They say you have to walk a mile in a person’s shoes to truly understand what her life is like. For me, it was six miles, barefoot, across irrigation ditches and rice fields in northeast Thailand. The people I hoped to understand were members of the Santi Asoke Buddhist Reform Movement—a fringe Buddhist group who
Unpaid Care Work Adds Up Big Time for Wellbeing
Feminist economists like Nancy Folbre have written at length about the value of non-wage care work in domestic, subsistence, informal economy, and volunteer sectors. Sectors that are often dominated by women. In 2018, McKinsey estimated that if women’s unpaid labor were accounted for, it would add $28 trillion or 26% to the global economy. Just think if
How to Get the Best Bang for Your Donation Bucks
We have some inspiring role models for donation giving in the U.S. Bill and Melinda Gates decided in 1993 while on vacation in Africa that they would “give back” Microsoft’s profits to help others. They were drawn to inequities: 1) global disease epidemics affecting children that are easily treatable in the U.S. and 2) the
12 Tips to Get the Most out of Volunteering
I’m a huge advocate for volunteering. There are so many opportunities – you just have to make the time! Volunteering obviously benefits your community and/or the organization you’re supporting. Bonus: when you volunteer, your personal wellbeing gets a huge boost, too! Check out these 12 tips to get the most out of your efforts. Tip
5 Reasons Giving Is Good for Wellbeing
Today marks the start of the next wellbeing element in the INTENT framework: Being Engaged. We’re talking about civic engagement in particular – the kind that generates community wellbeing. For the next month we’ll be exploring one vital aspect of civic engagement: Giving. You might want to check out this post to see what I
Waste Not Want Not: Sustainability and Social Good
For our final post on improving material wellbeing through sustainability, let’s turn our attention to social good. These 5 suggestions are just the beginning of the good you can do when you start making connections between helping others and waste. And while there are many local opportunities to act on, you might think globally as
5 Simple Strategies to Make Society More Sustainable
Individual solutions alone won’t fix our waste problem. To make society more sustainable, we need more systemic strategies. By that I mean: wouldn’t it be nice not to have to worry about what to do with a plastic straw, for example, so that it doesn’t end up in a landfill? To really eliminate that worry,
6 Creative Ways to Upcycle Trash into Treasure
If you’re not familiar with the term “upcycle,” it means to turn something used into something better. So not just reusing or recycling, but adding value. I love to upcycle because it gives me a creative outlet with a high cost-benefit ratio. I don’t have to invest much, except maybe time, so I don’t waste
8 Wonderful Ways to Waste Less at Home
Of all the lessons I learned at Srisa Asoke (the intentional Buddhist community in Thailand), I’m most enthusiastic about how to waste less through the 3Rs (reuse, repair, recycle). Who doesn’t like to save money and, at the same time, save the planet? That’s a win-win. Still, try as we might, our landfills are overflowing.
Waste & Wellbeing: How to Sustain a Good Life
The lessons I learned about material wellbeing at the intentional Buddhist community, Srisa Asoke, are pretty straightforward. Cut back on consumption to just what you need and ensure that your resources last as long as possible by reusing, repairing, and re/upcycling. This approach is not a likely path to early retirement, but it will help
Poverty vs. Plenty: How to Help All Consume Enough
Although to this point we have been primarily concerned with reducing consumption for those of us who currently consume far more than we need, it’s vital to remember that there are vastly more people in the world who occupy the other end of the spectrum. I’m talking about people living in poverty. Underlying all this
12 Tested Tips to Build Your Self-Sufficiency
It’s not always easy to figure out our consumption sweet spot. On the one hand, we have the subjectivity of sufficiency. As Asoke Buddhists reasonably observed, individuals must determine for themselves what is enough. On the other hand, we have the objectivity of ecological constraints. There are real, concrete limits to what we can consume
7 Consumption Movements Lead the Way to Wellbeing
The Santi Asoke Buddhist Reform Movement of Thailand, the group I studied, were serious about reducing their consumption. They only had two suits of clothing (and no shoes), furnished their houses sparsely, had no cars, ate communally, and otherwise gave everything they owned to the collective. This is austere, to be sure, but there are
Understanding Sufficiency: 7 Ways to be Happy with Less
We’ve come to the T in the INTENT 365 project, which stands for Thrifty. Being thrifty, or not wasting money and resources, is a long-held American virtue that fosters material wellbeing. Material wellbeing starts with the ability to meet basic needs for food, water, shelter, and clothing, plus essential services like health and education. If you’re reading