While waving to the crowd in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican Wednesday, Pope Francis invited a teen with Down Syndrome to climb aboard his open top Popemobile.
The Catholic church leader gestured for him to sit down in the white captain’s chair and even gave the swivel seat a spin while hundreds watched and clapped.
Over the past 30 years, the charity Good 360 has redistributed over $7 billion dollars worth of products to the poor. The online marketplace makes it easy and profitable for corporations to donate unused surplus to charities, rather than storing it or shipping it to a landfill.
Now, Good 360 is coming to Australia, aiming to help companies there convert their excess goods into good deeds. The expansion was spearheaded by a woman whose good friend and her special needs daughter.
Good360, formerly known as Gifts In Kind International, formed in 1983 in response to 3M’s need to donate $12 million worth of new office equipment – perfectly usable copiers that would have been disposed of had 3M had not considered the charitable alternative.
(WATCH the video from ABC.au)
Crime in Scotland has fallen to the lowest level since 1974 with homicide and other violence plummeting by more than 20 percent. Even robbery and theft rates dropped despite the recession. – Scotsman
Have you read the book “Lean In” by Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg yet? In professional women’s circles, it’s all the rage. It has sparked conversations about whether women can truly ‘have it all’, and whether they even want to. But it misses a key point related to positive psychology – it’s focused on success rather than happiness. What about our innate simple desire to be happy? Carin Rockind explores this in her essay, “Lean In to Happiness Instead”.
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I am consistently amazed by how many successful, professional women with VP titles and six-figure salaries flock to my Happiness Workshops because they are starving for just one taste of joy. Yes, accomplishment is an ingredient of happiness, but so are healthy relationships, an abundance of positive emotions and greater life purpose. Too many women today are racing so furiously to do everything that we have no time to just be. Sure, our smiles are perky and our handshakes firm, but underneath it all, we aren’t happy. We’re panicked that we can’t get it all done, worrying that we’re constantly disappointing someone, angry that we are passed up for the promotion and sad that we have no time to relax. We’re trying to balance six plates on five perfectly manicured fingers, and it isn’t working.
While common Western wisdom believes that success leads to happiness, hundreds of research studies show that the opposite is true. Happy people are more successful in every possible measure. Happy people are physically healthier, have better relationships and are more productive at work. Customers like working with happy staff; employees prefer a happy boss. You get the idea.
As is, most people hate their jobs. According to Gallup, approximately 70% of all employees dislike their jobs, leading to $300 billion in lost profitability annually. For women, though, the added stress of unequal power and status, role prioritization between executive/lover/mother, plus our genuine concern for others escalates our unhappiness.
We are too important to the workplace to allow this to continue. It’s time to end this madness. Let’s claim our happiness and demand it at home and in the workplace. We still make most of the home and purchasing decisions, so we need to take a stand. As the old adage says, “If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”
But happiness doesn’t mean another gift certificate for a mani/pedi. It means creating opportunities for the distinct challenges that women face. It means honoring the powerful nature of creative feminine energy. It means not only supporting a woman’s biological right to have a baby, but also leveraging her nurturing instinct in general. How many companies know that most women are motivated intrinsically by collective, social action? Those who do could be at a huge advantage.
Ladies, here is our responsibility. We need to believe that we deserve happiness above all else. We need to own it and claim it. We need to love our full selves and bring that confidence to work and life. Rather than follow conformist rules about who you should be or what you ought to do, know that your voice matters, that your essence is electric and speak up with pride. Know that you offer strengths that no one else does. Use them. Forget balance and work for integration, getting very clear on what YOU need to be happy. Do you need 30 minutes once a week by yourself to exhale the stress? Do you need one night a month to be with girlfriends so that you can recharge your batteries and feel sexy? Does having time to paint or read or garden feed your soul? Then claim it. People treat your time as you allow them to, so if you don’t protect your need happiness time, why should others? Know what matters and put a stake in the ground. Believe that you are worthy of happiness. And know that in claiming your happiness, it will lead to greater success.
So should we lean in? Maybe. But how about companies also extend out? Know what motivates women – and every employee for that matter. Humans are happiest when they are appreciated for who they are. We thrive when working our strengths, not trying to fix weaknesses or fit into norms. Ask for our opinions, solicit our ideas, lean into us and learn. Empower us to be us and we’ll all win.
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Empowerment coach and transformative speaker, Carin Rockind elevates women to be rockstars in life. Working with individuals and companies, she combines her expertise in Positive Psychology with experience as a trauma survivor and former Fortune 500 exec to support professional women to being truly happy and wildly successful. Find more information on www.carinrockind.com, Facebook or Twitter.
