I’ve been thinking about friendship, a lot.  This photo was taken yesterday in Brooklyn.  That is me and my dear friend, Grace.  I was in Brooklyn to have lunch with her and say goodbye, because she and her family are moving back to Wisconsin.  I have mixed emotions about this.  I am happy for her because it will be easier and she will have more time to spend with her husband and child and more time for making art, which is very important to her.  But, I’m sad because she will be far away and I have enjoyed being close to her again.

We met in Minneapolis and I can never remember the year because it really just doesn’t matter what year it was.  We both participated in a summer art institute at the art college.  I remember when I first saw her on that first day and I thought to myself:  she is going to be my friend.  I have those weird intuitive thoughts rarely; but, tend to believe them when they do come.  At the end of the institute, I made some goofy overture that probably sounded incredibly awkward.   Something along the lines of:  I like you and I’m wondering if you’d be interested in pursuing a friendship with me.  Needless to say, she saw something in me other than my lack of suave.

I left Minneapolis in 2006 and moved to Portland, OR to finish recovering from my accident and that must have been hard for her.  She had a toddler at home and was navigating those first years of “new mom.”   I should ask her about it.  I was still not quite myself then and I really don’t even remember our conversations about my leaving.  While I was in Portland, she and her family moved to Brooklyn, which made it immensely easier for me to move to NJ, a short train ride away.  And I know we both have enjoyed being close again.  I was here to be supportive as she grieved the death of her mom and she helped me through my initial loneliness after coming here.  Sometimes, we went long periods without actually seeing each other; but, just knowing I could hop in my car and be at her house in an hour was so comforting.

It’s an odd time in my life: I recently lost my grandfather and have been worrying about my grandmother, alone for the first time in 68 years; my best friend is going to be far from me now and something extraordinary is happening:  I’m falling in love and she is such a wonderful surprise in my life.  I know that Grace feels sad about leaving; but, I think it’s easier knowing she is leaving me in good hands and she has gotten to see the happiness settle back into my life as I have created a home for myself after drifting for a few years.  I’m always surprised by how life works: the ebb and flow.  In one day, I get to feel the sadness of loss and the beginnings of love.  And it makes me want to go out on my balcony and shout:  I love this life and all it’s crazy wonder.

Why am I talking about friendship and love on a library blog?

As we all know, it’s tax season again and in the public library world that means a test of our ability to remain patient and compassionate.  It has been difficult and my coworker and I try to remind each other of our good fortune in life and how a little extra compassion and patience is really within our capacities and we should offer nothing less.  We remind each other how lucky we are to have love in our lives and for me, friendship is such a huge building block of that.  Whether Grace is in Wisconsin or Brooklyn, I am lucky to have her in my life.  She laughs at my jokes, gives me honest critiques when I ask and when I need it, she reminds me of my goodness and the beautiful life I am capable of creating and maintaining.

It is hard to move to a new place, alone.  You have to start from scratch building a network of friends and acquaintances, people that make you laugh, drink coffee with you, invite you to a movie and who will give you the opportunity to help them if they need it.  I am in the middle of that now.  I’ve been here for a year and a half and I’m slowly inviting people into my life.  Friendship is vital to my wellness.

How do we do our jobs well if we are lonely?  How do we muster up the extra patience needed at tax time, if we don’t have a support network in place?  How do we exercise compassion for difficult patrons and coworkers if we don’t have an opportunity to spend time with people who hug us and love us just the way we are?

On this day, let’s be grateful for the extraordinary and lovely people in our lives and acknowledge how much richer we are for their presence.

I was on my lunch hour and picking up some veggies for dinner and a cup of soup for my lunch.  While there I picked up their book of coupons and noticed a couple of products that I normally buy had some really good coupons; so, I added those to my list.  Excellent.  Save myself an after work trip and save a few bucks on things I would normally buy anyway.  Win win.

The check out process at WF is a beautiful thing.  It is rarely unpleasant even near holiday times.  The lines usually move quickly, the cashiers are friendly and well trained.  I handed the cashier the two coupons from their flyer and she rang everything up.  The problem arose when she scanned my coupons.  One of them was for a “buy one get one” promotion and the register just beeped at her.  She asked the cashier next to her about the coupon and the woman told her that they hadn’t changed anything: meaning…You have to call some sort of supervisor to bring a key, put it in the cash register and turn it in order to process the coupon.  The cashier informed me that this also happened when she had to give a discount to a person who would receive a “case discount.”  We waited and waited and waited until finally a woman came up, performed the key trick and when the cashier questioned her about the process, she was told: we asked for a change…they aren’t going to change it.

