1. Trying is always worth it, wisdom from Alexandra Franzen.

2. How do you want to fill your day? Wisdom from Paul Jarvis.

3. Women Aren’t Nags—We’re Just Fed Up. “Emotional labor is the unpaid job men still don’t understand.” In related news, Ask Agatha, or Don’t: Unsolicited Advice to a Woman Who’s Afraid to Be a Nag.

4. Everything You Need to Know About Indigenous Peoples Day. In order to get to a better place together, we need to face (and teach) our true history. There are terrible things we continue to try and gloss over, even deny, and it’s not doing any of us any good, is actually doing direct harm to some. For starters, we need to stop honoring Columbus Day. Stop celebrating this person. Stop taking advantage of discounts and sales in his honor. Work to have your city, state, country reframe or get rid of this “holiday” altogether. In related news, 8 Myths and Atrocities About Christopher Columbus and Columbus Day.

5. The Space Between Lives and Why I Don’t Feel Proud of America from Jena Schwartz.

6. Why LGBT Spaces Can Be Uncomfortable for Queer People of Colour.

7. 10 Ways White Liberals Perpetuate Racism.

8. Why do we feel so guilty all the time? “Food, sex, money, work, family, friends, health, politics: there’s nothing we can’t feel guilty about, including our own feelings of guilt.”

9. 10 Things Fat Babes With Eating Disorders Need You To Know. In related news, When You’re Both Overweight and Anorexic.

10. This White Cop Slamming a Little Black Boy to The Ground is Why Black Athletes Are Taking The Knee. “If you don’t get it yet just admit it’s because you don’t want to.”

11. As Overdose Deaths Pile Up, a Medical Examiner Quits the Morgue on The New York Times. Should we have done more, cared more when crack was decimating communities of color? Yes, absolutely. Should we do better now? Yes, for sure. Do we really know what to do? I don’t know. Addiction has been around me my whole life, and it’s one of the most confusing, confounding things, so I hope a whole lot of people know and do better than me, (<– I could say that about just about everything).

12. “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson” Creator Accused of Stealing Work from Filmmaker Reina Gossett.

13. Dove apologises for ad showing black woman turning into white one. In related news, The Black Model In The Controversial Dove Ad Responds To The Backlash.

14. Dirty John. A six part narrative series, which includes a six part podcast. “This series is based on multiple interviews with Debra Newell, Jacquelyn Newell, Terra Newell, Arlane Hart, Shad Vickers, Tonia Sells Bales, Karen Douvillier, Donna Meehan Stewart, investigators, attorneys and other sources. Christopher Goffard also reviewed thousands of pages of court documents, police reports, restraining orders and prison records, as well as text messages and emails.”

15. 21 Hilarious Tweets That Accurately Reflect Life With Toddlers.

16. Every Single Cognitive Bias in One Infographic.

17. 11-Year-Old Starts Club For Young Black Boys To See Themselves In Books.

18. The Root: 100 Most Influential African Americans in 2017. “The Root 100 is our annual list of the most influential African Americans, ages 25 to 45. It’s our way of honoring the innovators, the leaders, the public figures and game changers whose work from the past year is breaking down barriers and paving the way for the next generation. This year’s list of honorees are a reminder of the beauty and brilliance of blackness, at a time when the political and cultural landscape has grown even more hostile to the idea of black achievement.”

19. Ellen DeGeneres always knows how to remind us of all the good people in the world. (video)

20. Despite claims in the media, the Las Vegas massacre was not the deadliest mass shooting in history. (video)

21. Huge butterfly swarm detected by weather radar in Colorado. They really have been everywhere.

22. Recipe I want to try: Veggie Nuggets.

23. White Male Terrorists Are an Issue We Should Discuss.

24. How To Help Las Vegas Shooting Victims Right Now.

25. There’s not “a thin person inside you, trying to get out” and that’s a good thing.

26. Nathaniel Russell’s Fliers and Fake Books.

27. The final four lines of Maya Stein’s 10-Line Tuesday poem “Another Elegy,”

What to say, now, in the silence that remains after the bullets have struck?
What shred of grace or beauty still clings to the mouth of this October
and its devastating blue sky? I am out of ideas, but here: Take my shatter
of grief and twine it to yours. Let us swallow this bitterness together.

28. Thank You, Michael. “Carina Stone on the tragic death of her husband, the Buddhist teacher Michael Stone, the challenges he faced, and the gifts he gave.”

