Sangha of Auspicious Companions

May 22, 2012

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Is Our Hunger For Scale Starving Real Growth?

“For years, I’ve wrestled with living the ‘less-is-more’ life in a world that seems to be busting at its seams — in every way — financially, physically, psychologically. There’s a need, it seems, to acquire and expand. And it’s not just in our personal and material lives. Startups want to scale — that’s the most critical stage for them. Nonprofits need to collect data for ‘impact’ reports, illustrating how their ideas are not only innovative, but scalable. Can we turn away? Can we build a new scale — a smaller, more humble, dustier scale in touch with the roughness of the earth, with the struggles of our neighbors, within the limits of the tilled earth? Can we have dreams that look inward, deepening ourselves and our ties with each other, rather than scaling outward? Perhaps that means we need to rethink growth.” { read more }

Be The Change

Instead of bigger, faster, and stronger, focus your efforts today on actions that are more appropriate, skillful and meaningful.

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May 21, 2012

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How I Changed My Life, In Four Lines

“Changing your life can seem an incredibly tough and complicated thing, especially if you’ve failed a great number of times (like I did), found it too hard, and resigned yourself to not changing. But I found a way to change. And I’m not any better than anyone else, not more disciplined, not more motivated. I just learned a few simple principles that changed my life. So what are the principles that changed my life, repeatedly? […] If you read the brief stories above, you already know: 1. Start very small. 2. Do only one change at a time. 3. Be present and enjoy the activity (don’t focus on results). 4. Be grateful for every step you take.” Leo Babauta shares more. { read more }

Be The Change

Apply these tips to changes you want to make: start small with one step at a time, and be present to and grateful for each step.

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May 20, 2012

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The Science of ‘Social Jet Lag’

“‘Six hours’ sleep for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a fool,’ Napoleon famously prescribed. (He would have scoffed at Einstein, then, who was known to require ten hours of sleep for optimal performance.) This perceived superiority of those who can get by on less sleep isn’t just something Napoleon shared with dictators like Hitler and Stalin, it’s an enduring attitude woven into our social norms and expectations, from proverbs about early birds to the basic scheduling structure of education and the workplace. But in ‘Internal Time: Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag, and Why You’re So Tired,’ German chronobiologist Till Roenneberg demonstrates through a wealth of research that our sleep patterns have little to do with laziness and other such scorned character flaws, and everything to do with biology.” Maria Popova shares further. { read more }

Be The Change

Tonight, sleep for the amount of time that feels right to you.

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May 19, 2012

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Can Better Data End Global Poverty?

“Do free bed nets in some countries lead to more cases of malaria? Could anti-parasite pills raise school attendance in one country and have no effect in another? How cheap does preventative care have to be for low-income families to see the doctor? There might not be a perfect way to answer these thorny questions on a country-by-country basis. But some leading scientists think the most rigorous answer comes from what they call “randomized controlled trials.” Last year, Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, published a book called Poor Economics (…) it stakes a larger claim against ‘grand universal answers’ and ‘sweeping conclusions’ about poverty.” A leading development economist speaks on the virtues and limitations of a data-driven approach to healing the world’s most intractable problems. { read more }

Be The Change

“Finding non-zero sum solutions to our social problems requires all the imagination we can muster.” A short passage by Alvin Toffler.

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May 18, 2012

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Can Positive Thoughts Help Heal Another?

For decades, scientists have tried to test the power of prayer and positive thinking, with mixed results. Now some scientists are fording new — and controversial — territory. Gail Ironson an AIDS researcher from the University of Miami noticed that a number of patients with HIV inexplicably never got sick. In trying to understand why, she discovered something surprising. “If you ask people what’s kept you going so long, what keeps you healthy, often people would say spirituality,” she says. “It was something that just kept coming up in the interviews, and that’s why I decided to look at it.” Ironson began to zero in on a patient’s relationship with God in an attempt to predict how fast the disease would progress. This NPR article shares more about her intriguing research and findings. { read more }

Be The Change

Practice witnessing your thoughts today, and consciously sending goodwill to others in your life. Notice if it has an impact on you.

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