This tells me a few things.  First off, it tells me that I’m probably not the first customer bothered by this slow down.  It tells me that it is also bothersome to the cashiers because they are put in an awkward situation.  It tells me that upper management might not be listening to the folks on the front lines.  And most of all it makes me think that WFs doesn’t trust the employees.  I’ve been racking my brain to come to a different conclusion; but, why else would they have this restriction at the cash register level?  They think that their employees will abuse the “power” and give discounts or free items when they are not warranted.  I sometimes forget that WF is a giant corporation which benefits them and which is why they do things that lull us into forgetting.

But this decision is pure corporate muckety muck and a decision I’m going to assume made by people far from direct customer service.  It is most likely a decision made by a person or people who see the cashiers as an untrustworthy group and that troubles me.  It is a weakness in an otherwise customer focused service plan and in a place with generally happy employees though less happy than a couple of years ago which also makes me curious.

I have worked for corporate retail chains that didn’t trust me because I was a retail clerk and I can tell you that it does not inspire or motivate one to do a good job.  One such place I worked was an interesting experience because when I started working there they were a small chain owned by people (the original owners/founders); but, in the 4 years I was with the company, they went public and the original owners left.  In those 4 years I went from working for a company that valued and trusted employees  and had an extremely loyal and hardworking group of people working for them to one that placed little value and trust in the employees and the morale plummeted and the loyalty and hard work had almost become extinct.  It was a huge learning experience for me and a deeply sad thing to witness.

I would guess, that if quizzed, WF would tell me that there is some reason for this procedure that is not linked to a distrust of their workers…or maybe they would admit to it.  I don’t know.

All I know is that I feel a little less loyal to Whole Foods today than I was yesterday.

Plus, I think there is tremendous value in diverse perspectives and there’s been plenty of me around this place and now there needs to be more of you!

If interested, drop me a line with your thoughts at: wilberton@gmail.com

I want to take this opportunity to ask: How are you?  And I don’t want to hear “fine.”  I really want you to think about the question.  How are you doing?

When you stop to actually think about the question, it certainly ends up inspiring more questions.

• am I  happy with the way my career is going?
• am I happy with my personal life?  How is my relationship with my spouse/partner?  Have I invested  in my friendships?
• what are my goals?  am I doing the things I need to do in order to reach them?

Those are just a few.  But, after those all die down, you are left with How am I in this moment?

In this moment, I am really quite happy with my life.  I’m accomplishing goals that I set for myself a long time ago.  I’m good with the people in my life.  I’ve gotten back into a spiritual practice.  I love my job and my home.  I love putting energy into this blog.  And in this very moment, I’m happy.  I’m writing this blog post sitting next to an awesome coworker; the sun is out; it’s not that cold; there is an art opening in our gallery today and those are always fun, interesting and …uhm…delicious (opening treats!) and I am looking forward to a lovely dinner with a lovely woman.

How are you?

It’s important to check in with yourself once in awhile.

And I think it’s important when you ask “How are you?” to others that you take the time to listen, just in case they don’t answer, “Fine.”

Ann Wilberton

Henry can doze sitting up.

This time of year is particularly stressful for everyone, even those folks who are not celebrating a holiday.  It’s hard to avoid the just general heightened stress that is in the air.  It becomes a little bit harder to muster up the patience needed to deal with difficult or extra needy people.

Sleep is probably the one thing you can do that will help you the most holistically.  It effects your physical and mental health.  Poor sleep whether from sleep disorders or just not getting enough sleep because you’re up reading too late (you know who you are!) effects us deeply into the far reaching corners of our health.  It effects our ability to think.  It effects our immune system.  It effects our mood.  It effects our ability to react quickly.  It effects our motor skills.  It effects our ability to remember.  We all know how much shaving a few hours of sleep here and there effects our ability to be patient and nice.  We joke about it actually.  But what about the non laughable effects it has on our mental health?

In doing the research for this post, I was actually astonished by the following quote in New Scientist (February 21, 2009):

Adults with depression, for instance, are five times as likely as the average person to have difficulty breathing when asleep, while between a quarter and a half of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) suffer from sleep complaints, compared with just 7 per cent of other children.

They are now starting to rethink the “poor sleep as a symptom of mental illness” and flip it to a theory that just maybe, poor sleep causes mental illness.

