The need for Everyday Wisdom

Rules often fail us. Incentives often backfire. But practical, everyday wisdom will help rebuild our world.  Barry Schwartz, a well-known psychologist currently studying the concept of “wisdom,” makes this powerful argument in his speech at last week’s TED conference in LA.

The conference is a melting pot for leaders who innovate ways to better the world and engage the challenges we face.

Also check out Bill Gates’ presentation on the importance of extraordinary teachers and how just one such teacher can help shape our future.

A balanced mind

Article Link: Thinking about Obama
Source: David Brooks, columnist for NY Times

Maintaining a balanced mind in times of joy and sorrow, success and failure, etc., is advocated by many of the world’s philosophies.  We seldom see it practiced in real life except for a handful of colleagues or family members who either seem “balanced” by nature or make an honest attempt to be.

Regardless of which way you voted, there are lessons to be learned from the political theater we’ve witnessed for the past two years. Both candidates have great qualities.

McCain = passion, service to country, and a great citizen
Obama = calm, collective, and clear-minded

This article is an attempt to highlight just one quality of one of the candidates.

Sure, at the end of the day, we can conclude that it’s all politics and perhaps staged.  But for someone to be on a national stage for more than 2 years and maintain a sense of balance is no easy task.  In itself, the last two years have been the longest job interview any presidential applicant can ask for.

10 tips for Earth Day 2008

Article Link: 10 easy ways to improve the Earth’s health
Source: LiveScience.com, courtesy of Yahoo!

Living green can get confusing. With all the buzz and hype, what can we (as ordinary citizens) do to help save Mother Earth? Here are 10 practical things you can do today:

1. Make the move to florescent light bulbs. If every household in the USA did this, we would save 13 billion pounds of CO2 from entering the atmosphere every year. That’s equivalent to 1 million fewer cars on the road.
2. Drive less and smarter. Getting a fuel efficient car is best. If you can’t do that, slow down on the roads; this saves gas, which ultimately affects fuel consumption at large.
3. Control your temperature. Tune up your heating/cooling systems, clean your vents, and buy a programmable thermostat that lets you cut the temperature when you’re not home.
4. Tame your beast of a refrigerator. Responsible for 15% of the energy use in your home, clean old coils and replace units with new ones. If you have a second refrigerator, get rid of it! Eating less will never harm you.
5. Turn some knobs on your water heater. Turn it down by a few degrees and install a timer to turn off the heater at night and restart it before you wake up in the morning.
6. Plant smartly. Just as trees soak up CO2, they also emit it when they die. There are smarter ways of planting for the long run. I’m no expert at this, so here’s a beginners guide for this.
7. Invest in green energy. Most electricity companies have an option to pay a few cents more every month to change your energy source to green. Or, they have a Carbon-Offset voluntary fee that ensures your energy use is offset by an equivalent amount. Call your energy company and look into this.
8. Go organic and local. By eating locally grown food, we’re setting a trend of not having to buy things that have traveled far distances (and thus used resources like fuel for trucks, energy to keep things refrigerated or frozen, etc.).
9. Buy recycled. It takes less energy to manufacture a recycled item than it does to manufacture a new one.
10. Live a minimalist lifestyle. This is more about a frame of mind.  Buy less of what you want and more of what you need.  Life is surprisingly simple.

If you’re not up to any of these, the least you can do is donate to a cause whose goal is to save Mother Earth.

3 approaches to solving problems

Article Link: Solving Problems…

This article offers three approaches to solving problems. Choose wisely; your future depends on it.

Happy New Year and please make every effort to stick to your resolutions. If you didn’t make any resolutions, you’re either completely enlightened or entirely void of light. Or, you have another way of ensuring you continue along the path of self-development. If this is the case, please share your methodology for the rest of us.