Lifestyle
Alongside taking care of other people and the planet, make sure you take good care of yourself. The Lifestyle section at the Optimist Daily has solutions for everyday wellbeing on topics like food, beauty, fashion, and the latest trends. Curious about caring for houseplants, eating plant-based, or parenting tips? It’s all in there.
Bitcoin’s new competitor to be backed by gold
Digital currency Bitcoin has blazed a new trail away from the established monetary system. In its wake, metals and technology company Anthem Vault is to launch the Hayek on May 25. The new cryptocurrency will be valued at 1 gram of gold at the day's market price, serving “as a more secure store Read More...
Home loans in India help families excluded from formal banking system escape poverty
Informal workers make up more than four fifth of India’s labor force. Many struggle to make ends meet. For them, poverty typically perpetuates since banks don’t invest in poor people living off an informal income. Exclusion from home loans means being forever at the mercy of landowners in the Read More...
Small-business lending: local community's involvement makes banks obsolete
Community Sourced Capital, a startup based in Seattle, WA, connects small businesses with members of the community who are eager to support their local economy. Loans are repaid with no interest, while CSC takes fees. The goal is to step into the space that banks have left vacant since the Read More...
African migrant workers use bitcoin to send money home
When migrant workers send money home to relatives in Africa, they typically pay 12.3 percent to money transmitters. It’s a big business. Overseas Development Institute estimates the total annual fees paid to money transmitters to be $1.4 billion. These businesses have now found a competitor in Read More...
Effortless Meditation: The Spirit of Now
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] By Jurriaan Kamp, Editor-in-Chief [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text] Just as Peter Russell is sitting down on the deck of his houseboat, a great cormorant lands on the tall wooden pole jutting up from the water nearby. Russell’s boat is moored in the Read More...
In praise of dissent
Want to spur innovation, creativity and social justice? Get to know a dissenter. Jeremy Mercer | July/August 2010 issue Mabel Yu didn’t trust the numbers. It was 2006 and Yu was an analyst with The Vanguard Group, a financial firm based in Malvern, Pennsylvania, that manages almost $1 trillion Read More...
Treat life as a workshop to find out who you are
By: Jurriaan Kamp, Editor-in-chief Nigerian novelist Ben Okri tackles the really big questions of our time: inequality, immigration, education and, yes, love. He does this by looking at the world and then deep inside himself until he touches the source of his own truth. We live in an age when sound Read More...