Category Archives: Zen Habits

Something Good

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Lory State Park, image by Eric

Lory State Park, image by Eric

1. The King Center, “Established in 1968 by Mrs. Coretta Scott King, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change (‘The King Center’) has been a global destination, resource center and community institution for over a quarter century.” Their website has an amazing archive of materials worth checking out.

2. Good stuff from Terrible Minds: Self-Care For Writers: Some Tips and Your 2016 Authorial Mandate Is Here: Be The Writer That You Are, Not The Writer Other People Want You To Be and Death Becomes Us.

3. To Be Happier, Start Thinking More About Your Death, an Op-Ed on The New York Times by Arthur C. Brooks about an important and challenging shift in perspective.

4. Watch Every #SmartGirlsAsk Answer From the 2016 Golden Globes. These are so much more interesting than “who are you wearing?”

5. A New Year. A Fresh Start. #3bravethings I love Diana’s alternative to making New Year’s Resolutions. What would your three brave things be?

6. It’s Nice to See You, another great response to Oprah’s Weight Watcher’s deal.

7. That time David Bowie almost became a Buddhist monk — and what he said (and sang) about that time on Lion’s Roar. I hadn’t heard this before. So fascinating. I love the idea that we all have a particular way that we can be of most benefit.

8. Alessia Cara covered “Hotline Bling” and “Magnets” and now we know heaven. I love Alessia Cara, had no idea she was so young but her voice has that magic timeless quality all the best artists do.

9. How to Stop the Doubting Yourself / Quitting/ Looking for a Magic Solution Cycle – Today. Jennifer Louden is one of those teachers, women, beings that is able to tell the truth, the whole truth even the brutal parts, but always in the end offer some relief. It’s a particular kind of magic.

10. The (Not So) Tell-Tale (Fat) Heart from Dances With Fat, which makes a very important point about the “facts” we’ve been fed.

11. Dreamy Animated Light Paintings by Lucea Spinelli. These are amazing, but they also make me a bit dizzy if I look at them for too long.

12. Weight-Bias Within The Eating Disorder Recovery Movement. “How you can combat fat-phobia in the eating disorder recovery community.”

13. Every Meeting You’ve Ever Been To (In Two Minutes). Hilarious!

14. I can’t from The Bloggess — on sadness and regret, and the importance of telling people they matter while you still can.

15. 50 Motivating Quotes for Your Career, inspiration from Laura Simms, “50 of my favorite quotations, organized by theme: Purpose, Action, Courage, Creativity, and Leadership. Find a favorite for today, and Pin this post so you can come back when you need something different.”

16. Storyteller Captures ‘Humans Of The Colorado Trail.’ David Fanning (of Fort Collins, where I live) “collected about 100 stories like this on his blog, and is now working on a book.” (Inspired by Humans of New York, one of my favorite things e v e r). Such a cool project.

17. Oregon to Patagonia, “Jedidiah Jenkins’ parents once walked across America, ending their journey in Oregon. Now, Jedidiah is on an extraordinary journey himself, picking up where his parents left off and traveling south to Patagonia, Chile — by bicycle.” His pictures are amazing.

18. A great post from Austin Kleon about the book Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers.

19. These genius “Seabins” vacuum garbage and pollution right out of the ocean. A really great idea. More of this, please.

20. 19 Lasagnas for Veggie Lovers, a great set of recipes from The New York Times. One disclaimer: I don’t agree with how they’ve marked some of these as “healthy,” thus categorizing them into “good” and “bad” food.

21. The Spaces Between the Consonants by Jena Schwartz, a great piece on On Being.

22. This Selfie Taking Cat Takes Better Selfies Than You. Oh how I love this dude.

23. Truthbomb #975 from Danielle LaPorte, “Choose kind over cool.”

24. Why I love the cards (and a giveaway!) from Susannah Conway.

25. Meditation for Beginners: 20 Practical Tips for Understanding the Mind, great set of tips from Zen Habits.

26. Why Owning 24 Items of Clothing Is Good For My Creativity, (thanks for the link, Tammy).

27. Adele Carpool Karaoke. Love it!

28. Recipe: Lemon & Thyme Syrup Cake from decor8. Yum.

29. It’s all a mistake, wisdom from Seth Godin.

30. President Obama’s 2016 State of the Union Address.

Something Good

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Lory State Park, image by Eric

Lory State Park, image by Eric

1. Humans of New York. This project is consistently one of my favorite things. The current series about refugees that Brandon is sharing is amazing, heartbreaking and beautiful. P.S. Any of the Humans of New York books would make great holiday gifts.

