for example, has been nicknamed the “love hormone” for its role in bonding people with each other.  But what’s less well known is that oxytocin plays a role in excluding others from that bond. One 2011 study found that Dutch students dosed with oxytocin were “more likely to favor Dutch people or things associated with the Dutch than when they had taken a placebo.” Furthermore, they were more likely to say “they would sacrifice the life of a non-Dutch person over a Dutch person in order to save five other people of unknown nationality.” We can just as well call oxytocin the “patriotism hormone”! This is only... posted on Jul 4 2013 (20,103 reads)

the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough." -- Meister Eckhart When I was in Bali several years ago, I had the good fortune of visiting several temples. Before entering each one, we were asked to tie a sash around our waist as a symbolic gesture of "containing our appetites" as we prayed. It seems that the Balinese believe in the power of prayer, and even more so, in the value of asking only for what is most needed, and not more. I found this ritual and way of thinking quite striking, especially in contrast to the "abundance" mentality in our culture. For years, I've listened to public figures and moti... posted on Aug 19 2013 (34,311 reads)

years ago, at 37, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist and spokeswoman for the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, had a stroke that traumatized her left hemisphere. Through the eyes of an ever-curious brain scientist, she felt her mind completely deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall the incidents of her life. Several weeks later, she underwent major brain surgery to remove a golf-ball-sized blood clot that was applying pressure on the language center in her brain’s left hemisphere. During her eight-year recovery, her mother was her chief caregiver. Initially, Taylor did not know who she was and had no recollectio... posted on Aug 21 2013 (44,202 reads)

the debris of the clear-cut to a rock she’d loved to sit on as a child. First, she gave gratitude to the trees for all they had provided to the soil, the birds and animals, the sky, and the people. She wept for what was lost. Wishing to leave something of herself, she cut and buried a piece of hair. Finally, she asked what the forest wanted her to know. “I realized the land did not belong to me,” she said. “Even in the midst of the ceremony, I saw that there was still life there. I saw a pheasant. Flowers were starting to pop up. Green growth was coming through the brown. This gave me hope and faith.” Holding What It Meant Why bother to spend time in a d... posted on Aug 26 2013 (16,547 reads)

watched cat videos on Youtube, corporations leveraged globalized financial markets and network technologies to amass unprecedented wealth while impoverishing the rest of us. But then, around 2009, something began to change. Primed byfinancial need and the social media boom, people started to share more than just cat videos and haughty manifestos. A wave of new online services emerged that used the grammar of social media to help people share some of the essential resources of modern life: cars, skills, rides, experiences, housing, money, work, workspace, clothes, books, and more. At the same time, the rapid adoption of smartphones turned sharing into a real-time, on-the-go, pl... posted on Sep 4 2013 (17,910 reads)

morning at the age of 18, fresh out of high school, Maggie Doyne awoke with the feeling that she was not yet ready to move into her freshman dorm. Instead, she wanted to defer college for a year to travel and discover her “inner-self.” It was a decision that would change her life in ways she could never imagine. Four countries in and thousands of miles later, Maggie found herself in the midst of a remote, war-torn village in Nepal. She watched in despair as the Nepalese children would break down rocks into gravel and then sell them for one dollar a day just to buy food. Maggie was compelled to take action. One young girl in particular had touched her heart, so Maggie paid ... posted on Sep 17 2013 (70,904 reads)

I’m battling a stubborn cold.  My schedule is manageable and still I can’t manage to be with everyone I’d like to see.  Somehow, I’m getting things done and yet I have a nagging sense of helplessness.  In short, I’m not on my A game. And I think I know why.  I recently spent two consecutive nights with two remarkable individuals who put their lives on the line defending human rights in Ethiopia and Russia.  They’ve seen in real life some of the worst offenses human beings do to each other.  Violations I’ve only read about in books, seen in pictures, and never ever want to witness in person.  And still, I&rsqu... posted on Nov 18 2013 (61,811 reads)

of altruism requires a constant exposure to a certain way of thinking that can change our brain. And you also mentioned that there is a technique that helps people to develop their altruism: it’s through meditation… The term meditation is mystical, exotic, but its meaning is to educate oneself, to become familiar with a new way of thinking and acting while developing one’s qualities. Let’s consider the altruistic behavior. It’s obvious that throughout our life we feel unconditional love for our children, for someone else, or even for an animal, and that feeling doesn’t require any effort in showing altruism: wishing they were healthy and happy in... posted on Jan 27 2014 (7,846 reads)

25-year-olds think getting rich is an important goal, and 64 percent think it’s the most important goal. Sadly, only 30 percent believe that helping others in need is important. While these studies focused on university students and young adults, the findings suggest that somewhere in their earlier development, they weren’t cultivating the skills needed to connect with others. So how can teachers help students avoid the joyless path of self-absorption and instead cultivate a life in which they feel part of something larger than themselves—one of the keys to a meaningful life? There are, of course, many strong programs that have been designed to help students deve... posted on Dec 19 2013 (108,591 reads)

do we need compassion? We need compassion because life is hard. We are all susceptible to diseases and injuries. Every one of us has a lifespan that had a start and will have an end. Just like you, I am vulnerable to disease. Just like you, I could have a blood test tomorrow that says my life is going to end. Just like you, I could hear that my son has been killed in a car crash. Because these things can happen to any of us at any time, we’re all in this together. No one—no one—escapes. And the more we work together, the more we can make this journey of suffering bearable. The Buddhist tradition puts it this way: “Just like me, you want to be happy; just lik... posted on Jan 8 2014 (33,447 reads)