Collecting a hole-in-one on Father’s Day is about as good as it gets for a golfing dad, unless his son gets one, too, right afterward.
That’s exactly what happened when 57-yard-old Lonnie Whitener and his 13-year-old son, according to the Houston Chronicle.
When Whitener drove his ball into the hole in one shot he was ecstatic, of course, but it wasn’t anything compared to what he soon would be feeling soon.
New York City unveiled the first of 25 free solar charging stations for mobile phones on Tuesday, installed in response to Superstorm Sandy, which wiped out power and forced residents to walk miles to charge their phones.
The Street Charge stations promise to be the solution in both sunny and cloudy weather for New Yorkers facing the dead battery dilemma.
A retiring Massachusetts principal was tricked into going on the school’s roof in order to receive a very memorable going-away present. Students, parents and staff stretched across the parking lot below surprising the 36-year veteran educator with a loving flash mob of thanks.
Bearing signs and dressed in neon colors, the crowd of teens and adults from Hingham Middle School performed a choreographed dance to “Don’t Stop Believing”.
The display brought Roger Boddie to tears, saying, “Unbelievable,” and “Incredible”.
(READ the story in the Boston Globe)
Now you can share your status as an organ donor on Facebook. The simple switch prompted more than 13,000 people to register for organ donation in a single day last year. Researchers think social media might be the key to solving the nation’s organ shortage problem.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University said that single day recorded more than 21 times the average of daily sign-ups, according to a study released Tuesday.
Archaeologists using revolutionary airborne laser technology have discovered a lost mediaeval city that thrived on a mist-shrouded Cambodian mountain 1200 years ago.
The stunning discovery of the city, Mahendraparvata, includes temples hidden by jungle for centuries – temples that archaeologists believe have never been looted.
An instrument called Lidar strapped to a helicopter criss-crossed the mountain’s topography and revealed an web of canals, dykes and roads connecting two dozen temples — the city that founded the Angkor Empire in 802 AD.
Individual charitable giving in the United States grew almost 4 percent last year, while corporate donations rose at triple that rate, according to the annual Giving USA report. – Reuters
When the new trailer came out last week for the “Hobbit” sequel, “The Desolation of Smaug”, two fans decided to record their reactions to seeing it for the first time — complete with squeals and gasps of shock.
The pair, who run a video blog called “The Happy Hobbit”, posted the video to OneRing.net, and it was forwarded to Hobbit director Peter Jackson. Jackson was so tickled by the girls’ reaction to his trailer that he showed superstar actor Orlando Bloom and his elvish co-stars. Here’s the good part: he filmed their reactions to the original reactions.
Thus was born a back-and-forth series of videos chocked full of adorable outbursts.
A World War II veteran shattered the world record for the bench press in his age group last weekend, with a lift of 187.2 pounds – 50 pounds more than the previous record.
Sy Perlis from Arizona, who works out five days a week, was the lone competitor in the 90-year-old and over division.
A 15 year-old boy was laying his beloved dog to rest in the backyard with his step-father when fate intervened and the pair leapt to rescue another dog who was locked in a burning house.
Dillon Hayes of Boiling Springs, South Carolia, said they broke in the house and found the dog, while the neighbors were away.
Across the hall from the US Senate chambers, where the tiny ladies’ room is constantly overcrowded, renovations are underway to make room for the historic number of female senators in 2013.
Once completed, the women will have a nicer and more spacious facility befitting their number, which is 20 — a fifth of the Senate. One gushed, “We’re even going to have a window.”
Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been detained four hours, I heard an announcement: “If anyone in the vicinity of Gate 4-A understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.”
Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly. “Help,” said the Flight Service Person. “Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”
Naomi Shihab Nye is an award-winning Palestinian-American poet, writer,
anthologist, and educator living today in San Antonio.
I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke to her haltingly. “Shu dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-se-wee?” The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely.
We called her son and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and would ride next to her – Southwest.
She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for fun. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up about two hours.
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life, patting my knee, answering questions.
She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies – little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts – out of her bag – and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo – we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.
And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers and two little girls from our flight ran around serving us all apple juice and they were covered with powdered sugar too.
And I noticed my new best friend – by now we were holding hands – had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere. And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, this is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in this gate – once the crying of confusion stopped – seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.
(This story originally published at Gratefulness.org)
Watch Naomi Shihab Nye (pictured, left) read her poem San Antonio, in a YouTube video below.
