Sunday, June 27, 2010 Most Valuable Helper  Would you know it if you lived in the midst of a giant? A local newspaper described real-life giant Manute Bol thus: "He symbolizes an unfortunate side of our sports obsession and how we measure the worth of those who play. The best athletes get the love, most times regardless of what they do away from sport. Bol, doing the work of a saint, is largely ignored." Once the tallest player in the NBA, at a towering 7'6", Sudanese-native Bol has been demonstrating the stature of his big heart. The everyday Big Friendly Giant died recently, from a noxious mix of ailments, exacerbated by his insistence on working on the ground in Sudan, but his dream lives on: to build 41 schools in Sudan. Read More >>
back to top  Saturday, June 26, 2010 No Money? No Problem!  When people say, "Time is money," they usually don't mean it literally. But Maria Villacresses does. When the economy put a hitch in her wedding plans, she used "time dollars" on everything from a wedding-day makeover to an elaborate seven-layer cake. In a time bank, members get credit for services they provide to other members, from cooking to housekeeping to care rides to home repair. For each hour of work, one time dollar is deposited into a member's account, good for services offered by other members. Scores of time banks are being started in hard-hit communities around the nation, and thousands of devotees are helping each other survive tough financial times. "I'm enriched by it, not only from the services I receive, but by being able to contribute," says Joan Stevenson, who earns time dollars by writing for the Community Exchange in Allentown, PA. Read More >>
back to top Friday, June 25, 2010 Life Without Worry  It keeps us up at night. Weighs our shoulders down. Hangs over us in clouds of doubt and furrowed eyebrows. Worry. There's nothing appealing about it, yet many of us find our minds entangled in self-doubt, uncertainty, and grappling with unknowns. But for Akaya Windwood, worry is a thing of the past. A few years ago, after her sister was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, Windwood made the decision to stop worrying. "I began to understand that it was a habit of my mind... But it wasn't enough to just not worry; I needed to replace the habit of worry with something else, and I chose trust." Looking back, her decision not to worry has freed her to be an increasingly creative, inspired, and effective leader. With a clearer head, challenges become opportunities, and fear falls off the wayside. Read More >>
back to top Thursday, June 24, 2010 Stopping Bullets with Jobs  "Nothing stops a bullet like a job," says the motto of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang-intervention program in the country. For the past 20 years, Rev. Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest who started Homeboy, has counseled more than 12,000 gang members who pass through Homeboy each year to learn job skills and attend therapy sessions on everything from alcohol abuse to anger management. Since leaving his position at the Dolores Mission Church in Los Angeles to focus on Homeboy, Boyle has hired ex-gang members to work and run landscaping and plumbing businesses, a child-care center, and even a bakery visited by Prince Charles' business advisors! Though it hasn't been easy, running Homeboy has been an continual practice of humility and compassion. "I don't save people," Boyle says. "I point them in the right direction. I say, 'There's that door. I think if you walked through it, you'd be happier." Read More >>
back to top Wednesday, June 23, 2010 Operation Smile!  The average Facebook user creates 70 pieces of content per month, virtually poking people, finding friends or updating their status on what they ate for dinner. But this social application means something else for Sherry Evans and Tim Foster. "I can't imagine my life right now without Facebook," says Evans. Twenty-three years ago, the two were classmates at Althoff Catholic High School. Through Facebook, they recently reconnected online, and Evans discovered that Foster was going through rough times. He had no job, no vehicle and no home. His family was forced to move into a cheap motel. "It just broke my heart when I saw them all in that hotel room," says Evans. With the click of a mouse, she went to work, creating a covert effort named "Operation Ten Smile." The class of '87 donated items: a washer and dryer, furniture, another did laundry, one found a van, and then, a place for the Fosters to call home. Read More >>
back to top Tuesday, June 22, 2010 Six Keys to Making Good Decisions  "On my first day in a class called 'Decision Analysis' at Stanford, I was shocked when Prof. Ron Howard said that you couldn't judge a decision from the outcome. I walked up to him after class and said, 'Professor, this is what I have read in spiritual texts - that we are only competent in the action, and the outcome is not in our hands. Your principle is ancient.' Prof. Howard replied, 'It may be, but these texts don't tell you how to apply this to financial decision-making, and we have worked out the details here.'" Somik Raha, a PhD in decision analysis, describes his exploration of a process for making good decisions, and how it helps bridge the material and spiritual. He then introduces six keys of decision quality, applicable by anyone in any decision situation. Read More >>
