away broken stuff has never been an easier choice. For some items, prices have never been lower; for others, instant obsolescence means you always have an excuse to upgrade, as if you needed an excuse. Can the possibility of repair begin to change consumer habits? New York City’s Pop Up Repair Shop was a one-month experiment this June “aimed at breaking the cycle of use-and-discard goods.” It was the first step of a larger exploration of the issue, led by Sandra Goldmark, a set and costume designer and theater professor at Barnard College. Sandra and her husband Michael Banta, a theater production manager at Barnard, launched the shop using funds from an Ind... posted on Oct 6 2014 (14,127 reads)

2021 dissolves into a new year, KarunaVirus editors reflect on what the past year of witnessing everyday people choose love over fear have taught us. Unsung Heroes Are Right Under Our Noses We are taught to look at the stage to see displays of greatness, but it's resoundingly clear that heroes can often be found among the most ordinary, everyday situations. If you walk into a Walmart late at night, you may just run into a high school principal stocking shelves. In South Carolina, school principal Henry Darby works the night shift after full school days and donates his earnings to his struggling students. Go for an early morning run at the park, and you might meet a ... posted on Jan 4 2022 (14,692 reads)

you heard of cat cafés around the world? From Tokyo to Paris and from Taipei to Budapest, there are cafés where you can enjoy the company of feline companions while sipping your cup. I haven’t been to a cat café. But in Mumbai, I found a cat laundry shop. “It’s best to leave things to experts rather than experiment with your precious fabrics”, proclaims a newspaper clipping pasted on the wall of Indian Express laundry shop. Established in 1940 and located in the busy Colaba market, close to the Mumbai landmark Gateway of India, Indian Express is not only a laundry shop with a long history. It is also an abode of compassion. Severa... posted on Jun 9 2014 (15,267 reads)

you happy? Could you be happier? Gretchen Rubin was already "pretty happy" when she asked herself these very questions. In search of the answers, she started her own pursuit of happiness, which eventually became a New York Times bestseller titled, The Happiness Project. She has now written a second book, Happier at Home, based on the idea that the home is the foundation of happiness. Knowledge@Wharton recently spoke with Rubin about why happy people work more hours each week, how to make and keep happiness resolutions, how to ward off the three happiness leeches and how to start your own Happiness Project. An edited version of the transcript appears below. Knowled... posted on Aug 13 2013 (23,771 reads)

G.B. Road is a place where no woman would go voluntarily. Or so you'd think. Home to 77 brothels, 4,000 women, and 1,500 children, it is the largest red light area of Delhi, India. A few years ago, Gitanjali Babbar walked right in. She quite literally knocked on the brothel doors, walked up the narrow staircases, and talked to the people there-- sipped tea with the brothel owners, listened, laughed, and came to know the women as her sisters, their children as her family. Three and half years ago, she found herself launching Kat-Katha, a nonprofit that's quietly been transforming G.B. Road brothels into classrooms, community centers, and saf... posted on Dec 12 2014 (41,705 reads)

following is the audio and transcript of an onbeing.org interview between Krista Tippett and Dr. James Doty. DR. JAMES DOTY: Every time I’m in the position to open a person’s skull, it’s extraordinary in the sense that this is where we live. And what you see is these hills and valleys that are sort of pinkish, and you see blood vessels coursing over the surface. And there’s a membrane where fluid is, and it’s pulsating. And that pulsating is matching the rhythm of your heart. And to think that within that is who each of us is. MS. KRISTA TIPPETT, HOST: Stanford brain surgeon James Doty is also a leading convener of research on compassion and altr... posted on Apr 17 2016 (30,953 reads)

newly-adopted cat repaid his owner's loving gesture earlier this month by saving her from a medical emergency just hours after he was brought home, the Green Bay Press Gazette reports. Amy Jung and her son Ethan stopped into The Humane Society near their home in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin on Feb. 8 to play with the cats, but one feline -- a 21-pound orange-and-white cat named Pudding -- stood out to the pair. Jung learned that the laid-back cat had been in and out of the shelter since 2003, and made an impulsive decision to adopt him and his friend Wimsy. Jung said the cats wasted no time fitting into their new home when they arrived. But just hours later, the Ju... posted on Feb 27 2012 (25,647 reads)