2. Call this number and a live person will sing you any Christmas song, 24/7. Really. This is SO cool.

3. Neil Gaiman Reads “A Christmas Carol.” OMG. I could listen to him read the phonebook… *swoon*

4. Romantic moment this morning at the farm! A cute video of two dogs in front of the fire — when you want to play, but you are too warm and sleepy.

5. Orangutan finds magic trick hilarious… Stupid cute video.

6. A Thank You Gift, “a free downloadable PDF containing the process I utilise each year to review how that year has gone and to being the creation process for the next year” from Life is Limitless.

7. Mandy Patinkin visits Lesbos, Greece. “Actor and activist, Mandy Patinkin witnesses first-hand the situation in Greece, where many thousands of refugees have been arriving. Escaping life from war-torn countries, refugees hope to have a better life.” To help: https://engage.rescue.org/donate/mandypatinkin

8. Being A Girl: A Brief Personal History of Violence. *sigh*

9. Photographer Captures Soulful Portraits Of Man’s Best Friend. Stupid cute…

10. New Embroidered Leaves by Hillary Fayle. I love so much that there are people who think to do this sort of thing, who do it and then share it with the rest of us.

11. ‘The higher the hair, the closer to God’: Glorious BIG hair from the 1960s. I’m just gonna say it: fashion can be so dumb.

12. Bun Bun, Destroyer of Leaves! My aunt had a bunny named Willy when I was a kid, and this little bun reminds me so much of him.

13. Wisdom from Arianna Huffington, speaking at the BlogHer conference in July 2014, “We need to change the delusion that we need to burn out in order to succeed. We have a much better understanding of the battery status of our iPhone than the state of our own wellbeing.” Oh, snap!

14. I was a respectable, high-functioning junkie. I wholeheartedly recommend everything Jennifer Matesa has ever written about addiction.

15. We’re coming for you 2016!, Susannah Conway’s “Unravelling The Year Ahead” workbook (FREE!), which has become a yearly ritual for me. She’s also offering a free 5-day course, Find Your Word for 2016. (P.S. I think my word is going to be “path” but I’m going to do this course just to be sure).

16. Embroidered Psychological Landscapes by Michelle Kingdom. Beautiful and a tiny bit creepy.

17. Mother Cat Brings Her Kittens To Meet An Unlikely Old Friend. Spoiler alert: it’s a dog.

18. Mind-wandering: the rise of a new anti-mindfulness movement, an interesting perspective.

19. The Internet Criticizes Reese’s Peanut Butter Trees, But Then Reese’s Drops The Most Witty Response. So perfect.

20. Text Santa Downton Abbey, a hilarious spoof with the actual actors from the show, almost as good as Downton Arby’s.

21. 20 Reasons Life Gets Way Too Complicated from Marc and Angel Hack Life.

22. 27 Question to Ask Instead of “What Do You Do?”, a set of great options on Medium.

23. Centered and complete, and Light on your feet, wisdom from Seth Godin.

24. No One Gets to be a Messiah: On Quiet Acts of Kindness + The Human Reality (Sometimes Life Does Actually Suck), such an important read, from Meg Worden.

25. 15 holiday gift ideas. (Mostly “experiences.” Not much “stuff.”) from Alexandra Franzen, a nice reminder that we don’t always need to buy stuff to show someone they matter to us.

26. 8 Meaningful Gifts to Support a Simple Life from Be More With Less.

27. How to find your voice from Austin Kleon.

28. Truthbomb #949 from Danielle LaPorte, “The best self-help is self-compassion.”

30. Wisdom from Brave Girls Club, “It’s a great day to put down the heavy bag of rocks called expectation and worry…and to just let yourself be…to just do your best, and then let it be.”

31. Inspiration + Aspiration on Zen Habits.

32. Easing someone’s suffering…without suffering. Is it possible? from Danielle LaPorte.

33. No alcohol, no coffee for 15 months. This is what happened.

34. She Who Hears the Cries of the World by Christina Feldman, a great article on compassion. “The path of compassion is cultivated one step and one moment at a time. Each of those steps lessens the mountain of sorrow in the world.”