Matt Walker, a psychologist at the University of California at Berkley and his colleagues conducted a study to find out just why people become irritable when they get a poor night’s sleep.  What they discovered is that the part of our brain that basically inhibits us from highly emotional reactions to encountering things we don’t like is not communicating properly.  According to Walker, when we are deprived of good sleep our “emotional brake” is not working.  He suggests if you are feeling emotional or irritable that you try to take a nap.  After taking a 90 minute nap where they reached REM sleep, his previously irritable study participants were not only less irritable; but, they also became more receptive to happy faces.

We know, innately, as living, breathing humans that if we don’t sleep well we become grouchier and short tempered.  We already know this.  But how do we change our poor sleep habits?  In stressful times, we probably need MORE sleep than normal.

It seems that the experts agree on the following.

1.  Set regular sleep hours.  Go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time every day.

2.  Relax in the time leading up to your bedtime.  A warm bath, a glass of warm milk or sleepy tea can help you start to feel more relaxed and ready for bed.  There are a couple of things you probably shouldn’t be doing right before bed: exercise and talking on a cell phone.  While exercise is important to good sleep (see below), it takes time for your body to wind down after exercising and you should refrain in the 3 hours leading up to your bedtime.  Researchers in Switzerland have have linked  long phone conversations on cell phones to disturbed sleep.  While more research needs to be done in this area, if you have disturbed sleep and are yakking on your cell phone leading up to bed, you might want to try to avoid phone calls.  Minimize stressful conversations, reading, TV and projects.

3. Cut way back on caffeine.  You know if caffeine keeps you up at night.  Some people can fall asleep minutes after having a cup of coffee.  I need to stop drinking caffeine by mid afternoon.

4.  Exercise.  Getting into a regular routine of exercise in the morning or afternoon will not only help you fall asleep faster; but, researchers have discovered that regular exercise helps people reach deeper sleep for longer periods of time.

5.  Prepare your sleep environment.  Make sure you have a comfortable bed.  Reduce noise and light as much as possible.  Lower the temperature.  Sleep specialists also suggest that you only use your bed for sleeping and sex.  If you are watching television, working on projects, talking on the phone, typing on your laptop while your in bed, your body is not programmed to think “sleep” as soon as you climb in.

6.  Honor the need to sleep.  I love this one because it’s really about taking care of yourself and making sleep a priority.  I’m as guilty as the next person for shaving sleep here and there; but, I feel the consequences so immediately and so severely because of the brain injury I sustained in 2005 that it is always a “wake up call” no pun intended!  I have a brain that does not play along when I stay up late reading The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti (it’s sooo good!).  I am acutely aware of my deficits the next day.  Many of my friends exercise and eat really well; yet, they are quick to stay up late watching television or surfing the web and just compensate the next day with more caffeine.  But, if you take anything from this post, it should be that getting more sleep is probably one of the easiest and most impactful adjustments you can make for your health and mood.

If it seems that you are doing everything right and still need caffeine and still feel tired, go talk to your doctor.  Sleep disorders effect millions of Americans.

I suggest a nap.  If in doubt, nap.  I may not post until after the New Year; so, if I don’t,  I wish you all a pleasant holiday season (whatever holidays you celebrate) and plenty of opportunities to catch some cat naps.  Sleep well.

UPDATE JAN 04, 2010:  I ran across this Huffington Post article and am going to take the challenge myself: 30 days of good rest.  I’m tempted to say I’ll start tomorrow (insert guilty laugh here); but, I will start tonight.  How about you?  Can you get 30 continuous days of good rest?

References

Rizzo, Terrie Heinrich. “Sleep matters: learn smart strategies to make sure your body gets the zzzzzs it needs.” IDEA Fitness Journal 4.5 (2007): 102+. General Reference Center Gold. Web. 18 Dec. 2009. <http://find.galegroup.com/gps/start.do?prodId=IPS&userGroupName=midd90876>.

“10 keys to a great night’s sleep: sleeping better can increase your physical and mental performance, put you in a better mood, and perhaps even boost your immune system.” Women’s Health Advisor 11.6 (2007): 4+. General Reference Center Gold. Web. 18 Dec. 2009. <http://find.galegroup.com/gps/start.do?prodId=IPS&userGroupName=midd90876>.

Young, Emma. “Sleep well, stay sane: could our bad sleeping habits be driving us mad?” New Scientist 201.2696 (2009): 34+. General Reference Center Gold. Web. 18 Dec. 2009. <http://find.galegroup.com/gps/start.do?prodId=IPS&userGroupName=midd90876>.

