I thought I had always been fully committed to this work of human transformation. But when I study my own lifeline and do some truth telling, it’s clear that I’ve taken more than a few detours. I haven’t exactly blazed a straight path towards enlightenment, nor have I accomplished a mountain of social good.
The crabs and kelp and eels are all gone. The mind searches for the cause – to understand, to blame, and then to fix – but in a complex non-linear system, it is often impossible to isolate causes. This quality of complex systems collides with our culture’s general approach to problem-solving, which is first to identify the cause, the culprit, the germ, the pest, the badguy, the disease, the wrong idea, or the bad personal quality, and second to dominate, defeat, or destroy that culprit.
“Don’t kill. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Don’t screw with someone else’s happiness....” The 10 Commandments are not high spiritual values. In fact, they cater to the lowest common denominator of a species that had just begun to realize it had higher capacities than did the animals all around it.
The conversations usually play out something like this: “something something and she is going to save the world” or “something something, so now he is going out to save the world.” The phrase “save the world” makes me want to scream.
When you have to switch tasks at work, making a plan to return to and finish the task you’re leaving can help you better focus on the new, interrupting work, according to new research.
The “great dream” of owning your own home is rapidly proving to be an illusion for many in the early 21st century.
- By Ira Israel
There is no plan B. It is up to us to break the chains of unskillful solutions that were handed down to us, to consciously decide who we want to be, what type of relationships will nourish us, and what type of world we care to live in.
Blue Monday is fast approaching – January 15. It’s “the most depressing day of the year”, when we are all at our most melancholy according to psychologist Cliff Arnall. The post-Christmas January blues have set in and it’s peak month for divorce lawyers and job searching...
Disapproval of qualities people often associate with immorality such as selfishness, dishonesty, sexual infidelity, and mercilessness is conditional, rather than universal, according to a new study.
We frequently speak of our feelings as if we are them. You hear it in our patterns of speech: “I am angry,” as if to say, “I am anger.” However, feelings naturally arise as passing states of awareness and are not part of us. Rather, they give feedback and then expire.
- By Alan Cohen
Do you feel like you are wasting time and energy spinning your wheels with little or no results? Do you wonder why some people just keep winning while others can’t get onto the boards? Would you like to maximize your social, financial, and spiritual returns while minimizing your effort?
Many of us have decided that things will be different this year. We’ll eat better, get more exercise, save more money or finally get around to decluttering those closets.
It’s not trite to set New Year's intentions, especially if they make your life brighter. Set some intentions and goals for the coming year. The idea is to shift your attention away from your shortcomings, bad decisions and behaviors, and just focus on making yourself, your best self.
What do you really, really want in your life right now? Here’s a way to find out when you’re not sure...
Notice how much time you devote to worrying about a problem vs. how much time you devote to developing a vision for the solution. I’m referring to your inner dialogue, the thoughts that stream constantly in that conversation you have with yourself.
Republicans recently announced their tax plan and are hoping to turn it into law before Thanksgiving. While details are in flux, it would likely eliminate the estate tax, lower the top marginal rate and slash corporate rates, producing, in sum, what the president has dubbed a “gigantic” tax cut.
As the age turns, millions of people are pioneering a transition from the old world to the new. It is a journey fraught with peril and hardship and breathtaking discovery, a journey irreducibly unique for each of us. Because we are stepping out into the new, it is also profoundly uncertain and at times lonely.
- By Eric Leber
To perform, whether surgery or dance, we must practice. We practice doing what we cannot do. By giving ourselves wholly to practicing we may transcend practicing, and find ourselves playing, with mind, body, heart and soul fully surrendered.
Sometimes, things just go our way. We call it luck or we attribute it to simply having a good day, but in truth, we have been given a glimpse of the actual nature of the universe. If only for the moment, our state of being pulls to us this divine experience of synchronicity. There is rhyme and reason to...
Happiness is the subject of countless quotations, slogans, self-help books and personal choices. It is also being taken seriously by national governments and organisations like the United Nations, as something societies should aim for.
Why is it that the typical American feels stressed and increasingly unhealthy? Why has public discourse grown so toxic that some are suggesting violence as the solution to our current political problems?
“I don’t know. It’s unbelievable. It’s amazing,” said Dodgers outfielder Enrique “Kiké” Hernandez after game 5 of the National League Championship Series, when he became the first Dodger in the team’s 134-year history to hit three home runs in a postseason game.
Many people see marketing as a form of manipulation, particularly around Christmas and the other retail bonanzas: Easter, Valentine’s Day, Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day. But rather than simply trying to trick people, the masters of marketing know it’s much easier to understand and work with innate human flaws.