“Gmail Will Now Auto-complete Whole Emails.” On the surface, this disruptive technology also invites us to be a trailblazer into the unknown. Think big, think fast, think impossible. You do it simply because you can. In many ways, I was a product of that culture. Yet, at some point in my early twenties, I shifted from what -- to why.  That led me to apply that logic to a very different set of questions. What do exponential love, exponential forgiveness, and exponential kindness look like? Silicon Valley didn’t have an answer for that, so I had to expand my search in other directions. And I found something startling. I discovered that technology’s ques... posted on Jun 11 2018 (14,255 reads)

love?” or “What have you enjoyed about your child this week?” Then these beautiful things become part of the child’s official medical report. Actually, some health professionals are calling this section “the Awesomeness Report.” Which is so cool! And both parents and professionals are seeing great progress when this attitude of ability and humanity is adopted. Amazing. It’s so amazing! And so I’d also really love to hear about some of the kindness you did experience in the healthcare system, I imagine you did amongst the difficult ones—how did that affect your experience? Yeah, I remember we were in the Pediatric Intensive Car... posted on Aug 27 2018 (8,799 reads)

note: I met José Juan in 2013. I had just returned to Spain from India and was participating in a 21-Day Kindness Challenge. During a 21 day period 5000 people from all over the world performed an act of kindness every day, totalling almost 11,000 transformative actions! The first day of the challenge I decided to buy a cake and gift it to someone random on the street. I wanted it to be anonymous so I needed to enlist a partner in kindness. The first person I met was José Juan! He gave away the cake and since then we have been connected in many adventures of service and generosity, including community experiments like Awakin Circles (which we started in his ... posted on Sep 2 2018 (15,024 reads)

and wail and cry out in pain in order for the healing to begin. On some level we know that this is a requirement when facing loss, but we have forgotten how to walk comfortably with this potent emotion. There is another place of grief that we hold, a second gateway, different than the Iosses connected to losing someone or something that we love. This grief occurs in the places never touched by love. These are profoundly tender places precisely because they have lived outside of kindness, compassion, warmth, or welcome. These are the places within us that have been wrapped in shame and banished to the farther shore of our lives. We often hate these parts of ourselves, ho... posted on Oct 22 2023 (47,719 reads)

gratitude in the United States, China, and Brazil. Despite these age-related similarities, differences were still seen between countries. Overall, children in China and South Korea tended to favor connective gratitude, while kids in the United States leaned toward concrete gratitude. Children in Guatemala—where it’s common to say “Thanks be to God” in everyday speech—were particularly partial to verbal gratitude. Such variations in how children respond to kindness may set the stage for how they talk, act, and feel when they get older—and other research does find that adults give thanks differently worldwide. In one study, Vajiheh Ahar and... posted on Aug 11 2019 (9,863 reads)

few minutes, though, because I have to get to an event for the shelter.” Lee sat on the floor, hugging an all-black cat, rubbing his face in its fur. The others waved furiously for me to come in too. “Are we taking too long?  Is it okay if I go in too?” I asked. “Go right ahead.” Before I went in I wrote out a donation check to Headwaters Rescue, folded it over and handed it to her. Tears started again, this time I think because of her unexpected kindness. I blurted, “I have stage four cancer. I’m trying to do everything, trying to keep him on the trip and trying to make happy memories for all of them. I can’t thank you en... posted on Feb 12 2020 (7,532 reads)

and healing. One friend described sending $100 each to ten strangers who were in dire need. My son, who until a few days ago worked at Dunkin’ Donuts, said people were tipping at five times the normal rate – and these are working class people, many of them Hispanic truck drivers, who are economically insecure themselves. Doctors, nurses, and “essential workers” in other professions risk their lives to serve the public. Here are some more examples of the love and kindness eruption, courtesy of ServiceSpace: Perhaps we're in the middle of living into that new story. Imagine Italian airforce using Pavoratti, Spanish military doing... posted on Apr 16 2020 (13,919 reads)

have brushed through their days. She confesses that it was difficult initially to stay true to the commitment of finding gratitude every day but found an unwavering strength to believe that there is no day without joy and she felt moved to look for one each day. Many of her followers are inspired as she shares, “It’s easy to feel that what we do is so small, but none of us will ever truly be able to grasp the profound impact that our lives will have on one another. Happiness and kindness are just another way to express love and that’s something I think we could all use a little more of right now.” “People are good, people are kind and they want to take ca... posted on Feb 2 2021 (5,905 reads)

the fullness of things,” she insists, “is our human task.” And that’s the ground I meander with Jane Hirshfield in this conversation: the fullness of things, through the interplay of Zen and science, poetry and ecology, in her life and writing. [Music: “Seven League Boots” by Zoë Keating] Jane Hirshfield:I have been given this existence, these years on this Earth, to accept what has come into my lifetime — wars, loves, trucks, betrayals, kindness. I must take them. I must find a way to live in this world. You can’t refuse it. And along with the difficult is the radiant, the beautiful, the intimacy with which each one of us enter... posted on Jan 12 2022 (4,521 reads)

the doctor tear every item of clothing from my body with a pair of scissors. Each cut made me realize that material wealth, physical beauty, academic achievements, and money might make us comfortable here on earth, but they won’t return home with us. Even the bodies that house our souls won’t return home with us. What I believe returns home with the soul is spiritual current. Which is the continuous flow of light in the soul –compassion, goodness, gratitude, peace, kindness, joy, and love. We are all born with spiritual currents. However, our human experiences can either deem or dim that light. The light in my soul was dim for weeks as I wrestled with des... posted on May 12 2022 (3,377 reads)

