In a Harvard Business Review article, the former U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, was quoted as saying, "Loneliness and weak social connections are associated with a reduction in lifespan similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day and even greater than that associated with obesity. But we haven't…
After I republished my post Kindness & the Common Good in my monthly newsletter, a reader sent me this note I want to share with you: Thank you for this email (newsletter)! I have a constant, inner conversation with myself where I try to be mindful of the point of…
I have frequently written about the power of smiling. When we smile, there is a chemical reaction which causes us to think we are happy, even if we were not feeling happy before that moment. In addition, smiling at others usually causes them to smile back at you. (In fact,…
This is a guest post by Dr. John Izzo. Today we’re constantly bombarded with messaging about how we should live. We’re told to work harder, dress better, be fitter, have better relationships, and show more gratitude. So how are we supposed to decide what really matters in life? The answer…
This is a guest post by Ryan Snow. Screens are everywhere. You can’t make a call or even make your coffee without looking at a screen. After reading Kevin Kelly’s book, The Inevitable, where he writes about the future of screening, I decided to examine my own use of screens.…
In the past, I wrote about Being Present in a Smartphone World. On a related note, I read a piece in the New York Times where they reported on these survey results, which might not be very shocking: We check our phone an average of 47 times a day. Eighty-two…
In an op-ed piece in the New York Times, David Brooks wrote about Pope Francis’ New Year’s Eve commentary that the people who have the most influence on society are “normal folks,” and their everyday gestures of kindness make them “artisans of the common good”. The pope used driving, of…
Because gratitude, happiness, and positive leadership are favorite subjects of my blog posts, I was given the opportunity to read a pre-publication edition of The Kindness Cure, by Tara Cousineau, PhD, which will be published on February 2. "Be Nice" is the second of my Six Simple Rules and when I…
I bought my first iPhone in 2011. I never had a Blackberry, a Palm Pilot, or anything similar—so that iPhone 3G was my first foray into the world of smartphones. I've upgraded it twice since, and now use an iPhone 6. I love my iPhone—just as so many people do.…
I do not attend many religious services over the course of a typical year. There is one service I love attending more than the others. It's an Interfaith Thanksgiving service, held on a rotating basis, in one of a group of participating houses of worship from the towns surrounding where…
This is a guest post by Sara Jacobs Growing up, the kinds of respect I was initially taught were not helpful to me later in my life. For example, I was supposed to respect teachers who would hit me, which made it seem like respect was born out of fear.…
I love reading. And I love books. I haven't switched over to e-books yet, and I'm not sure if I will. Over the years, I've kept bookshelves full of the books I read. There were three reasons why I collected books: I liked how they looked on my bookshelves. I…