Phil Zimbardo’s Secret Power of Time and What It Means for Our Kids

Posted on January 17, 2011 by zoeweil

Take a look at this RSA Animate video of Phil Zimbardo’s The Secret Power of Time. As I watched this, I wondered what it would take for all of us to have a healthy balance of past, present, and future orientation so that we would all be able to learn from and appreciate our pasts, [...]

Filed under: balance, critical thinking, education, joy, mindfulness, perspective, videos | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Be the Campfire, Not the Forest Fire

Posted on November 17, 2010 by zoeweil

There’s a metaphor I like to use when talking to fellow activists. I ask them to imagine two fires. The first is a campfire in an opening in the woods. The fire is warm and bright and draws people toward it. They are eager to find a place around the fire, and their beautiful faces [...]

Filed under: balance, changemakers, citizen activism, compassion, humane education, Inner Peace, mindfulness | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Go Out and Seton Watch!

Posted on July 16, 2010 by zoeweil

In my last post I wrote about Seton watching, a form of nature observation in which one sits quietly and observes a small window in the natural world for at least 20 minutes. I’ve chosen to do this daily at our pond, and it’s been amazing what I have observed. I recently wrote about observing [...]

Filed under: balance, Inner Peace, nature, reverence | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

10 Principles for a MOGO Life

Posted on March 5, 2010 by zoeweil

At the end of my book, Most Good, Least Harm, I offer ten principles for a MOGO life. I’ve reprinted them below as a follow up to my last two blog posts. I hope you find them helpful. 1. Commit to the 3 Is: inquire, introspect, and live with integrity. Expose yourself to information and [...]

Filed under: balance, citizen activism, humane education, Inner Peace, integrity, MOGO (Most Good), values | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Save and Savor: Reflections on Sy Safransky’s Notebook #1

Posted on January 4, 2010 by zoeweil

I was reading Sy Safransky’s Notebook in The Sun magazine this morning. I love this page of my favorite magazine, in which the editor, Sy Safransky, shares short thoughts through individual paragraphs about a range of ideas and experiences. Sy’s writing is always thought-provoking and often moving, and today’s page was so much so that [...]

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Finding the Balance Between Productivity-Obsession and Pleasure-Seeking

Posted on September 18, 2009 by zoeweil

An article in the September-October issue of Harvard Magazine begins, “For all the hand-wringing over their failure to amass savings, Americans may actually be too disciplined.” The article explores the research of Anat Keinan , a professor at Harvard Business School, which reveals that Americans are often too productivity-obsessed, “viewing pleasurable pastimes as wasteful, irresponsible, [...]

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Humane Educator’s Paradox

Posted on June 2, 2008 by zoeweil

It’s painful to learn about the terrible injustices and cruelties in the world. Sometimes, the more we know, the more hopeless we become. Even when we also learn about the great courage, generosity, wisdom, and dedication of countless changemakers, even when we see success in their efforts to create new systems that solve the great [...]

Filed under: balance, humane education, positive choices | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Equinox

Posted on March 20, 2008 by zoeweil

We are a species that often gravitates toward poles, toward thinking in either/ors, toward duality. We talk more about night and day than that crepuscular time of in-between. We often castigate our political candidates for nuance and ambivalence, preferring strong rhetoric that comes with black and white thinking, rather than complex analysis that is often [...]

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