Last summer in Timbuktu, an irreplaceable trove of manuscripts at risk of being destroyed by fundamentalist Islamic rebels, was secretly evacuated at great personal risk by a team of archivists, librarians, and couriers.
The manuscripts were saved from immediate destruction, but today they are still jam packed in footlockers used for their evacuation, while enduring higher humidity than ever before without archival protection. Already, some mildew is forming inside the containers.
Now, an internet campaign launched to fund the purchase of archival bags and boxes to protect these documents of immense global heritage has engaged people around the globe.
Handing down a 5-3 decision today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Trade Commission can challenge closed-door deals that the big pharmaceutical companies make with smaller generic rivals to keep cheaper products off the market and out of drug stores.
In honor of Father’s Day, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s newest inductee, Quincy Jones, is lending his talent and support to the Prostate Cancer Foundation for a new awareness campaign that will be broadcast in Major League Baseball ballparks throughout June.
With the help of his daughter, actress Rashida Jones (Parks and Rec), the new print, video and radio ads urge men to “Cherish Life’s Special Moments,” and talk to their doctors about prostate screenings. Prostate cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death for men in the U.S., with a death every 16 minutes.
Quincy Jones has enjoyed one of the longest, most successful careers in popular music as a record producer, conductor, arranger, composer, television producer, and trumpeter. As influential to jazz music as to pop, he has been nominated for a record 79 Grammys – and won 27.
“I was excited to shoot this PSA with my father,” said Rashida Jones who currently appears on the hit NBC sitcom, Parks and Recreation. “We have to protect the men we cherish, so please talk to your fathers, your grandfathers, husbands, brothers and sons and make sure they speak to their doctors about this disease and how to reduce their risk.”
This year’s campaign builds on an 18-year tradition with Major League Baseball through an annual Home Run Challenge for Father’s Day. “There are over 2.5 million American men who are surviving prostate cancer this Father’s Day,” said Jonathan W. Simons, MD, president and CEO of the Prostate Cancer Foundation.
“Men are 40 percent less likely than women to have visited a healthcare provider in the past year. But talking to one’s doctor about prostate cancer is critically important,” said the president and CEO of Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C), Sung Poblete, PhD, RN.
To date, SU2C and the Prostate Cancer Foundation have collaborated to fund two Prostate Cancer research Dream Teams, each receiving $10 million over a three-year period. The first SU2C-PCF Prostate Cancer Dream Team is addressing therapeutic interventions for advanced prostate cancer with special emphasis on metastatic disease and delivering near-term patient benefit. The second SU2C-PCF Prostate Cancer Dream Team, also formed in 2012, is targeting adaptive pathways in metastatic treatment-resistant prostate cancer using scientists representing six world-class institutions.
To learn more, visit PCF.org
Born in Nepal, but moved to Wisconsin in 2000 to attend the University in Whitewater, Ojash Shrestha found his true calling when he returned home 8 years later to be married.
While staying in his parents’ house, he met a young girl around 12 years-old who worked as a maid there because her family could not support her or afford to send her to school.
At that moment, Ojash realized how different her fate might be if she had the same opportunities as he had for education while growing up. When he was a child, he was going to school, playing with his friends, and sitting down with his family for dinner.
On the bright side, he thought, she is in a safe place, she has enough food to eat, and is helping her family with financial support. Thousands of families like hers live on an annual average income of $473 and never dream of having the money to send their children to school.
Realizing how important education had been to his own success, Ojash decided to help change the fate of children like Rita. Together with family members and friends, he sponsored the schooling of not one, but five children in 2009 – providing tuition, books, supplies, and uniforms for the children.
The hunger for helping these children and their families grew until Ojash established a non-profit organization called Ganga Ghar, “mother’s house”, inspired by the moment he met Rita, and the holy River Ganga in Nepal.
Today, with a small dedicated band of volunteers in the U.S. and Nepal, Ganga Ghar sponsors education for more than 100 children, improves struggling schools by installing computer labs, fans, and more classrooms, and launching an entrepreneurship program for women in a remote village.
(WATCH what they did just during the Christmas holiday and visit the fantastic website to learn more: www.gangaghar.org)
After Jennifer’s husband left for an eight-month deployment, their beloved 11-year-old dog was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor.
“We were devastated,” she wrote on YouTube. “Kermie was our first child, and we did not think Eric would ever get to see her again.”
But Kermie continued to surpass the vet’s estimate for survival and as his deployment drew to a close, hopes for a never-expected reunion began to seem possible.