Doty is not a subject under study at the altruism research center that he founded at Stanford in 2008, but he could be.  In 2000, after building a fortune as a neurosurgeon and biotech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, he lost it all in the dotcom crash: $75 million gone in six weeks.  Goodbye villa in Tuscany, private island in New Zealand, penthouse in San Francisco.  His final asset was stock in a medical-device company he’d once run called Accuray.  But it was stock he’d committed to a trust that would benefit the universities he’d attended and programs for AIDS, family, and global health.  Doty was $3 million in the hole.  Everyone tol... posted on Aug 22 2014 (23,297 reads)

two hefty sacks of cat food in her arms, Manuela Wroblewski can’t stop smiling as she whisks toward the familiar shop on the corner. She’s making her weekly visit to see Hussein the barber. He spots her through the picture window of his quiet shop and bursts through the door and into the sunlight, stretching his arms wide with a Turkish greeting. Hussein clasps his hands in gratitude as he eyes the bags of food and the two hurry over to the tiny food dishes lined up in the alley. Soon the sound of kibble clinks against the bowls and several stiff tailed cats begin to appear. Here in Avsallar, Turkey, there is a cultural aversion to cats and dogs, and those who feed th... posted on Dec 17 2013 (186,463 reads)

is extremely reluctant to even put on a shirt for the photograph. I point out to the hole in his vest. “That’s me,” he says bluntly. I spot the frown on his face. He doesn’t like talking about himself, his family or the work he does. Extremely reticent, he sticks to his schedule of opening his tea shop on the Ponmeni Narayanan Street in S.S.Colony at 4.30 a.m. sharp and serves the day’s first round of steaming chai to about two-dozen watchmen who do night duty in the area. He runs the shop till 11 p.m. selling over 300 cups of tea, coffee and milk besides biscuits, cakes, laddus, murukkus and other savouries. Communication with customers... posted on Feb 15 2014 (27,724 reads)

Tehven thought he needed to leave his home state of North Dakota to have a meaningful life.  But when he went to college, he discovered the art of applying small town values to a university setting.  This began a trajectory of service - Pay it Forward Tours with college students; Students Today, Leaders Forever; world travel; and ultimately a return to North Dakota where he co-founded Emerging Prairie, a startup news and events organization.  Greg is the curator of TEDx Fargo and hosts  1 Million Cups , an organization that supports entrepreneurs. He is an adjunct professor at North Dakota State University's College of Business.  He is a husband and ... posted on Jan 2 2019 (3,217 reads)

recently had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. James Doty who is the founder and the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at the Stanford University School of Medicine of which the Dalai Lama is the founding benefactor. He also happens to be a professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford and the New York Times bestselling author of “Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart” that has been translated into 22 languages. Dr. Doty also is an inventor with multiple patents and is a well-known entrepreneur who at one-time was the CEO of Accuray, a company... posted on Feb 1 2017 (11,934 reads)

E. F. SCHUMACHER LECTURES OCTOBER 2004, STOCKBRIDGE, MA EDITED BY HILDEGARDE HANNUM Judy Wicks is one of my heroes. She is a single woman who built and runs a financially successful business, which at the same time is socially responsible and ecologically accountable. The White Dog Cafe not only serves regionally grown organic food but actively supports the network of farmers who grow that food. Staff share in profits and decision-making. The White Dog Cafe hosts community discussions around global issues of peace, renewable energy, rights of workers in countries around the world, hab... posted on Apr 17 2018 (7,548 reads)

