When you pour love into the earth, you’ll get love in return. That’s the powerful perspective of Robin Wall Kimmerer, who marries the scientific knowledge of botany with her indigenous background to tackle sustainability and conservation. Kimmerer says we need to cultivate a healthy relationship with Mother Nature, just like any mother and child. We […]
MLK, in His Own Words
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a famous proponent of peaceful protest. What many people don’t realize is that the civil rights leader took a long time to come around to recognizing nonviolent resistance as a powerful tool for social change. As a college student, King was skeptical of the power of love to cure social ills. He […]
Everyone Deserves the Benefit of the Doubt
For centuries, humans have operated under the notion that we are inherently selfish, violent, and evil. What if this belief is a self-fulfilling prophecy? We need to put the “kind” back in humankind. Author Rutger Bregman says that humans are in fact kind by nature. We are hardwired to do good. One problem is that […]
Reframe Your Setbacks
The ancient Stoics knew that setbacks in life are inevitable. In fact, Stoics believed that setbacks were challenges from the gods to test their ability to deal with adversity. By viewing setbacks as tests of resilience and resourcefulness instead of sheer misfortune, Stoics stayed calm and happy in the face of adversity. Think of it this way: we can’t […]
Should We Legalize Heroin?
Should recreational drugs like heroin and cocaine be legalized? Dr. Carl L. Hart, a professor at Columbia University, makes a compelling case for decriminalization in Drug Use for Grown-Ups. The US government has been embroiled in the War on Drugs since the 1970s. But even with these expensive efforts, the number of Americans who use drugs has […]
Go Ahead, Blame Someone Else
What if your deepest fears, most destructive behaviors, and worst failures aren’t your fault? A new area of scientific research called epigenetics suggests that the traumas of our parents, grandparents, and earlier ancestors may manifest in our daily lives. Any repeating pattern of emotion, including depression and anxiety, may be a tendency you inherited from […]
The Worst Pandemic in Modern History
Piles of bodies. Coffin shortages. Mass graves. The great influenza pandemic infected roughly one in three people—and killed tens of millions of victims around the world. The virus was, in many ways, something that nobody in the medical field had seen before. Victims experienced symptoms so suddenly, and so violently, that many could pinpoint the […]
10 Predictions from Fareed Zakaria
Wondering what the world is going to be like post-COVID? Fareed Zakaria has two words for you: Buckle up. One thing that the pandemic has made clear is that as much as we are globally connected, each country is very much on its own. No one nation can shape the trajectory of the planet. Today, […]
A New Threat Against Kids
Nadine Burke Harris, a pediatrician, was running a free clinic in a poor neighborhood in San Francisco when she made a horrible discovery. It had already been widely documented that poor communities have suboptimal health outcomes. But Harris’s realization went a step farther: she realized there was a harrowing connection between childhood trauma and medical […]
Why the Pandemic Didn’t Change Anything
COVID-19 didn’t really change anything, according to Scott Galloway. It just accelerated existing trends. Tech companies like Amazon and Netflix that dominated their industries pre-pandemic are even more popular (and profitable) now. As you may have heard, Jeff Bezos increased his fortune by more than $35 billion in a single month. That’s all well and […]