We must realize, if tomorrow is going to look any better than today, that the currency for compassion isn’t what someone else does, right or wrong—it is the very fact that that person exists. Commitment to the possibility of kindness cannot be discarded as foolish or irrelevant, even in troubling times when we often can’t find easy answers. If we abandon the force of kindness as we confront cruelty, we won’t learn anything to take into tomorrow—not from history, not from one another, not from life.

- Sharon Salzberg, The Force of Kindness

I urge you to read just one sentence and take time to think about it before moving on to the next.

We must realize, if tomorrow is going to look any better than today, that the currency for compassion isn’t what someone else does, right or wrong—it is the very fact that that person exists.

This line is so powerful because our first instinct is usually to parcel out our compassion based on another person’s actions.  I recently had a discussion about Rush Limbaugh, where I said that I didn’t like his rhetoric and I believed that he was an incredibly irresponsible and possibly dangerous person; but, that I had compassion for him and the person I was talking to asked me how I could have compassion for a man like him.  I thought “because he is suffering.”  He is a human being sharing our planet and as much as I disagree with his behaviors, I truly do not wish him any suffering.  It does not benefit me or anyone else for him to experience suffering.

Commitment to the possibility of kindness cannot be discarded as foolish or irrelevant, even in troubling times when we often can’t find easy answers.

Kindness and compassion can’t just be trotted out in good times with good and happy people.  Our greatest challenge is to remain committed to being kind and compassionate when it is most difficult to do so.  On a small level this might be extending kindness and compassion to a coworker who is particularly difficult or unpleasant and on a large scale it is maintaining these commitments during war or when under great emotional and/or physical siege.  I heard the Dalai Lama speak in Minneapolis several years ago and he told the audience that one of his dearest friends, a Buddhist monk was finally released from a Chinese prison and he went to India to join a community of Tibetan exiles.  While out gardening with him one day, The Dalai Lama asked him what his greatest fear had been and he said that his greatest fear had been that he would lose compassion for the Chinese.

If we abandon the force of kindness as we confront cruelty, we won’t learn anything to take into tomorrow—not from history, not from one another, not from life.

This is a beautiful reminder that it is in our hands to break the cycle of violence and suffering in the world.  Years ago I saw an episode of Oprah, yes…Oprah.  She had a Jewish couple on who had been harassed and harassed by a white supremacist.  Instead of using anger and hatred to fight this man, they used love and when they found out that he needed help, they helped him and the cycle of hate was broken.

I joined Tricycle as a sustaining member so that I can go back and read from the archives and now, participate in their “online retreats.”  As a sampler, right now, for free they have the first installment of Sharon Salzberg’s audio teachings on kindness.  You don’t have to be Buddhist or even a believer in any religion or spiritual practice to learn important lessons about cultivating compassion and kindness from this gifted teacher.   There is a new book out called, Good Without God that talks about how we as humans have potential for goodness and can lead lives of purpose and compassion without belief in God or a higher being.

I tend to lean on Buddhist teaching because they speak to me; but, cultivating kindness and compassion is not exclusive to Buddhism or any other religion, or religion at all.  Find a way to cultivate kindness in yourself in the way that feels right to you.

photo: shutterbabe510 on Flickr Creative Commons

Suppose we are out on a lake and it’s a bit foggy – not too foggy, but a bit foggy- and we’re rowing along in our little boat having a good time.  And then, all of a sudden, coming out of the fog, there’s this other rowboat and it’s heading right at us.  And… crash!  Well, for a second we’re really angry – what is that fool doing?  I just painted my boat!  And here he comes – crash! – right into it.  An then suddenly we notice that the rowboat is empty.  What happens to our anger?  Well, the anger collapses. . . I’ll just have to paint my boat again, that’s all.  But if that rowboat that hit ours had another person it it how would we react?  You know what would happen!  Now our encounters with life, with other people, with events are like being bumped by an empty rowboat.  But we don’t experience life that way.  We experience it as though there are people in that other rowboat and we’re really getting clobbered by them.  What am I talking about when I say that all of life is an encounter, a collision with an empty rowboat?  What’s that all about?

from Everyday Zen by Charlotte Joko Beck (pg. 57 of the 1989 trade paper edition).

