The Science of Human Compassion
UC Berkeley has done an interesting study about the role of altruism and generosity in human evolution, stressing the importance of kindness to our survival.
Quote of the week
"Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind."
– Henry James
Borges on Time and the New Year
Poem forwarded by my cousin Sergio. Apologies to non-Spanish speakers…
Final del año
Ni el pormenor simbólico
de reemplazar un nueve por un diez
ni esa metáfora baldía
que convoca a un lapso que muere
ni el cumplimiento de un proceso astronómico
aturden y socavan
la altiplanicie de esta noche
y nos obligan a esperar
las doce irreparables campanadas.
La causa verdadera
es la sospecha general y borrosa
del enigma del tiempo;
es el asombro ante el milagro
de que a despecho de infinitos azares,
de que a despecho de que somos
las gotas del rio de Heráclito,
perdure algo en nosotros:
inmóvil.
- Jorge Luis Borges
Lifetime advice
I may be cheesy, fine, I admit it. But I really liked this email forward:
Written
By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio
"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is
the most-requested column I’ve ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90
in August, so here is the column once more:"
1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angry with God.. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all
about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.
16.. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save
it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
25. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ”In five years, will this matter?".
26. Always choose life.
27. Forgive everyone everything.
28. What other people think of you is none of your business.
29. Time heals almost everything.. Give time, time.
30. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
31. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
32. Believe in miracles.
33. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
34. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
35. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
36. Your children get only one childhood.
37. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
38.Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
39. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.
40. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
41. The best is yet to come.
42. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
43. Yield.
44. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.
Abe Pollin, a mentsch to emulate
I was really touched by Maureen Dowd’s eulogy column about Abe Pollin.
He follows the tradition of frugal leaders like David Ben-Gurion, and characters from Isaac Bashevis-Singer’s shtetl stories, whose Judaism was about helping those in need.
The gift of giving
Here is an interesting article that scientifically confirms one of the underlying assumptions of the KINDED Movement and the KIND philosophy: that doing good onto others actually feels good and benefits the one doing the KINDING as much as the person being KINDED.
5 Rules To Eat By That I Dug
These are my favorite responses to Michael Pollan’s NYTimes blog request for readers’ rules about eating:
- From my Romanian grandmother: “Breakfast, you should eat alone. Lunch, you should share with a friend. Dinner, give to your enemy.”
- Irina A. Dumitrescu - “Never eat something that’s pretending to be something else…no textured vegetable protein or veggie burgers (fake meat), no artificial sweeteners, no margarine (fake butter), no ‘low fat’ sour cream, no turkey bacon, no ‘chocolate flavor sauce’ tat doesn’t contain chocolate…If I want something that tastes like meat or butter, I would rather have the real thing than some chemical concoction pretending to be more healthful.” - Sonya Legg
- “Eat foods in inverse proportion to how much its lobby spends to push it.” – Kirk Westphal
- “One of my top rules for eating comes from economics. The law of diminishing marginal utility reminds me that each additional bite is generally less satisfying than the previous bite. This helps me slow down, savor the first bites,stop eating sooner. It also helps get plenty of variety in my diet because this rule also makes a meal of small plates more enticing: 3 bites of 5 plates versus 15 bites of 1 will maximize satisfaction and nutritional variety.” – Laura Kelley
- “When drinking tea, just drink tea.” I find this Zen teaching useful, given my inclination toward information absorption in the morning, when I’m also trying to eat breakfast, get the dog out, start the fire and organize my day. I believe that it’s so much better for our bodies when we are present to our food. Perhaps a bit of mindfulness goes a long way first thing in the morning. (Of course, some time ago, I came across a humorous anecdote about a hapless Zen student whose teacher taught him this aphorism and then was discovered by the same student, drinking tea and reading the paper. When confronted, the teacher said, “When drinking tea and reading the paper, just drink tea and read the paper!”) – Michelle Poirot
The truth behind “Death Panels”
My wife is a Doctor and she often shares stories about how the medical “system” leads to unsavory paths, often including terminally-ill elderly & infirm patients who are dragged through the indecency of two extra weeks of herculean efforts to keep them alive when it is pretty clear they are victims of technology and bureaucracy gone awry. They would have much rather died a dignified death than be dragged through it. But their families would of course want to know they did everything in their power for them.
I have also heard that the costs of health care in the last two weeks of one’s life tend to account for between 50% and 75% of one’s lifetime expenses. This data point may exaggerate the problem because obviously before you pass on it makes sense that a lot will be invested in to saving you. But it does point to the challenge we need to confront in modern society: just because technology now exists that could “prolong” our lives does not follow that every instance we should deploy every available technology.
This is why it struck me that the campaign to scare people with the government’s “death panels” was a red herring – a silly distraction from a serious issue that our society needs to confront.
US Congressman Earl Blumenauer recently wrote the inside account of the “Death Panel” miscommunication campaign here. It is recommended reading not just to health care legislation aficionados, but to all who need to know about the sobering way in which our legislative system works.
Father-and-son Video
This is a great little vignette…
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Progressive Business Ventures
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Enterpreneurial Social Ventures
