The Optimist Living
Start investing in a greener world now
If your money could talk, what would you like it to say? How about that it’s proudly contributing to support or influence business and public policy to create a greener, more sustainable world? Here are five tips to simply point you in the right direction, or act as reminders of what you already Read More...
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Kailash Satyarthi: use your anger to change the world
Anger can be a very good thing. Like when sheer outrage led human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Kailash Satyarthi to free 83,000 children from slavery. “For centuries, we were taught anger is bad. Everyone taught us to control and suppress our anger. But I ask ‘why’? Why Read More...
Connect to your power to create successful habits
Blog posts and literature abound the characteristics of successful people—all commendable traits that one wants, or thinks one ought, to emulate in order to achieve comparable success. This conversation with Gretchen Rubin, the author of The Happiness Project, provides a lively, no-nonsense entry Read More...
Redesigning culture to incorporate today's longer lifespan
Life expectancy is at the all-time high of 79 years. As many baby boomers can attest, aging doesn’t have to be a painful, miserable affair. Many of us, actually, are enjoying good physical and mental health well into retirement age. While some people are happy enjoying years-long vacation and Read More...
3 easy steps to tame the "monkey mind"
Mind chatter, or “monkey mind”, is all too familiar to most of us. We have the awareness of this loud, distracting—at times destructive—voice in our head. And we are also aware that keeping a steady meditation practice is a fantastic way to keep it in check so that it doesn’t control us. Read More...
How foreign experiences stimulate the brain and foster creativity
“Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind,” Roman philosopher Seneca famously wrote. Two thousand years later, scientists are able to prove him right. A recent study published in the Academy of Management Journal establishes a direct correlation between travel and creativity. Read More...
Eliminating food waste takes some fun creativity—and a lot of mindfulness
It is no mystery that about 40% of food in America gets wasted. To put things in perspective, a third of the food produced globally gets spoiled or squandered before it even reaches consumers, according to the FAO’s conservative estimates. Taking this point even further, let’s stress here that Read More...
Fun may just be the secret of a lasting commitment to exercise
Many of us find that juggling professional imperatives, family demands, tight schedules and nerve-racking deadlines, is not conducive to carving time out on a regular, consistent basis to take care of oneself. Good resolutions fall by the wayside before they’ve even made it to the kitchen white Read More...
How I save $24k a year growing my own food
Disclaimer: having access to a half-acre piece of land and enjoying the kind of year-round, growing-season climate that South Carolina (or California) provides, helps. This being said, this story of self-taught hobbyist gardeners who have turned their backyard into an extraordinarily productive, Read More...
4 simple steps to forge new habits
We all wish we could make changes in our lives. The good news is, we can! We are in control of so much, and yet we behave like we don’t have a choice. We make excuses. We beat ourselves up or complain that we eat poorly, don’t exercise enough, don’t crack open that French textbook. Or we Read More...