I like to say that this is the story that changed my life.  It is one paragraph long in a book that is 212 pages.  I never even finished the whole book.  I read, maybe 50 pages beyond what I now call “the empty boat” story.  I’m sure the second half of the book is just as wonderful as the first half; but, the empty boat story so resonated with me that I basically just stopped reading.

Rereading the empty boat story now after so many years is odd because it’s just such a small story and since then I have read many other profound passages in numerous other books, including The Dhammapada which quickly became one of my favorites.  But it is the this story, in Joko Beck’s book that flipped a switch in me and I never looked back.

This story shone a very bright light onto my life and I realized that I had absolutely been living my life as if there was a person in the other boat.  In fact, I may have been living it as if there were a few people in the other boat.  All this anger and worrying about what other folks were doing in their boat caused me a mountain of suffering.  This was especially true on the road while I was driving.  I would frequently get angry at other drivers.  In my teens and early twenties, I was known to end an argument with a door slam.  Looking back, I can see that most of this suffering was caused by my lack of compassion for others.

I don’t know why it was the empty boat story that struck a nerve in me.  Right place right time?  I don’t want to mislead you.  I didn’t change over night.  And I’m far from perfect now.  But, I started using the empty boat story to alter my reactions to things.  Get cut off on the highway, instead of yelling and stewing over it, I would literally say “empty boat, empty boat, empty boat, empty boat.”  It became my mantra.  I got my partner at the time, Kate, to start saying it.  We would say it to each other.  One of us would come home from work and tell a story about an annoying person and we would be getting all worked up and the other person would just say: empty boat.  We helped train each other to change our thinking.

After some time passed, and by time I mean a couple of years, I started to notice that it was becoming automatic and that I was developing empathy without even realizing that was what I was doing.  All of this happened about 14 years ago and I still sometimes use the empty boat mantra; but, I don’t need it as much as I used to.  I let things go more quickly now.

I sometimes wonder what life would be like today had I not discovered the empty boat.  In 2005/2006, I experienced a crazy, life altering accident and my partnership with Kate ended after 18 years together.  That is kind of a lot to process in a such a short time span and throw in a brain injury and sometimes I’m amazed I’m here: healed, forgiving, experiencing compassion for Kate and her experiences and for the man that hit me.   The empty boat sparked a practice and a lifestyle change that has served me well, helped me be resilient during and after traumatic events and just generally made it easier for me to have fun and find joy in life.

What does any of this have to do with libraries?  Well, everything of course.  I’m my best at my job and in my life, when I am kind, empathetic, patient, compassionate and generous.   And the icing is that all of this also brings a deeper happiness to me.  There have been numerous studies showing that people who are altruistic are happier, people who have more compassion for others are happier and that people find happiness in being kind and helpful.

I don’t know that the empty boat story is for everyone; but, if it doesn’t resonate with you, go find your own empty boat story.  Figure out the best way for you to reduce the stress, anger and suffering in your life.  You will be happier and your impact on those around you will be more positive.  And that is clearly:  win/win.

Danah Boyd photo: by Joi (Flickr) thru creative commons

I follow a lot of blogs on technology, libraries, librarians and social networking.  One of the blogs I follow is the blog of danah boyd.  danah boyd is a social media researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a Fellow at the Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society.  She is probably the leading researcher and scholar on the subject of youth and social networking.  I have no idea how many talks and presentations she has given; but, I can only imagine that it is A LOT.

Last week, she was giving a talk at Web2.0 Expo.  This is a conference for web geeks and those interested in web geekery.  You can read her post on what happened here.  I’ve always had tons of respect and admiration for her work anyway and for being so active and present in a man’s world; but, that post has elevated my admiration even further.

To quickly summarize:  The organizers of the conference decided that a Twitter stream should be visible behind the presenter.  So, while she was speaking, there was a live stream projected behind her of what people in her audience were saying about her talk.  The Twitter stream behind her turned nasty when the audience started making comments about her presentation style and apparently (though I have not seen all the tweets) personal attacks.  By her own admission, it was not the slickest speech.  I went on YouTube and watched it.  It actually was not that poorly presented in my opinion.  She definitely spoke too fast; but, I’m certain that having the audience burst into laughter when you haven’t made a joke is unsettling and I too would race to the end.

At the bottom of her blog post there are numerous comments and a couple of the commenters talk about the “social contract” between presenter and audience.   This is an important part of the conversation.  Is there a contract between presenter and audience? When is it okay for the audience to be equal participants?  Is it ever okay for the audience to become the focal point?  Why do we go to hear speakers?  All these and a million more questions have been raised by Ms. boyd’s experience and her sharing of this experience with the larger, connected world.