back to top Monday, June 21, 2010 Anything is Possible  Jessica Herrera's parents lost their jobs at the beginning of her senior year in high school. Evicted from the homes they rented, the family split up: her father left town to look for work, her mother and sister moved in with relatives, and Jessica took refuge in a homeless shelter. But that didn't stop the 18-year-old from graduating high school. "There were times I came home and there was no food. I wanted to get a part-time job or something, but my mom told me to focus on school only." Following her parents' advice, Herrera graduated from her high school's International Baccalaureate program with a 5.5 GPA and received a full scholarship to attend Florida International University next fall. Despite all the obstacles, Herrera remains positive: "I don't feel sorry for myself. I do feel it has made me stronger." she reflects. "Anything is possible as long as you work hard enough for it." Read More >>
back to top | |
In a world where a bite of fast food is cheaper than fresh fruits and vegetables, processed goods line the walls of food banks and soup kitchen gruel lacks key nutrients, being low-income means running on a toxin-rich diet. But at the SAME (So All May Eat) Cafe in Denver, Colorado, customers can walk in with empty wallets and leave nourished by healthy, organic food that otherwise would have broken their budgets. Rather than setting prices, the SAME Cafe invites customers to pay whatever price they think is fair or volunteer in exchange for a meal. Fueled by a lot of heart, pay-as-you-can and pay-it-forward restaurants are springing up across the United States, nourishing bodies and souls with food, service, and community. [ 
"You see that? I'm 100 percent. I have the pattern, the risky pattern. In a sense, I'm a born killer." An ironic statement, coming from a neuroscientist who studies the brains of killers. After discovering his own lineage to be wrought with murderers, Jim Fallon peered into his own brain and found that, genetically speaking, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. He found an empty area in his orbital cortex, the part of the brain involved with ethical behavior. But the gentle scholar displays little tendencies towards violence. So what distinguishes Fallon from a psychopath? A nurturing childhood, he believes. While brain chemistry and genes play their part, his research indicates that a caring environment can make all the difference. [ 
From a tiny closet in Mountain View, California, Sal Khan is educating the globe for free. His 1,516 videotaped mini-lectures -- on topics ranging from simple addition to vector calculus and Napoleonic campaigns-- are transforming the former hedge fund analyst into a YouTube sensation, reaping praise from even reluctant students across the world. "I think he rocks. I'm studying pre-algebra and I love it," says 11-year-old Felix Thibodeau of Wilmington, North Carolina. Derek Hoy of Australia's University of Queensland agrees, "I learned more about calculus in the last few hours than in the whole of the last semester at university." Khan envisions a world free of dense textbooks, crowded lecture halls and bored students. With 70,000 people tuning into his lectures every day, his dream seems pretty close to reality. [ 
There are mornings when we rush out of bed in a vague fog. Days that seem to spiral progressively down the drain. But sometimes, all we need to do is stop. Take a breath. And re-discover ourselves in the moment. "Being happier doesn't have to be a long-term ambition," Gretchen Rubin states. "You can start right now." She suggests that little things, like taking a walk outside, doing a good deed, ridding yourself of a nagging task, or even just acting happy can radically transform our moods, boost morale, and energize us for the rest of the day. [ 
It was an unusual sight. A man in tattered clothes limping through school gates with a bundle of brand-new clothes to give away. In an age of rapid technology and rising standards of living- a world where we are told to provide for ourselves before thinking of others- Khimjibhai Prajapati sure knows how to let go. After the downfall of his tea business, Khimjibhai sought refuge as a beggar outside a Jain temple. For the past ten years, he has lived on the alms of passerby, taking just enough for a bit of food and some money to send to his ailing wife. The rest go to the poor, like the instance last Saturday, where he spent his savings to buy clothes for 11 hearing and speech-impaired girls at a nearby school. Bharat Shah, a trustee of the school exclaims, "I have never seen such philanthropy in the 35 years of career." But for Khimjibhai, the principle is simple: "Whether rich or poor, one should always try to help the needy." [ 
"After about an hour I got to a ridge top that I'd never been on before. It was hot. I headed down the ridge, looking for a shady spot to eat my sandwich. I saw a large tree, standing alone, about one hundred yards off the edge of the trail. It had a great view: a vast swath of the East Bay stretching away to San Francisco with the Golden Gate in the distance. Not a bad place to be homeless, I thought." After finishing his sandwich, Tom Weidlinger looked at the tree more closely. He noticed a few small, weathered canvases tucked in between some of the branches. "As far as I could see there was nothing on the canvases except patches of black and grey mold. Whatever had once been painted on the surfaces had apparently been eradicated by sun, rain, and wind. Then I moved closer and picked up the smallest canvas, leaning against the base of the tree trunk. There was something on it after all. Typed in tiny and now faded Courier letters was this inscription: "Welcome to the art of the mind." [ 
