in the pursuit of larger aims may foster personal growth. In addition to encouraging resilience and social connections, practicing patience builds self-regulation, self-discipline, and deferred-gratification skills. Developing these strengths of character is likely to benefit individuals in many life domains, including in future periods of self-exploration and subsequent purpose cultivation efforts. Finally, patient individuals may be more likely than impatient individuals to enjoy the search. Patience enables us to savor the process of figuring out what matters most and how we want to meaningfully contribute to the broader world. It allows us time to celebrate the small suc... posted on May 1 2024 (3,337 reads)

literature and folklore, the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement began in 1958. An energetic young teacher at Nalanda College — a school for well-to-do students in Colombo, Sri Lanka — took his students to a village of the poorest of the poor to experience life on the other side of the economic and class divide. The goal was for each individual who participated to come awake in his or her own way, to perceive the suffering of their host families, know the power of service, and the joy of working for the common good. Biographers and scholars, however, can trace the roots of this movement to practices and ideas introduced long before 1958. In fact, Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne, the teach... posted on Dec 31 1969 (38 reads)

I said, grinning back.  Each day for that entire spring, we walked a wide circle around the porch to the car. Dan took to clucking at the robin and saying, like a mantra, over and over, “You’re safe. You’re safe.” He named her Gertie. When Gertie was in situ, she scrunched down and peered at us as we rounded the porch, her tail a dark smudge of smoke against a forest of peeling cedar clapboards.   The way Gertie followed us with her eyes gave us all joy. She looked grumpy but also somewhat accepting of, or perhaps just amused by, our humanity.  I like to tell my kids that these wild mothers were teaching our family that lives sometimes get ... posted on May 27 2024 (3,371 reads)