TED Talk: What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness.
If you think it’s fame and money, you’re not alone – but, according to psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, you’re mistaken. As the director of a 75-year-old study on adult development, Waldinger has unprecedented access to data on true happiness and satisfaction. In this talk, he shares three important lessons learned from the study as well as some practical, old-as-the-hills wisdom on how to build a fulfilling, long life.
Robert Waldinger is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and Zen priest. He is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest-running studies of adult life ever done. The Study tracked the lives of two groups of men for over 75 years, and it now follows their Baby Boomer children to understand how childhood experience reaches across decades to affect health and wellbeing in middle age. He writes about what science and Zen can teach us about healthy human development.
Science has a long and storied history of looking for one thing but finding something better instead. Penicillin, radioactivity, science boxes…I mean microwave ovens — all of these discoveries came in the the search for something else. Researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee announced that they too had unintentionally discovered something incredible: a means of transforming carbon dioxide directly into ethanol using a single catalyst…
Read the rest of the article by Andrew Tarantola in Engadget.
Once a year, tens of thousands of participants gather to create Black Rock City in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance. They depart one week later, having created unbelievable artistic experiences, and having left no trace whatsoever.
Our mission is to produce the annual event known as “Burning Man” and to guide, nurture and protect the more permanent community created by its culture. Our intention is to generate society that connects each individual to his or her creative powers, to participation in community, to the larger realm of civic life, and to the even greater world of nature that exists beyond society.
We believe that the experience of Burning Man can produce positive spiritual change in the world. To this end, it is equally important that we communicate with one another, with the citizens of Black Rock City and with the community of Burning Man wherever it may arise. Burning Man is radically inclusive, and its meaning is potentially accessible to anyone.
The touchstone of value in our culture will always be immediacy: experience before theory, moral relationships before politics, survival before services, roles before jobs, embodied ritual before symbolism, work before vested interest, participant support before sponsorship.
Finally, in order to accomplish these ends, Burning Man must endure as a self-supporting enterprise that is capable of sustaining the lives of those who dedicate themselves to its work. From this devotion spring those duties that we owe to one another. We will always burn the Man.
This information comes from the website of Burning Man.
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Your intuition tells you there’s more to our story, something you’re not finding in your current paradigm. You can feel it in your bones. We are all connected, we’re part of something greater, and there is something more meaningful in this life that’s not present in our daily routines.
Your intuition is right.
Gaia is here with some new ideas and the world’s largest resource of conscious media to – well – empower the evolution of consciousness. That’s a rather massive vision, but truthfully, it’s why we do what we do at Gaia. We want to create a new reality, one of mindful people living in harmony with our environment and each other.
And with you, we can do it. Thank you for being here.
We promise to light the fire if you will carry the torch.
Humanity’s Team is a global spiritual movement whose purpose is to embody the timeless truth of Oneness, which is essential for responding to the world’s most chronic and acute challenges, and vital for creating a sustainable world of peace and harmony. We believe Oneness is the energy of love that lies within and connects all of life, allowing us to recognize ourselves in everything. Supported by our profound respect for cultural diversity and responsibility for all of life, we pledge to transform the face of humanity in one generation through living our lives with purpose, each being a loving presence, developing heart-centered personal transformation and leadership programs, and the mindful use of the 5 Steps to Peace.
We in Humanity’s Team see a healing truth in who we are — a truth that heals ourselves, our relationships, our communities and our world. We see that we are all part of the Divine and one with all of life.
This is not a new idea. Prophets, messengers, saints and sages have shared this message since the beginning of time. It is shared in the Indian Vedas, in the Old and New Testaments, in most other sacred texts. Oneness is also a hypothesis by quantum physicists and other scientists who say life is a unified whole with multiple dimensions, each complementing the other.
We Are All One is the one idea that truly changes everything. When we see the Divine and Self in each other, we cannot help but nurture, love and support the other. When we embrace and embody our Oneness, we naturally care for the other person, place or thing. The Divine and Self are in all of the other, so nothing is left out…
The Parliament of the World’s Religions was created to cultivate harmony among the world’s religious and spiritual communities and foster their engagement with the world and its guiding institutions in order to achieve a just, peaceful and sustainable world.
To accomplish this, we invite individuals and communities who are equally invested in attaining this goal.
Our Vision
The vision of the Parliament of the World’s Religions is of a just, peaceful and sustainable world in which:
Religious and spiritual communities live in harmony and contribute to a better world from their riches of wisdom and compassion.
Religious and cultural fears and hatreds are replaced with understanding and respect.
People everywhere come to know and care for their neighbors.
The richness of human and religious diversity is woven into the fabric of communal, civil, societal and global life.
The world’s most powerful and influential institutions move beyond narrow self-interest to realize common good.
The Earth and all life are cherished, protected, healed and restored.
All people commit to living out their highest values and aspirations.
Compassion Games International offers fun and creative ways to ignite and catalyze compassionate action in communities around the world. In the five annual Compassion Games, competition becomes coopetition as teams and individuals challenge one another to strive together to make our planet a better place to live through community service, acts of kindness, and raising monies for local causes. The Games amplify what is already working in our communities and inspires increased engagement, leading to new activities that bring compassion to life and improve our well-being.
CGI 2015 Timeline-2The Compassion Games adapt creatively to any community who wants to embrace and play them. Since 2012, players of the Compassion Games have served over 1,500,000 people in 34 countries by more than 400,000 volunteer players. The Games have been played between cities, businesses, faith and interfaith organizations, schools, and even prisons. Participating teams in the Compassion Games perform acts of kindness and service, reporting on the number of volunteers, hours of service, money raised for local causes, and the number of people served, providing measurable results that can be improved upon, year after year…
Cone shaped spinning solar cells generates 20 times more electricity than flat solar panels. Every now and then a design comes along that just turns he whole world upside down with a claim so fantastic it’s hard to believe. But yes, from everything we’ve been able to find on this device, this the real deal.
It’s a conical shaped collection of photovoltaic cells arranged in an angular array. The array is designed to be the most efficient way to capture the sun’s energy. In traditional solar arrays with flat panels, one must adjust the angle of the solar panels individually. This design takes advantage of a conical shape which is conducive to collecting maximum sunlight from any angle at any time of year.
