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 (7,886 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 (108,735 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 (33,665 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 (37,747 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 (89,462 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 (49,243 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 (11,546 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 (39,729 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 (13,649 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 (30,575 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 (14,985 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 (22,710 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 (21,519 reads)

while waiting for an online video to load. “After five seconds, the abandonment rate is 25 percent," Sitaraman told the Boston Globe. "When you get to 10 seconds, half are gone.” We want it all, and we want it now -- which is why we've created apps to zap as much wait-time as humanly possible from mundane daily tasks like food delivery, transportation and paying bills (and even arenas of greater import, like dating). We devour articles with time-saving "life hacks" to shave 30 seconds here and five minutes there off of the day's drudgery. So why do we hate waiting so much? According to M.I.T. operations researcher and line expert Richard ... posted on May 31 2023 (25,487 reads)

This time around, it seems more like a threat. I'm talking about the human colonization of other worlds. It seems eccentric even to write the words, but there's no doubt that a belief in humanity's need - perhaps its destiny - to colonize the moon, or Mars, or other worlds known or unknown, is making a strange kind of cultural comeback. No matter that it is no more practical now than it was in the 1950s. No matter that it doesn't look likely that it could happen within the lifetime of anyone alive today, if ever. The practicalities are not the point: it is a fantasy, a motif. It is a means of salvation. Back in the optimistic 1950s, with the promise of material abund... posted on Jul 27 2014 (14,229 reads)

self-esteem is an integration of an inner value with things in the world around you.” “Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs,” Joan Didion wrote in her timeless meditation on self-respect. But how can character be cultivated in such a way as to foster that prized form of personal dignity, along with its sibling qualities of confidence and self-esteem? That’s what celebrated artist, actor, playwright, and educator Anna Deavere Smith explores in a section of the altogether fantastic Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-up Advice on Making a Life i... posted on Jul 26 2014 (11,813 reads)

counterintuitively, the diaries of celebrated artists, writers, and scientists, private as they are, are often reminders not only of their humanity but of our own, brimming with deeply and widely resonant insights on our shared struggles and yearnings. Such is the case of The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates (public library) — a chronicle of Oates’scharacteristically self-reflexive, sometimes self-conscious, but always intensely intelligent and perceptive meditations on literature and life. One of her most beautiful reflections, penned on a cold December morning in 1977 — a pivotal time in Oates’s life, shortly before her 40th birthday and a few months prior to her a... posted on Jun 19 2014 (9,904 reads)

— Before she was killed in the Newtown school massacre, 6-year-old Catherine Violet Hubbard raised money from returnable bottles and cans to buy bones for dogs at the pound and designed business cards for an imaginary animal shelter, listing herself as "caretaker." Her pretend animal shelter is now on track to become a reality as the state prepares to transfer 34 acres of a former psychiatric facility to a foundation raising money to build an animal sanctuary to honor the life of the little girl who was one of 20 first-graders killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Story continues below. "It was just in her soul," said Jenny Hu... posted on Sep 9 2014 (16,793 reads)

photojournalist Tom Carter travelled over 35,000 miles, hitting 33 provinces, on a limited budget, with just a backpack and a digital camera. He encountering 56 different ethnic minorities, each with their own distinct languages, customs and lifestyles, which he catalogued in his new book, CHINA: Portrait of a People, which has over 800 images from his journey. Through his photography, he is able to capture the essence of an ancient land and a modern superpower. Dowser spoke with him to see how he got this project running… How were you able to bring this project to life? What was your budget and did you get support from any foundations, organizations, etc to make t... posted on Sep 18 2014 (13,564 reads)

kindness just an old-fashioned value celebrated in kindergarten and then soon forgotten as one grows older and more ambitious --- or is there more to it? As increasing numbers of people look to live a purpose-driven life, research is beginning to reveal the tremendous rewards that come with living kindly. What follows are some of the most compelling recent studies on the topic of kindness, and the ramifications they hold for ourselves and our world. 1: Kindness rewires our minds for greater health: “The biggest news is that we’re able to change something physical about people’s health by increasing their daily diet of positive emotion, and that helps us get... posted on Sep 23 2014 (142,779 reads)