This is an all too common theme in yoga and dharma worlds: If you practice deeply enough, you will heal, and if you don’t heal, your practice or something in you is flawed. But meditation is not a panacea, and can even be counterproductive for people with severe challenges.

29. Giant Straw Animals Invade Japanese Fields After Rice Harvest And They Are Absolutely Badass.

30. If You Ever Feel Sad, These 10+ Highland Cattle Calves Will Make You Smile.

1. We Are the Culture Makers Virtual Symposium.”Eleven culture-changing conversations with leaders who are rewriting the rules on what it means to be in business. This is about showing you how we can use our own lives & platforms as our individual and collective contributions towards a more inclusive and just culture.”

2. Atonement and Action from Jena Schwartz. “They came and built better lives — on land ‘soaked with the blood of Africans.’ Of slaves. Of native people obliterated to make room for our future. These are sins for which we need to be atoning through action for the rest of our lives — whether it was “our” people or not who committed these acts. As people who have benefited in this country, we are…also perpetrators of oppression.”

3. American Black Cross “is a grassroots organization of volunteers that directly engages in rescues, provides relief and actively rebuilds communities in distress.” Check out their wishlist on Amazon. In related news, 10 Ways to Show Puerto Ricans Love, and How to Help Puerto Rico: 12 Effective Ways to Donate Money, and This NFL rookie gave his first ever paycheck to team cafeteria workers affected by Hurricane Harvey, and Here’s How You Can Help These African Countries In the Wake of Recent Natural Disasters.

4. The Japanese concept of Ikigai could be the secret to a long, meaningful life. “While there is no direct English translation, ikigai is thought to combine the Japanese words ikiru, meaning ‘to live,’ and kai, meaning ‘the realization of what one hopes for.’ Together these definitions create the concept of ‘a reason to live’ or the idea of having a purpose in life.”

5. A Message To My Younger Writer Self from Chuck Wendig.

6. How to Protest Without Offending White People. In related news, This video is the best 5 minutes you will see on the NFL protests. Seriously, watch it.

7. Dear Mrs. Trump. A librarian rejects a gift of books, and explains why.

8. What the Data Really Says About Police and Racial Bias. “Eighteen academic studies, legal rulings, and media investigations shed light on the issue roiling America.”

9. America, we need to talk about this ‘police riot’ in a major U.S. city. “We have to care. If anything is fundamental to freedom in America, it is the notion that the streets — and free expression, including dissent — belong to the people, not to a militarized police force. And it’s become increasingly clear — from the asphalt of St. Louis to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — that Americans are going to have to fight to keep it that way.”

10. 3 Reasons Why Being Anti-Racist Isn’t Code for Being Anti-White.

11. Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Making of a Public Intellectual on The New York Times. “Between the World and Me, Coates’s treatise on black male life in America, catapulted him to prominence. Coates spoke to The Times about his new book, We Were Eight Years in Power, his year in Paris and what he’s up to next.”

12. I love this so hard from The Bloggess. “A lot of high school kids do monologues or speeches or interpretive scripts based on my books but I almost never get to see the finished products. This one was online though and I just watched it and it made me (cough) furiously happy.”

13. Suicide Warning Signs Infographic.

14. ‘I started dry retching’: the harrowing world of a trauma cleaner.

15. Bad teeth, bad dogs, bad weeks. And Puerto Rico on Rita’s Notebook.

16. The 21st-Century Fantasy Trilogy That Changed the Game on The New York Times. “Last year she became the first black writer to win the Hugo Award for best novel. This year, she won it again. Now her new novel has arrived.”

17. White Haze on This American Life. I listened to this yesterday as I balanced my checkbook, felt so angry and sad and a little hopeless, and woke up in the morning to this, Las Vegas Shooting Near Mandalay Bay Casino Kills More Than 50 on The New York Times.

So, the rest of the list is cute puppies and yummy food, cause I’d rather end on that note and I can’t quite wrap my head around the rest yet.

18. Please don’t take my sunshine away. (video)

19. The mighty howl of baby beagle. (video)

20. There are two types of sunday-ers. Which one are you? (video)

21. A puppy’s life, one second every day. (video)

22. Dog interrupts orchestra and steals the show. (video)

23. Recipes I want to try: Veggie Rice 4 Ways and Blooming Quesadilla Ring.