And this is my most common one, that I give and give and give and take care of without remembering that, “Oh, I have to fill.” And so then I quickly—for me, I end up as your lump, in your lump place. I end up in the hopeless, give up, just go through the motions. And if anybody else is a caregiver out here, I’m sure many, many people are, you don’t do a good job of being a caregiver from a place of just going through the motions, because you can’t bring kindness. You have to have ventral to bring kindness. And so that, for me, is what I know when I get to that place where I’m going through the motions, that, “Oh, I need to do something... posted on Nov 12 2023 (5,154 reads)

studies of older adults, middle-aged women, or preteens, we see that altruistic behavior casts a halo effect over people’s lives, giving them greater longevity, lower rates of heart disease, and better mental health. We prosper—physically, mentally, emotionally—under the canopy of positive emotions that arise through the simple act of giving. Science tells us that there appears to be a fundamental human drive toward helping others. When people do “unto others” in kindness, it lights up the primitive part of the brain that also lets us experience joy. This feeling of elevation is sometimes described by psychologists as the “helper’s high.” At... posted on Sep 26 2011 (12,589 reads)

itself becomes the guide. From my experience, this goal vs. process orientation is very subtle. A couple times when I didn’t have a precise map for a location, I stopped to ask where major streets where, to get my bearings. The initial answers would be short — “Oh, so-and-so street is that way.” And then my direction giver would be kind enough to inquire further as to where I was going. I would often answer that I was heading down to South Bay. Then, also out of kindness, I believe, they would invariably suggest faster routes and “short-cuts.” Yet getter somewhere faster wasn’t my orientation.  Do we have space for non-destination ways ... posted on Oct 28 2011 (8,727 reads)

call it a "kindness internship." My 14-yr-old cousin and his best friend have decided, of their own accord, to spend much of their summer creating spontaneous and mostly anonymous opportunities to grow in kindness. So at summer camp, he was on the lookout. He's a popular kid, and being kind is not always "cool," so that made his reflection afterward all the more poignant: "I noticed that there was one kid who no one was really talking to. He had a serious kind of disability, and some of the kids were kinda scared to approach him. So I went up and introduced myself. And you know what? He taught me some amazing dance moves!" Sharing his presence was a wonde... posted on Dec 3 2011 (24,929 reads)

I replied, shocked by the size of her injury as well as the picture of her fully clothed, clearly better off relative. " So Mike and I are going to walk you to wherever it is you need to go- the bus station is only a few blocks away and you can catch the next bus out there but I want you to be safe." I could feel my jaw drop," "Thank you so much."  "Don't mention it we don't want you to get hurt."   I was blown away by their act of complete kindness and generosity. These were strangers who I had been afraid of but what I really learned instead, was that they were far better, stronger people than I had ever been. In this one moment of kin... posted on Dec 30 2011 (12,382 reads)

Neff: The quick version is that it’s treating yourself with the same type of kind, caring support and understanding that you would show to anyone you cared about. In fact, most of us make incredibly harsh, cruel self-judgments that we would never make about a total stranger, let alone someone we cared about. JM: In your work you’ve identified three core components of self-compassion. Could you please tell us what they are? KN: Right, the first one is self-kindness, as opposed to self-judgment. A lot of times when we suffer, we just take a very cold attitude toward ourselves. So self-compassion involves being warm and supportive—actively soothing ... posted on Apr 7 2012 (74,752 reads)

seek higher truths.  Have you ever  thought of something and then just known that it had to happen? It was one of those things.  So we sold all our major belongings, and bought a one-way ticket to India.  Our plan was to head to Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram, since he had always been an inspiration to us, and then walk South.  Between the two of us, we budgeted a dollar a day, mostly for incidentals -- which meant that for our survival we had to depend utterly on the kindness of strangers.  We ate whatever food was offered and slept wherever place was offered.   Now, I do have to say, such ideas come with a warning: do not try this at home, because yo... posted on May 14 2012 (391,674 reads)

be involved in similar situations: “May we all find resolution and clarity.”  Such shifts in our awareness can help us to broaden our patterns of thinking so that we don’t get caught up in a tight web of repetitive and consuming thoughts. When we find ourselves responding to numerous requests for money and time, it’s also helpful to have ways of initiating acts of generosity.  When we don’t have time to do this by engaging in “random acts of kindness,” offering blessings gives us something we can do in no time at all—just by thinking a positive thought about someone else.  Allowing our attention to move outside of ourselv... posted on Jun 25 2012 (22,893 reads)

that when you screw up as a parent, everything will be fine. Forgive yourself. Apologize. Learn from that screw up. In other words, model the behavior you’d like your child to learn whenever he screws up. * Patiently teach your child the boundaries of behavior. There should be boundaries — what’s acceptable and what’s not. It’s not OK to do things that might harm yourself or others. * We should treat each other with kindness and respect. Those aren’t things the child learns immediately, so have patience, but set the boundaries. Within those boundaries, allow lots of freedom. * Give your child som... posted on Jul 24 2012 (82,512 reads)

judge the value of science by the ignorance it defines.” “Science is always wrong,” George Bernard Shaw famously proclaimed in a toast to Albert Einstein. “It never solves a problem without creating 10 more.” In the fifth century BC, long before science as we know it existed, Socrates, the very first philosopher, famously observed, “I know one thing, that I know nothing.” Some 21 centuries later, while inventing calculus in 1687, Sir Isaac Newton likely knew all there was to know in science at the time — a time when it was possible for a single human brain to hold all of mankind’s scienti... posted on Aug 21 2012 (18,182 reads)