A Physicist Speaks On Randomness & Choice
"When you look at your life...if you think about all the details of what happened to you, you will find that there was a time where you had the extra cup of coffee, where if you hadn't, you wouldn't have met Person A. When I look back in my life, I could find so many instances like that...And the course of your life depends on how you react to those opportunities and challenges that the randomness... posted on Jul 15 2014, 25,849 reads

An Illustrated Poster For People Who Love Their Work
'Arbejdsglaede' is a wonderful Scandinavian word that literally means 'work-love' or 'work-glad'. There is no direct translation for this word in the English language, so Maptia decided to use crowdsourcing to explore its meaning. More than 200 people who love their jobs shared three words that described how they felt on a Monday morning. A beautiful poster summarizes the results, with the size of... posted on Jul 13 2014, 0 reads

Mark Nepo On Being The Poem
"Every person has some gift and some trouble, and some mature deep awakened part of soul, and some other part that is blind. This is how we kind of pollinate each other in the human spring. We all need each other." Here, Tami Simon speaks with poet and philosopher Mark Nepo about relating to pain, sincerity as intelligence, the role of pilgrimage in our lives, and the spiritual path of the artist.... posted on Jul 12 2014, 23,029 reads

Music For Social Change
David France's passion for music changed his life. It took him to Venezuela where he met a mother of five who had moved out of her house so the kids on her street could form an orchestra. Children played classical music there seven days a week, transforming the barrios with music and positivity. "I was really moved by that and thought, 'When I go back to Boston when am I going to move out of my ho... posted on Jul 11 2014, 20,892 reads

A Father Who Transformed Grief By Giving
Richard Nares faced a parent's worst fear when his son Emilio was diagnosed with leukemia in 1998 and died from the disease two years later. But he managed to transform his grief into charity by helping hundreds of families face the complex challenges of childhood illness, by giving them a lift. After his son died, he returned to Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego and asked staff how he could h... posted on Jul 10 2014, 18,641 reads

Why The Capacity For Boredom Is A Good Thing
When was the last time you were bored -- truly bored -- and didn't instantly spring to fill your psychic emptiness by checking Facebook or Twitter or Instagram? The last time you stood in line at the store or the boarding gate or the theater and didn't reach for your smartphone seeking deliverance from the dreary prospect of forced idleness? But boredom might not be as not as bad as it seems; in f... posted on Jul 09 2014, 39,291 reads

Humor As A Tool In Non-Violent Conflict Resolution
Humor can be very effective in establishing a human connection between parties in a conflict, and thereby defusing the conflict itself, though it can be very hard to remember when the heat is really on. In fact humor is a time-honored strategy in the repertoire of nonviolence. But like any strategy it has to be appropriately applied. And that means exposing the folly in what someone is doing witho... posted on Jul 08 2014, 35,696 reads

David Whyte On Being At The Frontiers Of Your Identity
In this interview Sounds True founder Tami Simon speaks with the poet and author David Whyte. Their conversation explores "how each of our lives unfolds as a great conversation with reality, which is the source of originality. David also shares some of his poetry, and explores how our innate sense of exile is actually a core human competency, how vulnerability enhances our perception, and what it ... posted on Jul 07 2014, 40,124 reads

How To Eliminate Procrastination
In 2009, Fred Stutzman, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina was trying his best to complete important work on his thesis. But, the attraction of free wireless internet access at his local coffee shop, made this goal nearly impossible. He tried unplugging, but to no avail -- the urge to connect was far too strong to resist. Later that evening, Stutzman returned home to create a s... posted on Jul 06 2014, 43,571 reads

Teaching Kids About Living Systems
"If you cut a cow in half, do you get two cows?" That is the simple question Linda Booth Sweeney likes to ask young people in her efforts to try and teach them the concept of living systems. It is a notion that she says even four-year-olds will shout out, "No way!" as they recognize that the cow has parts that belong together to make a whole. Join Lisa Bennett, communications director for the Cent... posted on Jul 05 2014, 18,768 reads