Gifts, Given and Received

On my desk sits a small bronze figure of Buddha. It represents to me the many wise lessons imparted to the world by this insightful man. But it also means something else: friendship. The inexpensive figurine was handed to me spontaneously by a woman at a shop along the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok, Thailand. The sales clerk did this as a kindness, I believe, a gesture of good will between us. I already had bought several masks and other art pieces at her store and paid for them. She had nothing to gain except my smile.

Just now, as I dusted the Buddha during my weekly housecleaning, this thought occurred to me: the gift was given with no knowledge of how I would receive it. I might just as easily have seen this as worthless junk and tossed it in the nearest trash can. Or I might have put it in some jewelry box when I returned home and never glanced at it again. Or. Or … yes, I might have looked at this small gift in the way I do, as an object I genuinely appreciate and use to enhance my life. That thought led me to another. Isn’t the same true of our own gifts, the talent and experience and enthusiasm we can share with others? All we can do is to give these, with no knowledge of how they will be received. Just like the Buddha from my friend in Bangkok. We only have the power to hand out our individual treasures to the world. What the world does with them is entirely up to others to decide.

One Mom & Two Kids

Just a quick post to let our many blog followers know about a podcast they may want to check out. It's called "One Mom & Two Kids," the first Humanity Project show on which we've heard the voices of children who actually have experienced bullying first-hand in their school. It's an engaging interview with a mom and her kids and you can listen to all or part of the program, which runs about 1/2 hour long. An interesting way to spend a little free Web-surfing time! Check it out at http://www.thehumanityproject.com/podcasts/Podcast61.html. Thanks -- and please email the link to your friends!

Calling All Boomers

I’m a baby boomer – born in 1952. I lived through the tumult and chaos and tragedy and excitement of our era, as many of you did. We saw the Vietnam War unfold on our tv screens during dinner. We watched the Nixon administration unravel during Watergate. We mourned when the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King Jr. were killed. We marched and protested, flashed the peace sign, maybe made some free love and even did a few drugs along the way. It was our effort to change the world. And arguably, we did force some things to change. Now we’re mostly in our 50s, at mid-life. Not old, certainly. But not quite so young and unrealistic either. And many of us want to get involved again now. The re-emergence of boomers as a social force is real, something noted in recent news stories and documentaries. We haven’t given up on changing the world. The Humanity Project can help you get going with your quest.

Our mission is clear: To help you and others live happier lives through service to others. It’s our goal to convince as many people as possible to do this – and to provide some ways to help you carry out that effort. We are preaching a “giving lifestyle,” and we’re not talking about religion here. Your religious beliefs are your own. We promote the idea of pushing our unique personality, interests and talents into the world to help others throughout each day, in large ways and small ways. We see this as a higher form of love. I know this website doesn’t completely reflect our more focused mission yet. (The only thing holding us up is the money to pay for a complete website redesign. We’ve talked about this in other blogs and podcasts. If you can help, please make a tax-deductible contribution by going to “Join The Project” on this website.) But hang in there, please. We’re hoping that within a couple of months, this website will have many new features to help you help others. We also hope you’ll want to support our efforts by becoming a member. We’re a growing organization with big ambitions. The baby boomers among us can become one big force to put those ambitions into practice.

Service To Others: One Perspective

I want to let you know about a podcast you might enjoy (a podcast, of course, is only an Internet radio program, in case you don’t know the term yet …). Just close this window, go to our homepage at www.thehumanityproject.com and then click on The Humanity Podcast. At the top of the podcast page, you’ll see a link to the latest show, called “Service To Others: A Personal Story.” Click on that link to open it. The 15-minute program you’ll hear is, indeed, personal. At least to me. It’s my own story.

You’ll listen to my honest, very personal explanation about how and why The Humanity Project is focusing our mission on one idea: We want to help people live more happily through service to others. It’s that simple. We were always about helping you become healthier, more well-adjusted – more fully the person you really are. Now, though, our approach to this effort has changed. That’s because we have come to believe the best way to help you help yourself is by teaching you to focus on the needs of others. Recent scientific research into happiness backs up this conclusion: People feel happier when they sincerely work to make other people happy. The new edition of The Humanity Podcast talks about the 30-year process I went through to reach this belief in my own life. Maybe hearing a bit about my struggles will help you somehow in your own search for a happier way of life.