Hope is a very important part of community development. If it is not nurtured on a daily basis, all the negativity we are bombarded with will take over. And there is a lot of negativity, both obvious (the news) and obscure (ads implying that we are not good enough without said product or service). But… Read More Community Development: How to Maintain Hope
Back in March, I posted a piece on how certain structures of our society encourage us to live in a state of constant discontent. I was thinking about how, at whatever stage we were in—single, dating, engaged, married, with one child—we were always prodded about “the next thing” that we should be aiming for. It… Read More The “Just Wait” Phenomena: Why Can’t We Build A Different Future?
Last week’s post on cultural appropriation inspired some very interesting conversations. Most interesting was the fact that most reactions came from well-meaning individuals who work hard on eliminating prejudices from their day-to-day lives. It’s difficult for people like us to realise that, despite all the time, energy, and love we put into this cause, we… Read More Cultural Appropriation: Contextualizing our Work to Eliminate All Prejudices
Continuing with my established tradition to refer to inaccurate numbers when writing posts for this blog, I would like to share a totally made up and very vague statistic: that most people in the world are nice. At least of the people that I know and interact with regularly, most are. From the members of… Read More The Most Peaceful Anti-Trolling Movement Ever: Go Forth and Comment, Kind People!
The advantages of journaling have long been touted. On the scientific side, studies list its many health benefits. On the spiritual side, it can help us bring ourselves into account each day. There is also the sheer pleasure of putting pen to paper which might be linked to the number of beautiful journals (here, here,… Read More Journaling: Fleeing Mordor to Seek the Safety of the Shire
Anything that negatively affects a person’s quality of life is worth collectively arising to eradicate. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) – referred to as Lou Gehrig’s Disease because, quite simply, Lou Gehrig had it – is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord, increasingly affecting the ability of… Read More From Event to Process: The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge as the Beginning of Lasting Change
The process of refining one’s character is a highly exciting one, but isn’t always easy. While there are a lot of great tools that help us along, there are also many pitfalls we can get stuck behind. There seem to be a lot of self-empowering messages in North American society. Some of the first ones… Read More The Shady Friend that is Leniency