Training the Mind to Find Happiness
"At first, I sat on a couch cushion in the middle of my living room, and meditated for 5 minutes using my kitchen timer. At the beginning, I experienced what the book referred to as a 'waterfall' of thoughts. Having never tried to focus my mind on something so simple as respiration, so many thoughts poured down on me: 'What am I going to have for lunch?' 'What if this doesn't work?' 'I should do a... posted on Feb 03 2012, 26,505 reads

Vinny Ferraro: The Heartful Dodger
One bitter night, in the rough end of New Haven, fifteen-year-old Vinny Ferraro and his gang were hanging out as usual by the projects when a chance encounter with a homeless man (who they were assaulting) changed the course of the rest of his life. "I didn't know what compassion meant when I was fifteen. But I knew that that homeless guy had seen my heart. And that was scary. I had done my best t... posted on Feb 02 2012, 16,292 reads

10 Keys for Achieving Group Flow
Recent scientific research reveals that great creativity almost always springs from collaboration, conversation, and social networks -- challenging our mythical image of the isolated genius. Keith Sawyer has been studying the phenomenon known as "flow," where we get so absorbed in a task that we lose track of time; it's what some people refer to as being "in the zone." Research shows that when a g... posted on Feb 01 2012, 41,304 reads

Lessons from a 7-yr-old's Heartwarming Letter
Sometimes the greatest lessons come unexpectedly, and from the smallest moments. 7-year-old Owen Shure's heart-warming letter to a football player is a perfect example. The Twittersphere buzzed with reactions to the San Francisco 49ers' Kyle Williams fumbling the ball in a tight moment in the playoffs. Some responses were downright vitriolic. But hopefully Kyle also saw this touching story from Be... posted on Jan 31 2012, 22,369 reads

The Visionary Architecture of Paolo Soleri
Architect Paolo Soleri is regarded as a visionary, much to his dismay. His thought and vision combines the ethical and the metaphysical in terms of how to structure and build our cities. He says, for example, "We have reached the point where we understand the appearance of self-awareness is one of the most incredible things that's happened in the universe. So, slowly we are developing some kind of... posted on Jan 30 2012, 5,168 reads

Man Builds Fairy Tale Home -- For $4700
"Simon Dale is a family man in Wales, the western part of Great Britain. His interest in self-sustainability and an ecological awareness led him to dig out and build his own home -- one of the loveliest, warmest, most inviting dwellings you could ever imagine. And it cost him only $4,700. Can you imagine a more charming entrance than this?"... posted on Jan 28 2012, 219,722 reads

Road Trip Nation
"I'd feel so much better about the world we live in if being 'passionate' or 'inspired' was a national standard instead of so much of the academic trivia that is mandated," a high school teacher wrote. Working with 11th graders in his capacity as college advisor, he was helping them explore how their own passions could lead to further study and possible career choices. In the process, he introduce... posted on Jan 27 2012, 4,609 reads

The Inventor Who Disrupted the Period Industry
When Arunachalam Muruganantham hit a wall in his research on creating a sanitary napkin for poor women, he decided to do what most men typically wouldn't dream of. He wore one himself -- for a whole week. Fashioning his own menstruating uterus by filling a bladder with goat's blood, Muruganantham went about his life while wearing women's underwear, occasionally squeezing the contraption to test ou... posted on Jan 26 2012, 18,763 reads

Inside Tim Tebow's World of Kindness
"I've come to believe in Tim Tebow for what he does off a football field, which is represent the best parts of us, the parts I want to be and so rarely am. Who among us is this selfless? Every week, Tebow picks out someone who is suffering, or who is dying, or who is injured." He flies these people and their families to the Broncos game, and gives them a treat of a lifetime. This ESPN article shar... posted on Jan 25 2012, 17,977 reads

5 Books on the Psychology of Love
"It's often said that every song, every poem, every novel, every painting ever created is in some way 'about' love. What this really means is that love is a central theme, an underlying preoccupation, in humanity's greatest works. But what exactly is love? How does its mechanism spur such poeticism, and how does it lodge itself in our minds, hearts and souls so completely, so stubbornly, as to per... posted on Jan 24 2012, 14,502 reads