Link: Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus

Link: If You Want To Be a Rebel, Be Kind

The police had declared Monday, November 14th of 2011 as the day of the raid on the Occupy Oakland encampment. It was the first Occupy site to call for a general strike that shut down the fifth largest port in the country; it was also the first Occupy gathering to report a shooting and a murder, as police violence also reached new heights. With tensions mounting amidst political chaos, police escalated their violent crackdowns and the narrative of fear. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent in preparation for the raid, police from around the state were called in, and uncertainty filled the air.

The night before, Pancho Ramos Stierle heard about growing tensions in the community and thought, "If police are stepping up their violence, we need to go and step up our nonviolence." So on that Monday morning at 3:30AM, Pancho and his housemate Adelaja went to the site of the Occupy Oakland raid. With an upright back and half-lotus posture, they started meditating. Many factions of protesters were around but the presence of strong meditators changed the vibe entirely. Around 6:30AM, the police showed up in full force. Full-out riot gear, pepper spray, rubber bullets, tear gas. All media was present, expecting a headline story around this incredibly tense scene. Instead, they found 32 people, all peaceful, with Pancho and Adeleja meditating with their eyes closed in the middle of the Plaza. As the police followed their orders of arresting them, people took photos -- particularly of two smiling meditators surrounded by police looking like they're ready to go to war. Within a day, that photo would spread to millions around the world, as Occupy Oakland raid ended without any reported violence.

Read the full storey here... http://www.dailygood.org//view.php?sid=127

Link: Tolerance

Someone who has tolerance won't even say "I have to tolerate," because that implies they are feeling sorrow. Instead, they will say, "It's not a problem. There is something for me to learn in this." Whatever the situation, tolerance enables me to learn. Perhaps I need patience, or humility, or understanding. Tolerance allows me peace and my love to stay constant. That way I stay connected with the Source of all that is good, so that I can help both myself and others.

http://www.thoughtfortoday.org.uk/

Link: Neil Pasricha: The 3 A's of awesome

Link: Optimists Get Jobs More Easily - and Get Promoted More, Researchers Find

Recent research finds evidence that optimism pays off in job hunting and promotions.

Researchers Ron Kaniel (Fuqua School of Business, Duke), Cade Massey (Yale School of Management) and David T. Robinson (Fuqua School) studied the effect of an optimistic disposition on MBA students’ job searches and then promotions in the two years after they graduated.

The bottom line? Optimists fared better than their less-optimistic peers in some important ways, the researchers report in a recent National Bureau of Economic Research working paper. For one thing, the optimistically inclined MBA students found comparable jobs to their peers — but found them more easily, with less-intensive job searches. Even better, two years after graduation, the optimists were more likely than their less-optimistic peers to have been promoted.

Read the full article here...
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/improvisations/2010/10/20/optimists-get-jobs-more-easily-and-get-promoted-more-researchers-find

Link: University of Miami student changes lives - one hug at a time

A University of Miami graduate student has spent the better part of his college career inspiring others in an unusual way.

For two years, University of Miami student Kemy Joseph has been wearing signs around his neck with uplifting messages like ``U R Awesome,'' and ``Persevere.'' On Thursday, he celebrated his second anniversary of spreading goodwill by spending 15 hours on campus giving high-fives and hugs. His goal: to make 800 people feel a little bit better in one day.

Read the full article at... http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/09/1816860/university-of-miami-student-gives.html?asset_id=Students%20%27free%20hugs%27%20and%20%27high%20fives%27%20brighten%20UM%20campus&asset_type=html_module

Link: Be lucky - it's an easy skill to learn

A decade ago, I set out to investigate luck. I wanted to examine the impact on people's lives of chance opportunities, lucky breaks and being in the right place at the right time. After many experiments, I believe that I now understand why some people are luckier than others and that it is possible to become luckier.

Read the full article here... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3304496/Be-lucky-its-an-easy-skill-to-learn.html

Link: Will Smith's Wisdom

The Surprising Truth of Sufficiency

We each have the choice in any setting to step back and let go of the mind-set of scarcity. Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency. By sufficiency, I don’t mean a quantity of anything. Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn’t a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.

