Awe

I love to reminisce. When I get together with friends or family we tell the same stories again and again. Like the time we stared death in the face in…

Keltner and Haidt characterize awe as an experience of vastness and accommodation. Vastness is not hard to understand. We feel it when we look at the stars, when we see…

I am currently enjoying working with several of The Culver Academies’ humanities instructors who are teaching the nuances of John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, the coming of age story of…

Don’t ever let anyone tell you a dream is unreachable. Persistence, stubbornness, passion and heart will fill in the gaps where you need a boost, and you’ll never know how many people you will touch with your spirit, changing their lives as well. Dustin Carter is changing the world, one wrestling match at a time.

Our brains are attics – they have to be, storing all our past stuff. But we live when we can in the dizzy day-room delights of children’s laughter, family chaos, and even work. Spring seems to arrive earlier each year. So we are tempted to spring-clean our brains: let’s not. Let’s leave the attic to gather what dust it will, and let’s freshen the day rooms – the present and the future of our lives.

The design for the opera house was the result of a world-wide competition in 1955-56. Jørn Utzon, a Danish architect submitted the winning design, but it did not meet the criteria of the competition and had drawings described as “simple to the point of being diagrammatic.” One widely reported story about the selection process relates that Utzon’s design was discarded in the initial pass and only reconsidered when a late-arriving judge demanded to see the discarded entries, recognized its genius, and brought it back into consideration.

“Raindrops on roses and Whiskers on kittens Bright copper kettles and Warm woolen mittens” Julie Andrews sang about them. Oprah has them. And so I now want to do a…

Have you ever said something like this to yourself? “I have a dream. I want to do what I love every day. Yet, I don’t know how to get there.…

Today, I picked up Stephen R Covey’s book, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness to read and my attention was immediately riveted. Covey said that the 8th habit was not…

Last Tuesday, the 10th, I participated in a continuing legal education (CLE) program that was the exception to the rule that “war stories” are not good CLE. “War stories” are anecdotes about a trial or other experience in representing a client. Often, these stories, while entertaining, primarily serve to make the storyteller look good. They lack educational value.

Albert Bandura says, “The problem we have in psychology is that we don’t profit from our successes. … we lack implementation models for translating theory into effective practice.” His belief that people learn from role models has evolved into long-running radio or television dramas that exemplify behaviors that contribute to social goals.

            Sports can be a vehicle for happiness. Although the purposes of sports are varied and mean different things to different people, many would agree that organized sport participation can be…

What is this part of the human belief system that wants us to do well, to succeed, and to feel great? It’s the most natural part of who we are. It’s not only ingrained in our bodies and central nervous systems, but it also shows in our beliefs, our actions, and our surroundings. It’s the part of us that has recently come to be studied in a new field called Positive Psychology.