In 2001 he was made the editor-in-chief of the Monitor. He is currently an associate professor of Mass Communication at Principia College, a correspondent for the Monitor, a contributing editor for works & conversations and a volunteer with ServiceSpace. Paul entered my life in 2006 thanks to his offer to help me in my struggle as an independent publisher. It was a pivotal moment for me, and for the magazine I founded. Part of our connection involved a mu... posted on Apr 18 2014 (9,209 reads)

Ed Johnson: Beauty & Science, by Richard Whitaker
opportunity to interview Ed Johnson, a renowned molecular biologist, appeared almost by chance last year on the occasion of a family get together. To my delight, thanks to an invitation from my brother, John, Ed was there with his wife Becky. Ed and my brother go back over forty years. Both are passionate fly fishermen, and the friendship between fly fishermen is something like a family link. Ed I knew had been Nobel Laureate, Paul Greengard’s, first graduate student at Yale and had participated in research integral to Greengard’s prize. After receiving his Ph.D. at Yale, Johnson pursued postdoctoral studies at Rockefeller University. Currently he is at Eastern Virginia Medic... posted on May 26 2014 (11,194 reads)

Advocate of the Unwatched Life, by Richard Whittaker
of the Unwatched Life: A Conversation with Squeak Carnwath Squeak Carnwath is one of the Bay Area's best known artists. Her work has been widely exhibited and she has received numerous awards and grants. At the time of this interview, first published in 1993, Carnwath was a member of the art faculty at the University of California at Davis. In 1998, she moved to the art faculty at UC Berkeley. She is now retired from teaching. Her work can be seen at the Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco or the Dorothy Goldeen Gallery in Los Angeles.—Richard Whittaker, 2007 works: There are so many people who graduate with MFA’s, but after five years not many are... posted on Jul 17 2014 (15,538 reads)

Sow Much Good, by Rebecca Jeffery
Emmons, founder of Sow Much Good. photo by: Piper Warlick In 2008, after helping her troubled brother settle into a mental health facility, Robin Emmons witnessed his physical health decline due to a diet consisting mainly of canned and sugary foods because the center couldn’t afford freshly grown produce. Having just left corporate America after 20 years in the finance sector, Emmons grabbed her shovel and dug up her back yard to grow food for her brother and his fellow residents. His health rapidly improved and the mission for her next job was born: to use food as a vehicle to promote social justice on important issues such as food access in marginalized c... posted on May 25 2014 (12,882 reads)

How To Make Hard Choices, by Ruth Chang
   Think of a hard choice you'll face in the near future. It might be between two careers -- artist and accountant -- or places to live -- the city or the country -- or even between two people to marry -- you could marry Betty or you could marry Lolita. Or it might be a choice about whether to have children, to have an ailing parent move in with you, to raise your child in a religion that your partner lives by but leaves you cold. Or whether to donate your life's savings to charity. 0:41    Chances are, the hard choice you thought of was something big, something momentous, something that matters to you. Hard choices seem to be occasions for agoni... posted on Sep 6 2014 (32,304 reads)

10 Ways To Live Simply In 2015, by Duane Elgin
simplicity has a long history, we are now entering radically changing times—ecological, social, economic, and psycho-spiritual—and we should expect the worldly expressions of simplicity to evolve and grow in response. For more than thirty years I’ve explored the “simple life” and I’ve found that simplicity is not simple. I’ve encountered such a diversity of expressions of the simple life that I find the most accurate way of describing this approach to living is with the metaphor of a garden. A Garden of Simplicity To portray the richness of simplicity, here are ten different flowerings of expression that I see growing in the “gar... posted on Jan 5 2015 (72,319 reads)

Audrey Lin: Invisible Kindness, by Bela Shah
service is love made visible. Love letters on flower shaped sticky notes, vegan chocolate chip cookies that can turn anyone into a cookie monster, a sunburst smile that will light up even the wariest of hearts, and a million and one acts of invisible kindness – there is no simple way to capture the boundless spirit of Audrey Lin. Her journey is unconventional. Inspired by “Planet Walker” and the stillness in her heart, Audrey once embarked on a three-day walking pilgrimage from Berkeley to Santa Clara’s Awakin gathering. Her fearless quest for truth called her to experiment as a monastic at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. And her abundance of lov... posted on Feb 17 2015 (21,354 reads)

Five Ways Music Can Make You Healthier, by Jill Suttie
studies are suggesting that music can be more powerful than medication. When I gave birth to my first-born, I listened to CDs of classical music in the hospital. I figured that music would help calm me and distract me from the pain. You might use music to distract yourself from painful or stressful situations, too. Or perhaps you’ve listened to music while studying or working out, hoping to up your performance. Though you may sense that music helps you feel better somehow, only recently has science begun to figure out why that is. Neuroscientists have discovered that listening to music heightens positive emotion through the reward centers of our brain, stimulating hi... posted on Mar 17 2015 (31,479 reads)

Why We Love Music, by Jill Suttie
are discovering how music affects the brain, helping us to make sense of its real emotional and social power. I still remember when I first heard the song by Peter Gabriel, “Solsbury Hill.” Something about that song—the lyrics, the melody, the unusual 7/4 time signature—gave me chills. Even now, years later, it still can make me cry. Who among us doesn’t have a similar story about a song that touched us? Whether attending a concert, listening to the radio, or singing in the shower, there’s something about music that can fill us with emotion, from joy to sadness. Music impacts us in ways that other sounds don’t, and for year... posted on Mar 6 2015 (30,724 reads)

Teaching Our Children to Love Their Enemies, by Kozo Hattori
can raise a whole generation of children who have the capacity to embody what all the great sages have instructed us: Love thy enemy. At a weekly local gathering, our hostess, Harshida, told us that her house had been getting egged lately. This came as quite a shock because her family is one of the kindest and most generous families I have ever met. Harshida revealed how just last Friday her and her husband heard loud thumping noises at their windows. Although the fear of gunshots breached her thoughts, Harshida ventured to investigate. “When I managed to sneak in a look, I saw a medley of eggs, oranges, and such coming at our window.” Courageou... posted on Mar 14 2015 (18,951 reads)

Love as a Great Transition Story, by Duane Elgin
has entered a time of profound change. We are pushed by necessity and pulled by opportunity. The push is a growing systems crisis, evident in the breakdown of financial institutions, climate disruption, resource depletion, unsustainable populations, and more. The pull is the opportunity to rise to a new level of human maturity, partnership, and freedom. The combined push and pull at a global scale make this truly a time of profound turning, transition, and transformation for humanity. Collectively, we have been on a long journey of development, differentiation, and separation. We are now approaching an ‘evolutionary wall’ where we are running into ourselves and our ch... posted on Aug 7 2015 (16,906 reads)

The Slow Tech Movement, by Janell Burley Hoffman
hustle of family life -- work, school, appointments, practice, homework, dinner, bed -- is constant. We move in and out of activities and commitments with ferocity. Some days, I'm certain all I really say to my children, in one way or another, is "move." As in, let's go -- now! And I know that we move with purpose, balancing meaningful work with practical considerations, valuing studies, deliberately selecting activities that matter. In our world, food, family even and free play have a firm place, often touted as sacred and protected ground. And since our life is designed to fully embrace living it, we have to be mindful of all the pieces that might creep in and occupy ... posted on Apr 17 2015 (17,887 reads)