To me, all the debating in the world can go on about whether broadcast Twitter streams have a place at conferences while people are presenting and/or about whether what happened to danah boyd was a legitimate use of Twitter or a bunch of people angling for exposure, trying to one up each other with deeper and wordier insults; but, the core issue is humans treating other humans with decency and respect.  When did it become okay to take fidgeting during a “boring” lecture to delivering public and personal attacks on the presenter?  This is not okay.  There is an appropriate time and place for CONSTRUCTIVE criticism of a lecture; but, during a presentation is not one of them.  It only ends up being disruptive and rude.  If you wouldn’t stand up in the middle of a lecture hall and yell it, you probably shouldn’t tweet a personal attack.

The sad part of all of this is that we’ve completely lost her message which is incredibly thought provoking.   I urge you to read the transcript of her talk.  She is one of our brightest minds and what she has to say is relevant and insightful.  I found her closing comments  ironic in light of what happened.

As we continue to move from a broadcast model of information to a networked one, we will continue to see reworkings of the information landscape. Some of what is unfolding is exciting, some is terrifying. The key is not be all utopian or dystopian about it, but to recognize what changes and what stays the same. The future of Web2.0 is about information flow and if you want to help people, help them reach that state. Y’all are setting the tone of the future of information. Keep it exciting and, please, recognize the power that you have!

Here we are hundreds of years later with cartoon turkeys, black Friday, family squabbling all centered around a gluttonous meal.  I know numerous people that dread extended family gatherings because of political arguments, family gossiping, disapproval of lifestyle, appearance, religion, choice in partner or because they orchestrate a giant meal with little help or thanks.

How can we make the most of this day?  I have some suggestions for things I’m going to try this year.

1.  Set your intentions right after waking.  Think about how you want the day to go and how you want to receive any unpleasantness.  Write down three things you’re grateful for having in my life.

2.  Make sure you exercise.  I’m exercising myself and my dog.  I’ll be calmer and so will  he.

3.  Be direct and honest.  If the conversation turns toward a topic sure to bring on an argument, try to steer it by being blatant:  I don’t think discussing Obama’s Health Care Plan is a very good idea.  Let’s just stick to topics that won’t start a big fight.  I’ve tried this tactic and it actually works.  There are usually a few last second comments thrown in; but, it settles it down because it is not an unreasonable request.

4.  Help the host.  Sometimes help is setting the table or cleaning up afterward and sometimes help is keeping Uncle Joe from eating all the stuffing before it’s even served or keeping Cousin Fred out of the kitchen where he is an annoying know-it-all.

4.  Steal Thanksgiving back from the history books that perpetuate a myth and from the advertisers who see it as the start of a consumer binge.  Create new rituals that give thanks and forgiveness to those you love.

5.  End your day with a stroll or some indoor quiet time and reflect on the day.  Write down 3 more things you’re grateful for.

If you celebrate Thanksgiving, enjoy it.  I am spending it with family and expect to have a lovely time and if I’m lucky, I’ll get to see the herd of wild turkeys that passes through my parent’s property in the late afternoons.  I love those turkeys.  There are sometimes up to 17 of them and they are scruffy and wild and noisy, nothing like our Thanksgiving turkeys.  I love watching them.

When Karen Armstrong won the TED Prize in 2008 she used her wish to call upon the TED community to help her create a Charter for Compassion.  Her dream has been realized with the birth of the TED project on November 12, 2009.

It is an interesting endeavor and one I will be watching closely.  Before the launch they released 6 videos from people of different faiths to comment on compassion.

At the very least, this awesome and inspiring project should propel us into much needed discussions in our communities.  Like kindness, I think sometimes compassion gets an eye roll or is seen as some bizarre form of weakness.

Compassion doesn’t mean feeling sorry for people. It doesn’t mean pity. It means putting yourself in the position of the other, learning about the other. Learning what’s motivating the other, learning about their grievances.  ~Karen Armstrong

It’s time we moved beyond the idea of toleration and moved toward appreciation of the other.  ~Karen Armstrong

Spend some time thinking about compassion this week.  Tell people about this project.  Talk to your friends and family about it.  Put yourself in another’s position, think about what is motivating them, listen to their grievances.  This notion was brought home to me over ten years ago when I stumbled upon a Buddhist story about an empty boat.  In the next post, I will tell you the empty boat story and how it changed my life.