story of how a poor Ghanaian carpenter built an improbable friendship with an American woodworker and how their shared values led to the birth of a vibrant organization dedicated to bringing the opportunity for a better life to rural West Africans. An Unlikely Start Not only is friendship one of life's great treasures, but sometimes the least likely friendships are the most powerful. When Abubakar Abdulai (Abu), a poor Ghanaian carpenter, began emailing Jeffry Lohr in 2007, trying to find a way to attend Jeff's woodworking school in Schwenksville, PA, Jeff was justifiably skeptical. He regularly receives communications from individuals trying to find their way o... posted on Sep 13 2015 (12,383 reads)

the old days, no one ever stole. Those who were well off always shared what they had. If there was any thing someone wanted, that person had only to ask the owner and that thing would be given. And no one minded if someone borrowed something and then brought it back to its owner later. But when the sacred elk dogs, the horses, came, they brought with them new problems. It was not so easy to give away a horse, unless it was a special occasion. As a result, some people began to borrow horses that belonged to others without permission. They would bring them back, but sometimes many moons passed before that horse was returned. So the matter was brought to the Elk Society and they put fort... posted on Aug 16 2011 (36,095 reads)

person’s identity,” Amin Maalouf wrote as he contemplated what he so poetically called the genes of the soul, “is like a pattern drawn on a tightly stretched parchment. Touch just one part of it, just one allegiance, and the whole person will react, the whole drum will sound.” And yet we are increasingly pressured to parcel ourselves out in various social contexts, lacerating the parchment of our identity in the process. As Courtney Martin observed in her insightful On Beingconversation with Parker Palmer and Krista Tippett,“It’s never been more asked of us to show up as only slices of ourselves in different places.” Today, as Whitman’... posted on Mar 7 2016 (16,714 reads)

every time you go on a pilgrimage, you are on a search. Sometimes you don’t know what you are searching for, but it will develop. On your walk, it will show up—the answer for your search, if you keep going. --Petra Wolf What follows is the edited transcript of a conversation between Richard Whittaker and Petra Wolf. A longer version is available here. Richard Whittaker:   You made reference to your husband who’s been gone 11 months. This is a big thing. Would you mind telling me a little about how you met him? Petra Wolf:   I met my husband in 2003 on the Camino de Santiago, but my pilgrim’s life started in 2001.  ... posted on Aug 3 2019 (5,793 reads)

was a photographer with a heart — always caring, compassionate and kind towards those in need. Now his family has chosen to honour his legacy in a unique way. On a fateful day in August 2011, Nimesh Tanna, a 22-year-old photographer, boarded a crowded local train to make his way to a meeting in Mumbai. He never made it to the meeting or to his home that day. A pole, located dangerously close to the tracks, hit him hard the moment he put his head out of the train. Nimesh fell off the fast moving train and died on the spot. “We were best friends since childhood. We went to the same school and attended the same college. We even worked together in the same company before h... posted on Nov 4 2015 (15,495 reads)

after signing my contract as a store assistant for a well known low-cost German supermarket company, I came across a nasty reality that seemed not to bother the rest of my colleagues: every day, at a sleepy four o’clock in the morning, a random employee has to do the “waste inventory.” This consists of scanning all the products that can’t be sold anymore, one by one, and then throwing them out into a blue container. The resulting mountain of food is impressive—around seventy bakery items, a hundred pieces of fruit, and fifteen trays of meat. Over two hundred food items start the morning at the bottom of the garbage container, every single day. ... posted on Nov 27 2016 (12,898 reads)

master’s degree in theology from Harvard University and a master’s in social work from the University of Toronto, Stephen Jenkinson was the director of counselling services in the palliative care department at a major Canadian hospital  in  Toronto for several years, where he encountered the deep “death phobia” and “grief illiteracy” that most of his patients and their loved ones brought to their deathbeds. This work motivated Jenkinson to encourage people to prepare for their death well before its arrival so that they might be free to “participate emotionally in their deaths as they participate in other major life even... posted on Apr 26 2019 (20,966 reads)