Sunday, December 5, 2010 Not Your Grandfather's Retirement  Retirement: Golf, knitting, rocking chairs, ...and changing the world? While notions of retirement have traditionally conjured up images of relaxing, traveling, and enjoying leisure time and recreation, more and more people at the age of retirement are committing the second half of their lives to projects that serve society. This year's recipients of the Purpose Prize, an award that honors people over 60 who combine their experience and passion for social good, include helping AIDS orphans in Tanzania, helping the homeless, and planting trees in Afghanistan. Read More >>
back to top  Saturday, December 4, 2010 Couple Gives Away Lottery Winnings  What would you do if you won 11.3 million dollars? If you're Allen and Violet Large, you give it away. The couple discovered they had won the jackpot last July, while Violet was undergoing chemotherapy therapy for cancer. "That money we won was nothing," Allen explains with tears in his eyes. "We have each other." Since July, they've given almost all of it away, first taking care of a family in need, and then donating to two-pages' worth of groups like the Salvation Army. Their rationale? The money was a "headache". It brought anxiety that people would take advantage of them. But more than that, "Money can't buy you health or happiness." Violet smiles. Read More >>
back to top Friday, December 3, 2010 How a Wandering Mind Affects Your Mood  When researchers at Harvard University tracked the happiness level of iPhone users, they discovered that, for almost half of our waking hours, our minds are wandering. Using an iPhone app, participants rated their happiness on a scale of 0-100 and included what they were doing, and whether their mind was wandering beyond the task at hand. The results reveal that a wandering mind has a bigger influence on happiness than any other activity a person happens to be doing. Such wandering minds appeared to cause unhappiness, even with people were doing the least enjoyable activities, like daily work. Perhaps the more able we are to stay in the present, and resist the temptation to follow our minds down its endless paths, the happier we may find ourselves. Read More >>
back to top Thursday, December 2, 2010 Facebook Friends Save Hermit Crabs  Leanne Sarco, a ranger at Grand Isle State Park located on a barrier island off the coast of Louisiana, remembers the day she discovered oil in her lagoons, after the April 20 explosion of a BP oil rig. While countless government, university and wildlife organizations drew up plans to solve the litany of complex problems created by the huge spill, Ms. Sarco thought small. She decided her best contribution was to collect, wash, and release into safer waters hermit crabs, the most neglected creature in the area. She assembled a small army to help and with the help of Facebook, turned her small army into about 150 volunteers from as far away as California and Quebec. To date, they have collected about 7,000 crabs, scrubbed them of oil, and released them into a saltwater marsh about 15 miles inland. And the help has "really saved [her] from quitting." Read More >>
back to top Wednesday, December 1, 2010 Bangladesh Prisoners Meditate  At first glance, a room filled with a group of people practicing meditation may not look unusual. But the men and women who are sitting calmly, trying to focus their minds, are a little different from most. They are prisoners in the central jail in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, serving sentences for committing violent crimes. Their objective? To reduce anxiety and make a new beginning. This is the first time prison officials in Bangladesh have introduced a meditation program for inmates. As meditation trainers play audio that teaches them how to focus their minds, prisoners follow the instructions dutifully and peacefully. Both male and female inmates have been given a chance to try meditation - not only to lower their stress levels but also to give them a chance to reform and succeed in the outside world. Read More >>
back to top Tuesday, November 30, 2010 An Indicator of Genuine Progress?  When it comes to economic growth, bigger is better. Or so says the mainstream wisdom. But more and more people -- including, increasingly, governments -- are realizing that equating growth with quality of life is to follow a broken compass toward a host of social and ecological problems. The state of Maryland recently announced the launch of the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), an alternative economic indicator that will allow the state to keep track of which activities actually contribute to quality of life -- and which detract from it. The GPI will take into account 26 different quality of life indicators, putting price estimates, in dollars, on the negative and positive impacts of economic growth. The indicator considers, for example, the future costs of climate change and the strain of income inequality on social services; it also accounts for the value created by volunteerism and forest preservation. Already, the GPI is telling a very different story about the connection between economic growth and quality of life. Read More >>
back to top Monday, November 29, 2010 James George: On Waking Up to Life  International diplomat, author and visionary environmentalist James George was just about to get married at the age of 86. At an age when most people are on the way out, James George is fully engaged in the urgent task of waking people up. "You see, Consciousness is permeating human beings to the degree that it can, but we're not receptive. We're not allowing that penetration. Our fixed ideas, our cultural conditioning, are shedding consciousness like a raincoat sheds water! We're not getting the shower of blessings that we could, at any moment. Even in the course of this conversation, there has been a good deal of floundering, but at times something has come through. I don't feel what I've said is just from Jim George. The only decent stuff is coming through Consciousness itself. The same for you, isn't it?" Read More >>
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During a winter semester at college a young student found himself struggling through a particularly dull class, "He (the professor) was terribly ill at ease, barely looking up at us students through his gold rimmed glasses. I felt that I needed to do something to stem the boredom that would ensue in his lecture, so I created a little game for myself." That "game" resulted in a quiet, yet profound life-lesson that speaks to the power of thoughtful questions. [ 
On the way back from work every evening, a homeless man would often be at the exit of the freeway. His eyes were brown and had a sparkle, like an inside light beaming out of his eyes. He always waved at every car, he was always happy and smiling and sometimes almost dancing. A feeling of joy would come over me every time I saw him, as I came off the ramp. He had that effect. Then one day, I was laid off due to the economy. With no job and no savings, I worried about providing for my four amazing kids. On my drive home, I did not prepare the usual change and did not feel the joy approaching the off-ramp. Yet there he was, as always, as I turned the ramp. And he taught me to count my blessings. [ 
Could a simple five-minute interaction with another person dramatically increase your weekly productivity? In some employment environments, the answer is yes, according to Wharton management professor Adam Grant. Grant has devoted significant chunks of his professional career to examining what motivates workers in settings that range from call centers and mail-order pharmacies to swimming pool lifeguard squads. In all these situations, Grant says, employees who know how their work has a meaningful, positive impact on others are not just happier than those who don't; they are vastly more productive, too. [ 
'A Passion For Giving' is a stylish, powerful and beautifully shot film with great music and compelling interviews with fascinating people, some famous some not, who inspire the viewer to give and help other people, animals and the planet. It reinforces the notion that anyone has the capacity to give, not just those with disposable income. From a Tibetan monk to a New York City street artist, this film excerpt demonstrates various methods by which a seemingly effortless gesture can prove very beneficial to society. [ 
It's iconic, a symbol of British-ness the world over: the red telephone box. But they are disappearing as fast as you can say "cell phone." With 85 percent of adult Brits using mobile phones, these booths are rapidly becoming obsolete. Now they are being recycled for astonishing and eccentric uses. The empty, often vandalized phone boxes are a huge expense for British Telecom (BT), so they have been giving them to communities; they are about to give their 1,000th one away. BT held a competition to determine the most unique usages, which include renting it to local community people for a week to make their own exhibits, posting poems, a vegetable swap and magazine swap location. [ 
Just six months after undergoing open heart surgery, John Stamler crossed the finish line of the New York City Marathon. Stamler, however, did not just run for himself. He ran to raise awareness and funds for an organization that helped him through the difficulties and isolation of his rare condition. Diagnosed with a condition so rare that it just affects 0.00004% of the US population (or about 120 people), Ben had to struggle to find a solution. Fortunately, he succeeded. But now he's decided to use the Internet to connect people struggling with conditions like his. [ 
