Almost every day I hear from a friend who’s feeling overwhelmed by the pace at which life is coming at them. So many of us are struggling to find ways to avoid becoming disheartened by the immensity of what is required to keep our emotional and physical bodies above water.…

Recently I was asked to be part of a beta-test of a time management program, headed up by a friend of mine. It was easy for me to say yes to her 8-week program because I’m always feeling the effects of too much to do in too little time. There…

Seth Godin is an American author, entrepreneur, marketer, and public speaker. He’s primarily a consultant for business, and I subscribe to his blog, where he posts several times a month. He offers usually short and often pithy and inspiring reminders to pay attention and practice deep noticing. Reading a recent blog,…

We’ve all heard the phrase, “If you are not worried then you are not paying attention.” No doubt there is much that is grabbing our attention that is worth deep consideration and action. But worry may not be the best course on which to set our internal GPS. As the…

Probably like you, my email and mailbox are bulging with reports on current political, environmental, social, and technological happenings. Each week my heart swings like a pendulum between indignation and hope. As I tune into the daily news reports, I often feel like flotsam tossed on a relentless sea of…

I record all my television shows for watching later. It’s important to me to be able to choose my own schedule. But more than that, I want to be able to fast-forward through the ads. Most ads feel like an insult to our intelligence and I resist being a consumer…

Journalist and author Krista Tippett, in her book Becoming Wise, writes, “Spiritual life is a way of dwelling with perplexity – taking it seriously, searching for its purpose as well as its perils, its beauty as well as its ravages.” And that is where I often find myself when it…

I’m always amazed when I’m with someone who knows how to ask genuinely compelling questions—the kind of questions that can be of true service. We’ve all had moments of being with friends who are going through a bad patch and we want to be of help, but we don’t know…

In a recent interview with poet and philosopher Mark Nepo, I was moved by his story of a competitive bicyclist’s encounter with a great blue heron. He said, “There is a cyclist who’s training very hard for a demanding race that is like the Tour de France. He’s very serious and…

In the year 2000, physicist Freeman Dyson was being awarded the Templeton Prize, which honors a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works. Freeman Dyson is a physicist and mathematician and Professor Emeritus at the Institute for…