heart of hearts I’d betrayed my purpose? So I consented to its offer. Of course, time would tell that it wasn’t actually either-or. What was important in that clarifying moment was that I declare my ultimate loyalty. Once that happened, recognition and prestige might or might not come as a byproduct, but it wouldn’t be the goal. After all, the work I do isn’t “my” work. These are ideas whose time has come and they need capable scribes. Our true wages in life consist of the satisfaction we get from a job well done. Aside from that, well, the rain falls on the just and unjust alike. That was part one of the disintegration of my ambition. The first p... posted on Nov 9 2017 (15,676 reads)

and I wanted to be a cowgirl, and I wanted to be Mowgli from "The Jungle Book." Because they were all about being free, the wind in your hair -- just to be free. And on my seventeenth birthday, my parents, knowing how much I loved speed, gave me one driving lesson for my seventeenth birthday. Not that we could have afforded I drive, but to give me the dream of driving. And on my seventeenth birthday, I accompanied my little sister in complete innocence, as I always had all my life -- my visually impaired sister -- to go to see an eye specialist. Because big sisters are always supposed to support their little sisters. And my little sister wanted to be a pilot -- God help he... posted on Aug 10 2017 (12,924 reads)

by counting the number of steps they have taken during the day. These insights are the result of deep inquiry on the nature of value. All metrics are systemic values — artificial constructs created in our minds to make our world more manageable. They cannot even come close to capturing the practical value that we derive from our world (as we can see from the brushing example), and we can forget about coming anywhere close with metrics to the deeply meaningful intrinsic value of life itself that cannot even be enumerated. As I slowly started to accept the truth of this assertion on counting, I found myself questioning the prevalent worldviews on profit and impact. What fol... posted on Oct 17 2017 (14,225 reads)

your memories impact your immune system, why moving is one of the most stressful life-events, and what your parents have to do with your predisposition to PTSD. I had lived thirty good years before enduring my first food poisoning — odds quite fortunate in the grand scheme of things, but miserably unfortunate in the immediate experience of it. I found myself completely incapacitated to erect the pillars of my daily life — too cognitively foggy to read and write, too physically weak to work out or even meditate. The temporary disability soon elevated the assault on my mind and body to a new height of anguish: an intense experience of stress. Even as I consoled myself wi... posted on Oct 8 2017 (29,692 reads)

of our childhood; or cities where there is an enormous reservoir of human nature and activity, such as New York, London, Benares, and Tokyo; or places where energy is impregnated in the land itself, regions of power and grace, such as Mount Fuji, Canyon de Chelly, Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, or the Himalayas. These places provide sanctuary and renewal. They remind us of the fortitude and unquenchable desire of the human spirit—for relationship with the otherness of life. The wahi pana (storied places) found in the islands of Hawai‘i are a profound source of energy and inspiration for those fortunate enough to experience them. James Houston writes of cer... posted on Oct 5 2017 (9,503 reads)

big data has certainly opened up a whole new range of possibilities, I would like to suggest a distinction between surface big data and deep data. Surface data is just data about others: what others do and say. That is what almost all current big data is composed of. Deep data is used to make people and communities see themselves. Deep data functions like a mirror: it makes you see yourself—both as an individual and as a community. Over the past twenty years of my professional life I have been helping teams and organizations go through processes of profound innovation and transformative change across sectors and cultures. The one thing that I have learned from all these pro... posted on Oct 4 2017 (10,196 reads)

It struck me that there was a living presence, a shining awareness behind this world. My heart reached out. It was like a fist unclenching. It let go of all the ideas I had been carrying about what success and fulfillment are supposed to look like, scattering them on the water like bread crumbs for the geese. “Thy will, not mine, be done,” I said, and I meant it. There was a lightening inside. It was as if I had walked out of a small, dark room into the beautiful flow of life around me. Later that day a friend phoned and urged me to call Chuck Hornsby at Lyon Travel in Brattleboro, Vermont. Hornsby was organizing a group of wine journalists to fly to the south of F... posted on Oct 9 2017 (9,149 reads)

this turning in humanity’s journey, science and spirituality converge, and we can glimpse new possibilities for a life-sustaining civilization. But the going is rough. One mega-disaster follows another. Economic, political, and ecological systems spin out of control, in what David Korten aptly calls the “Great Unraveling.” As the rug is progressively pulled out from under us, it is easy to panic, and even easier to simply shut down. These two instinctive reactions — panic and paralysis — are the roadside ditches that border our pathway to a livable future. To fall into either one is the greatest of all the dangers we face, for they deaden the heart and der... posted on Jan 29 2018 (47,776 reads)

especially among activists, is to recognize that the global problems of this time--poverty, economics, climate change, violence, dehumanization-- cannot be solved globally. Even though the solutions have long been available, the conditions for implementation are not: political courage, collaboration across national boundaries, compassion that supersedes self-interest and greed. (These are not only the failings of our specific time in history; they occur in all civilizations at the end of their life cycle.) Pope Francis's 2015 encyclical "On Care for Our Common Home" (Laudato Si) was a brilliant systemic analysis of causes and solutions to climate change. But these solutions re... posted on Dec 8 2017 (23,473 reads)

of the heart” (a phrase coined by Alexis de Tocqueville) are deeply ingrained ways of seeing, being, and responding to life that involve our minds, our emotions, our self-images, our concepts of meaning and purpose. I believe that these five interlocked habits are critical to sustaining a society. 1. An understanding that we are all in this together. Biologists, ecologists, economists, ethicists and leaders of the great wisdom traditions have all given voice to this theme. Despite our illusions of individualism and national superiority, we humans are a profoundly interconnected species—entwined with one another and with all forms of life, as the global econo... posted on Jan 2 2018 (22,494 reads)