Read the full post here...
http://www.ijourney.org/index.php?tid=673

Inner Power and Protection

Everything, everyone is my teacher. No matter how difficult, how unexpected, how unwanted, since it has come into my life, I ask myself, "What do I learn now?"


http://www.thoughtfortoday.org.uk

Contagious Love Experiment

Let me start at the begining…

I was in middle school when I saw 9/11 on the news. I saw the hole in the Pentagon firsthand. For months afterwards, I’d wake up early before school to watch the news and better understand the situation. I understood that there were people out there who wanted to destroy my country and hated my religion. My religion (church, religious school) promoted war and I made a deal with God that if the war was still going on when I graduated high school, I would be honored to enlist in the army as an infantryman.

Well, the war was still going on and I was somewhat glad that I hadn’t missed out on the action. I left for basic training in July of 06 and was deployed to Baghdad by Feb of 07.

I had grown up hearing ideas like “love your enemies”, “return evil with good”, and “judge not lest you be judged”. But I treated these sayings that the central figure of my religion taught as if they were just nice sounding lines, but not practical. But slowly, my excuses started to fade away. I learned that the military trains people to hate and dehumanize entire people groups, not showing sadness for the difficult task of “removing evil”. I learned that the Iraqis weren’t waiting for us with open arms, men, women, and children from the town we were in protested our presence. I learned innocent people die. I learned that it doesn’t matter what uniform you have on, it’s about what’s inside. And sadly, the military tries to rob you of what’s inside and the result is people treating killing like a joke and showing little care for human life.

Read the full blog here... http://contagiousloveexperiment.wordpress.com/about

Forgiveness

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.

http://www.thoughtfortoday.org.uk

This is Your Brain on Bliss

After 2,000 years of practice, Buddhist monks know that one secret to happiness is simply to put your mind to it.

What is happiness, and how can we achieve it?

Happiness can’t be reduced to a few agreeable sensations. Rather, it is a way of being and of experiencing the world—a profound fulfillment that suffuses every moment and endures despite inevitable setbacks.

Read the full article here... http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/sustainable-happiness/this-is-your-brain-on-bliss

Clinging Causes the Pain

Genuine love and kindness is desperately needed in this world. It comes from appreciating the object, and rejoicing in the object, wanting the object to be happy and well, but holding it lightly, not tightly. And this goes for possessions too. You are in an extremely materialistic society in which the possession of more and bigger and better is held up as the total criteria for being happy.

Read the full post here... http://www.ijourney.org/?tid=658

Love

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

A Story of True Love and Acceptance

This is what True Love is all about:

It was a busy morning, approximately 8:30 a.m., when an elderly gentleman in his 80's arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He stated that he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9:00 am.

Read the full post here... http://www.helpothers.org/story.php?sid=13998

Dan Reed - The Dictator

Charlie Chaplin - The Great Dictator Speech

How to Escape Perfectionism

According to the World Database of Happiness (yes, there is one), Iceland is the happiest place on earth. That's right, Iceland. Yes, I know it's cold and dark six months out of the year there. I'm just giving you the data.

The secret to their happiness? Eric Weiner, Author of The Geography of Bliss, traveled to Iceland to find out. After interviewing a number of Icelanders, Weiner discovered that their culture doesn't stigmatize failure. Icelanders aren't afraid to fail — or to be imperfect — and so they're more willing to pursue what they enjoy. That's one reason Iceland has more artists per capita than any other nation. "There's no one on the island telling them they're not good enough, so they just go ahead and sing and paint and write," Weiner writes.

Read the full post here... http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/bregman/2009/09/how-to-escape-perfectionism.html

Make a Gratitude Adjustment

As a child, Chris Peterson absolutely hated writing thank-you notes. His aversion continued right into his 40s, until one day he knew he had to face it.

A psychology professor at the University of Michigan, Peterson regularly gave his students an unusual homework assignment. He asked them to write a "gratitude letter," a kind of belated thank-you note to someone in their lives. Studies show such letters provide long-lasting mood boosts to the writers. Indeed, after the exercise, Peterson says his students feel happier "100 percent of the time."

Read the full post at http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200602/make-gratitude-adjustment