I grew up around alchoholics, gamblers, cheaters, and liars. People who sold their souls and materials to serve their vanity, egos, narcissism, and greed were always around my house, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, sobering up and trying to move on with their lives. In all my different work with young people, I have beenContinue reading “We Are Limitless”
Tag Archives: personal development
Life’s Ingredients
“Wasn’t that just a shame,” asked someone after I shared the story of my childhood homelessness. “Not at all. It made me who I am, and I like this person. So that wasn’t a shame; it was in service to me.” I’ve found a temptation among people working to change the world to think thatContinue reading “Life’s Ingredients”
19 Questions About Personal Engagement
Below are some questions to clarify personal engagement in your own life. What you discover from these questions can help you decide on the kind of non-superficial action you can take in order to live engaged throughout your own life right now. These questions might seem a bit direct, but they’re for you alone. ManyContinue reading “19 Questions About Personal Engagement”
The Value of Meaningfulness
“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.”—Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man. Living within a vacuum is the standard for many people today. Aspiring to have and keep the things that are prescribed in life, people keep jobs that don’t hold meaning for themContinue reading “The Value of Meaningfulness”
How To Tell If You’re Engaged
All community engagement has to begin by being engaged within ourselves. If we are disconnected from what dwells deepest within us—our priorities, emotions, thoughts, and experiences—we are alone even when we’re surrounded by others. We cannot truly make a difference in anyone else’s life if we cannot make a difference in our own. Here areContinue reading “How To Tell If You’re Engaged”
Fight to Free…
Fighting to free the world and struggling to free yourself are not independent; you need to do one in order to do the other. Buried somewhere out there in the world is the belief that people who are working to make the world a better place are somehow being ultimately selfless, acting only in theContinue reading “Fight to Free…”
The Mystery of Engagement
For all my attempts to explain Heartspace, it comes down to this: Engagement is a mystery in which everything works how it works, no matter how I try to understand it. As much as I want to rely on them, engagement is not a process or a pathway. Instead, its a million stars scattered acrossContinue reading “The Mystery of Engagement”
PETS: People-to-People Partnerships
Click here for other topics in this series… When we interact as neighbors, parents, coworkers, children, students, lovers, customers, or supervisors, we’re engaging with others, person-to-person. People-to-people partnerships are ways that we experience Personal Engagement in intimate, intentional connection with others. Intentionally formed, they can enhance, stabilize and deepen relations between people of all ages,Continue reading “PETS: People-to-People Partnerships”
Disruptive Dignity
Standing in the shadows of downtown Manhattan, I see a city mustering the courage to face another day. Its a short while after 9/11, and the scars that redefined the NYC’s existence are palpable. The early morning cabs and buses are greeted by flower delivery trucks and slow motion service workers making their way to serveContinue reading “Disruptive Dignity”
Living Beyond Apathy
There are a growing number of people living with apathy towards others. Their disregard, lack of concern, and intransigence is both intentional and coincidental, both generative and respondent. However, wherever it comes from, apathy is detrimental for those who experience it and all of society, too. Apathy is a lack of interest or concern for others. TheContinue reading “Living Beyond Apathy”