the dawn of each new year, we vow to make changes, usually little things--lose a few pounds, eat better, exercise more, be more patient. Sometimes those changes stick; sometimes by February we are wondering where our resolutions have gone. But what of the big changes--atoning for a life of crime, or giving up destructive or selfish pursuits, for instance? Are those sorts of big changes possible? Do we have the potential to stop in our tracks, consider our lives, and turn another way if we find ourselves far down the wrong path?  In this Daily Good Spotlight on Redemption we look back through old columns to revisit stories of people who have reversed a destructive course in favor of... posted on Jan 3 2018 (7,103 reads)

truth is, we know so little about life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is,”Kurt Vonnegut observed in discussing Hamlet during his influential lecture on the shapes of stories. “The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad,” Alan Watts wrote a generation earlier in his sobering case for learning not to think in terms of gain or loss. And yet most of us spend swaths of our days worrying about the prospect of events we judge to be negative, potential losses driven by what we perceiv... posted on Mar 18 2018 (19,145 reads)

if everyone thought that way it would matter. Yet, underneath that morality lies a secret, nihilistic fear: “Yeah, but not everyone thinks that way. Actually, it doesn’t matter what I do.” We need another reason to do those small things. We need a reason beyond, “If everyone did them it would add up to a more beautiful world.” Because you and I are not ‘everyone’. My indoctrination into the logic of bigness exerted an insidious effect on my own life, causing me always to question whether I am doing enough. When I focus on the small, intimate realms of life, taking the hours to tend to a relationship, to beautify a space, perhaps, or to enter... posted on Apr 7 2018 (23,185 reads)

we cultivate them? The key is knowing how to turn passing experiences into lasting inner resources built into our brains. I teach this skill—called positive neuroplasticity—in my new book, Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness (written with Forrest Hanson). Though it’s not a quick fix, you can change your brain for the better by working it the same way you would work a muscle. As you become more resilient in the face of life’s challenges, you move toward greater well-being and away from stress, worry, frustration, and hurt. 12 resources for resilience Every human being has three basic needs—safety,&... posted on Apr 24 2018 (25,988 reads)

wrapped up in the outcome of your choices. I will act as if my story was your story, too. Whenever I find myself trying to control other people’s behavior or manage their decisions, I take it as a sign that I am having trouble separating myself from them. When I notice this is happening, I find it helpful to repeat this simple maxim to myself: “What is about you is about you, and what is about other people is about them.” I have learned that as long as I keep this in mind, life tends to be much simpler for me and the people around me. Recognizing the difference between ourselves and others is an especially critical skill when it comes to parenting. As a parent, I con... posted on Nov 5 2018 (12,069 reads)

changed her world and signified a major shift in her work to a more mindful practice and a conscious approach. More than ever now she reflects awareness about living in the present. Unu Spiro translates to ‘one breath’ in Esperanto, a language designed to unite, and one in which everything is rooted in the present. I began my one breath paintings as a meditative practice to appreciate the present moment. I became a mother in 2016 to a brilliant soul. My heart expanded, my life changed, and I changed. But as I transitioned into motherhood, I felt more chaos than clarity as the days and nights blurred by with dizzying speed. I observed myself handling everything with les... posted on Jun 8 2018 (10,908 reads)

1993, YALE UNIVERSITY, NEW HAVEN, CT EDITED BY HILDEGARDE HANNUM E. F. Schumacher wrote of a sensibility, a paradigm, a worldview, in which human beings might exist in long-lived intimacy and harmony with the natural world. But for most of us that possibility remains a longing, an instinctual hope for a condition we have never known. For Winona LaDuke it is a living heritage, the beleaguered but surviving belief system and chosen way of life of her people, the Mississippi band of Anishinaabeg of the White Earth Reservation in Northern Minnesota. Harvard graduate Winona LaDuke is a natural leader, an interpreter of Native Americ... posted on Jun 27 2018 (6,651 reads)

founded in 1914. And it is still in 48 countries. And what I think is interesting about the two of them is that each of you — thinking about elders and teachers and the lineage — for both of you — Lucas, you as a Christian, and Rami, you as a Muslim — both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X are really important teachers. You both look to both of them a lot. And I see that happening — I see both of their voices rising up — and yet, I think, in their lifetimes they were seen as — I don’t know if they were contrasting figures, but they were separate paths. And I feel like, for the two of you, this is also part of this wholeness that you... posted on Aug 19 2018 (5,327 reads)

of the more amazing and beautiful aspects of the internet is that it is becoming the most powerful tool ever to spread ideas instantaneously worldwide, including a growing sense of one world consciousness and our oneness with all life. Little by little, it is assisting us go beyond the old, tired dualistic vision of the world and to spread ever more widely and rapidly the non-dualist consciousness that we are all linked ‘for better or for worse’ to borrow an expression from the traditional Anglican marriage liturgy. More and more we are witnessing how an ever-growing number of people are developing an awareness that we are linked in a manner that goes far beyond ... posted on Sep 10 2018 (10,714 reads)

differences involving the pathways that lead toward the practice of directly experiencing higher levels of faith, perception and understanding. All religions are paths to a metaphorical mountain-top variously named wisdom, enlightenment, self- realization, the kingdom of heaven, righteousness, etc. Differences that lead to violence and persecution are based on a corrupted relationship to the teachings and practices of religion. In fact, almost all of us have had experiences during our life when we sense with great clarity and power a tremendously heightened state of presence, of being there, an immediate and unforgettable sensation of I am. Perhaps it is a moment of great danger or... posted on Aug 2 2018 (13,585 reads)