your job seem dull and meaningless? Morten Hansen and Dacher Keltner point the way out. Do you experience meaning at work—or just emptiness? In the United States people spend on average 35-40 hours working every week. That’s some 80,000 hours during a career—more time than you will spend with your kids, probably. Beyond the paycheck, what does work give you? Few questions could be more important. It is sad to walk through life and experience work as empty, dreadful, a chore—sapping energy out of your body and soul. Yet many employees do, as evidenced by one large-scale study showing that only 31 percent of employees felt engaged with their work. ... posted on Dec 30 2013 (37,606 reads)

we’ve put pricetags on things that Oscar even in his wildest dreams (or nightmares!) could not have seen coming. For example, today for 10 dollars your company can purchase the right to emit a metric ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. For $75 hundred dollars you can hire a human being to be a guinea pig in risky drug trials. And for a quarter of a million dollars you can buy the right to shoot an endangered rhino in South Africa. We’ve somehow managed to put a price tag on life, death and almost everything in between. So in a world where everything has a price --- what happens to the priceless? That’s the Golden Gate bridge. One of the most beautiful and most p... posted on Jan 15 2014 (89,180 reads)

Zak's research is uncovering how stories shape our brains, tie strangers together, and move us to be more empathic and generous. Ben’s dying.  That’s what Ben’s father says to the camera as we see Ben play in the background. Ben is two years old and doesn’t know that a brain tumor will take his life in a matter of months. Ben’s father tells us how difficult it is to be joyful around Ben because the father knows what is coming. But in the end he resolves to find the strength to be genuinely happy for Ben’s sake, right up to Ben’s last breath.  Everyone can relate to this story. An innocent treated unfairly, and a protect... posted on Mar 3 2014 (49,112 reads)

knowledge’-based society, under an official strategy named ‘buen saber’. Many proponents of the sharing economy therefore have great hopes for a future based on sharing as the new modus operandi. Almost everyone recognises that drastic change is needed in the wake of a collapsed economy and an overstretched planet, and the old idea of the American dream – in which a culture that promotes excessive consumerism and commercialisation leads us to see the 'good life' as the 'goods life', as described by the psychologist Tim Kasser - is no longer tenable in a world of rising affluence among possibly 9.6 billion people by 2050. Hence more and more ... posted on Mar 2 2014 (11,512 reads)

atoms from the dawn of time. The red-tails carry within them similar information in the same genetic code as the voles they eat, a code assembled three to four billion years ago and first consciously reflected in the human mind a mere fifty years or so ago yesterday. It was not until the 1960’s that teams of bioscientists, including Francis Crick, Marshall Nirenberg and many others, first mirrored in their consciousness the informatic sequences that form DNA “codons,” so that life at last became aware of itself as sequential information.  Man, bird and ice are cosmic conglomerates, temporary residents, artworks in the same installation. In this small crucible of sp... posted on Feb 13 2020 (39,641 reads)

is so much a part of the fabric of our lives, reflecting our health, lifestyle, time, and values. Like so many of us, my childhood memories of specific events revolve around food and meals shared. Sunday dinners with my Polish grandmother preparing pierogis and czarnina. Luscious cream puffs eaten greedily at the Wisconsin State Fair. Ruby red tomatoes and thorny kohlrabi plucked from our backyard garden, fried fresh for that evening's dinner. Food was a bond of love, care, and connection to our families and the wider community. But what if we re-imagine food today? In what new ways might food bring meaning and purpose to our busy, fragmented lives? And how might food make us w... posted on Mar 11 2014 (13,582 reads)

Western culture, many people define success narrowly as money and power. In her uplifting book Thrive, Arianna Huffington argues that this leaves us sitting on a two-legged stool, which will tip over if we don’t add a third leg. She makes a passionate case, supported by science, for expanding our definition of what it means to succeed. One of her new metrics is giving: a truly rewarding life involves contributing to and caring for others. I love this message. It’s a powerful call for us to become more generous and compassionate. Unfortunately, when people answer this call, they sacrifice their own success. Burning the midnight oil for other people, they fall behind on their... posted on Apr 24 2014 (30,430 reads)

for how I cared for my sweetly spoiled boy. That’s how I met Angie. She called me back and I interviewed her for an hour (can you imagine!). Even so, she agreed to take on the job. I laugh at this memory now, because these days I parent four kids and my parenting skills have, shall we say, gone way down from those days? But Angie was patient, compassionate- understanding. As soon as we met that Derby day- me in heels and a huge hat, Angie newly pregnant and emanating peace- we became lifelong friends. Angie is a local treasure, an unparalleled craftswoman. Her fingers are always at work; painting, spinning, felting, drawing…. I can’t name all the crafts she does be... posted on May 3 2014 (14,916 reads)

it is as if we have been transported into their world and we are able to see through their eyes. It is a powerful, almost magical feeling. One that is a privilege. Proust is talking about adventurous empathy. Seeking out new perspectives on the world and ‘possessing other eyes’ - or as Kathryn Schlz said, ‘seeing the world as it isn’t’. Although we would be the first to admit to our shamelessly optimistic and somewhat naive approach both to life and to building Maptia, we firmly believe that: More than any other time in history, there is a vast and remarkable potential to spread vivid, thoughtful, and imaginative stories via the unfat... posted on Jul 21 2014 (22,614 reads)

unnoticed elements of the day.” Gratitude exercises have been proven to have tangible benefits. According to a study by researchers from the University of Minnesota and the University of Florida, having participants write down a list of positive events at the close of a day—and why the events made them happy—lowered their self-reported stress levels and gave them a greater sense of calm at night. I find that I’m not only grateful for all the blessings in my life, I’m also grateful for all that hasn’t happened—for all those close shaves with “disaster” of some kind or another, all the bad things that almost happened but didn&... posted on Jun 7 2014 (21,411 reads)