Which Countries Are The Happiest?
Is it income or social inclusion that determines the level of happiness one feels? To what extent, if any, does geography contribute to one's happiness? In a study of more than 40,000 students representing 200 countries, researchers examined these questions to try to arrive at the science of happiness. Read on for the results and to see if your country is represented in the study!... posted on Jan 09 2015, 35,233 reads

From Rwandan Garbage Dump To Harvard
After 2-year old Justus' parents vanished during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, he lived in a stripped-out car in the Kigali City Dump, surviving on food scraps thrown out by nearby restaurants and hotels. Six years later, Clare Effiong was driving through Rwandan dirt roads in a taxi cab, looking for ways to "do good." Her intuition told her to pull over when she saw a group of children, including ... posted on Jan 08 2015, 23,896 reads

6 Promising Trends For The New Nature Movement
When we view nature as a collection of resources, it's easy to lose sight of our place in the greater scheme of life on planet earth. Fortunately, more and more research is affirming what many feel in their bones: that connecting with the natural world is intimately tied to our health and development. Here are six promising trends for those striving to reintegrate nature into the lives of children... posted on Jan 07 2015, 27,367 reads

Former Orphan Creates Safe Haven For Street Kids
Crouching in the back of a van is a young boy with a fresh injury. He'd been hit with a bottle when he got into a fight. Stanislas Lukumba, a tall, good-looking, fortyish nurse, checks for shards of glass as the driver shines his cell phone on the wound. For the past eight years, Stanislas has made nightly trips in the van, a mobile clinic that runs in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.... posted on Jan 06 2015, 15,378 reads

10 Ways To Live Simply In 2015
We are now entering radically changing times -- and it's only natural for our worldly expressions of simplicity to evolve in response. For more than thirty years Duange Elgin has explored the "simple life" and articulated it for tens of thousands of people all over the world. To Elgin, the most accurate way of describing this approach to living is with the metaphor of a garden. Here he describes 1... posted on Jan 05 2015, 71,985 reads

Giving People A Hand Up, Not A Hand Out
I saw Joe sweeping up New York City's detritus, dressed in the familiar blue pants and shirt of Ready, Willing & Able. Four months out of prison, he said, "I've learned my lesson, but the situation was pretty dismal." That's when he turned to the Doe Fund, as tens of thousands of homeless men and ex-cons have done since 1990. Today the Doe Fund's 400 fulltime employees (some 70% of them graduates ... posted on Jan 04 2015, 30,936 reads

Top 10 Kindness Stories of 2014
Sometimes, all it takes is a small reminder to open our eyes to the beauty and wonder that surrounds us. KindSpring -- a portal for stories of kind acts, brims with such reminders every day! In 2014 a steady stream of acts of kindness by KindSpringers touched the lives of thousands of people all over the world. The following stories are some of the favorites from the past year. Enjoy!... posted on Jan 03 2015, 68,046 reads

The Spirit Of Sauntering
In Thoreau's 1861 treatise "Walking" penned seven years after Walden, he sets out to remind us of how that primal act of mobility connects us with our essential wildness, that spring of spiritual vitality methodically dried up by our sedentary civilization.Thoreau argues that the genius of walking lies not in mechanically putting one foot in front of the other en route to a destination but in mast... posted on Jan 02 2015, 30,386 reads

A Letter From Your 14-Year-Old Self
When was the last time you received a hand-written letter? For students of Mr. Farrer, it was a letter that they had written to their future selves 20 years ago, full of their young hopes and dreams as well as memories of people who have since passed away. Bruce Farrer started the assignment when he first started teaching at Bert Fox Community High School in the small Canadian town of Fort Qu'Appe... posted on Jan 01 2015, 6,723 reads

The Seinfeld Strategy To Stop Procrastination
Jerry Seinfeld, co-creator of one of the longest running comedy series in television has a brilliant strategy for getting things done. And, it's not what you might think. It involves taking your mind off the results, and focusing on the joy of the process instead. Read more to learn the importance of 'not breaking the chain.'
... posted on Dec 31 2014, 74,711 reads