How do you build a safe and healthy life that both helps other people and our planet and is full of friends, fun, meaning and purpose? On this page, I continue the conversation about the Good Life that began with my No Impact Man blog, book and film. Are you, like so many of us, also looking for the kind of life that makes you happier and helps the world? Because I really hope you’ll join the conversation!
If you want a life of meaning and purpose, you have to be willing to quit what feels meaningless and purposeless. But if you quit things that are meaningless and purposeless, you leave room for things that have meaning and purpose. Do you think it’s wrong to quit? I used to. I stayed in relationships Read more
The purpose of life is to find the seed of your own compassion and then to help grow that seed in others, says Zen Master Soeng Hyang. My daughter agrees…
What is the purpose of life? That may change from moment to moment. But helping others to be able to live out their purpose, too, is probably a big part of it.
Here is the unifying theory for living a good life and helping the world that summarizes everything I wrote in my book How To Be Alive: Give more energy to what is True for you; give less energy to what is not True for you.
What if, in conflict, we thought as no person is our enemy? What if it is misunderstanding, extreme desire and anger that cause poor behavior? Then, are not misunderstanding, extreme desire and anger are our only enemies? So if we want to stop conflict, shouldnt we reduce misunderstanding, extreme desire and anger?
I call this one, “Full Moon On The Water On The Night My Mom Died.”
Here is a poem that comes from the funeral ceremony of the Zen tradition of which I am a part. It is called The Human Route Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed – that is human.When you are born, where do you come from?When you die, where do you go?Life is like a floating cloud which appears.Death Read more
So when my mom was dying, I’d go and visit her in the morning and then take a break and then go visit her in the afternoon again. One day, I was listening to Bonnie Raitt I Can’t Make You Love Me in the car on the way back to her hospital bed. I got Read more
Visiting my mom, she didn’t say much when I arrived. She seemed to want to doze. I got my computer out to pay her bills while she napped. Then I thought twice. I thought, before I go to bill paying, I’d ask if there was anything she needed to discuss. “Yes,” she said, suddenly alert. Read more
