When my closest friend was in the hospital with a serious illness, he, the patient, was a mess; I, the caregiver, was possibly even worse for worry and fear. It was then I discovered the magic pill.
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4-Minute At-Home Workout for When You Can’t Get to the Gym or Need a Lift
For the past two months, I’ve been trying a 4-minute workout routine that promises to give the same benefits as an hour at the gym. It really works.
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Slow Walk to Happiness and Gratitude (Leo Widrich)
Buffer founder Leo Widrich discovered that practicing deliberate slowness in times of high stress yields feelings of happiness and gratitude. His practice is amazingly simple…
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Practical REAL-Life Wisdom from the Very Wise Ann Lamott
When she turned 61, Anne Lamott decided to “take the opportunity to write down every single thing I know, as of today.” It is a seriously good distillation of decades of living from the author of Bird by Bird.
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Why Walking Helps Us Think (Rilke + Ferris Jabr)
Science has proven what painting, poetry, and our own experience know: walking helps us think, and be.
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How to Live Wisely With Your Phone
School of Life’s How to Live More Wisely with Our Phones is a remarkable essay about how we can gently balance our relationship to our smart phones. Here are the most useful and view-shifting hunks.
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Ann Hamilton: ‘How Can Words be Acts of Making?’
At artist Ann Hamilton’s website, we found an extraordinary meditation on words, and the question: “how can words be acts of making?”
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Jessamyn Stanley’s Liberation Yoga: ‘Fuck Comparison’
In a short demo session, body-loving yoga master Jessamyn Stanley undid my shame about not being perfect AND set me straight why we NEED yoga. She is a force of nature, who is making yoga accessible.
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‘Is it Additive?’ (Ginny Jordan)
We recently learned a powerful practice from artist/poet/humanitarian Ginny Jordan. Acutely aware of how precious time is, Ginny found a way to quickly discern what is truly meaningful amid the endless time-consuming activities of modern life. Here’s how she describes it:
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Living is a Martial Art (Bruce Lee)
Legendary martial artist Bruce Lee always carried a small notebook in which he wrote down quotes, affirmations, appearances, poetry, philosophical ideas and his personal practices for training his mind and spirit NOT just his physical skill. Take a look.
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David Foster Wallace: ‘the only thing that’s capital-T True’
This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life is a teeny book that we return to, and give, frequently. It’s the commencement speech David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon College in 2005. Reading it is humbling and an instant shift from default setting to compassionate mindset. Here are 229…
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3 Good Things: An App to Amplify Happiness
During the recent uncertain days when Improvised Life was under siege, I started playing with a powerful app created by digital product designer Bryan Landers. 3 Good Things is like an ultra-minimal diary: You just add three good things that happened (each day or whenever you like) for a simple way to remember the good in…
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Yamamoto’s Ephemeral Salt Sculptures “Futile Yet Necessary to His Healing”
(Video link here.) There is something very moving about watching artist Motoi Yamamoto painstakingly make his intricate, lacelike installations out of salt…perhaps because they are at once so intricate and so ephemeral. We discovered that the ordinary material we all have on hand is, in Japanese culture, a traditional symbol for mourning and purification. And that Motoi Yamamoto…
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Quick n’ Easy Interval Training You’ll Actually DO
We’re big into interval training because it seems like a really efficient way to exercise. But the question still remains: how to get yourself to actually do it? A new iteration seems to accomplish that. The promising research is outlined in the New York Times’ A Way to Get Fit and Also Have Fun. Although…
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How to Sleep (with Max Richter)
Max Richter’s 8-hour lullaby, Sleep (on beds in the concert hall) reminded me of how many people have difficulty sleeping. I learned how to sleep the hard way, by NOT understanding my body’s needs, and thinking that I could defy them because there was no immediately adverse effect. When my bad habits caught up with me, I had to re-learn how to sleep.
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Holly Soloman’s Kitchen: “A Painting I Can Walk Into”
In the annals of kitchen design, art collector/dealer Holly Soloman‘s has to be one of the most out-there. The dazzling, mind-boggling riot of colored mosaic was created artist Dorren Gallo as an on-site installation in the eighties. Solomon said to the New York Times in 1984, “I don’t know how to find an egg in it. But for me…
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Max Lamb: 40 Inspired Chairs + His Philosophy of Making
(Video link here.) “Exercises in Seating” at the Salone del Mobile furniture fair in Milan, is an exhibit of 40 chairs British designer Max Lamb has made over the past 10 years, from elemental thrones in stone to boxy wooden chairs and and geometric stools cast in sand. It inspires serious chair lust and illumination into…
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Effective Workouts WAY More Fun Than a Gym
These two quick, compelling videos (and recent research) make the case for “functional fitness “workouts that are pleasurable AND integrated into your life, rather than having to take place in the confines of a gym.
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Must Read: Anne Lamott’s “Everything I know”
When she turned 61, Anne Lamott decided to “take the opportunity to write down every single thing I know, as of today.” It is a seriously good distillation from decades of living.
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David Foster Wallace: ‘You Get To Decide How You’re Gonna See’
We are KNOCKED OUT by this brilliant video of a thoughtful excerpt of the commencement speech David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon College in 2005. It’s watching every bit of the 9 or so minutes, even if you have to do it in chunks throughout the day. His message is essential. We’ve included a short bit here.
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