This week Awesome Stories brings your education reform, life lessons, reciprocity, and beyond judgments.
I really resonate with Seth Godin’s perspective on education reform called Stop Stealing Dreams. His core premise is that our education model is outdated and mostly kills dreams and creativity. Education in the US and much of the world was designed to create obedient factory workers and consumers. His core perspective is that we need to teach kids to lead, make connections, and solve problems. From my perspective, the biggest problems are population, over consumption, and climate change. I also agree with Seth that parents need to accept responsibility to educate their own children. His latest project is AltMBA to create leaders and changemakers. May we find the courage and creativity to create new education models that help kids become better people and citizens of the world.
This article offers some good life lessons. Unfortunately, they offer it with a click-bait headline to make a point about how we chase happiness in quick fixes instead of working to become better people. If you want to become a better person, here are 8 fun tips. I love the blunt reminders to quit believing our BS, look at the sky, let people in, apologize, and most importantly, be kind. What was your favorite tip? Mine was to be kind, with star gazing as a close second.
Gratitude is most powerful as a response to the Earth because it provides an opening to reciprocity, to the act of giving back. ` Robin Wall Kimmerer
Returning the Gift is an interesting perspective on gratitude. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s view is that practicing gratitude fosters a sense of debt and responsibility. According to her Potawatomi ancestors, responsibilities and gifts are two sides of the same coin. When we receive a gift, we are indebted to the giver with the sense of wanting to give back. Gratitude fosters the understanding that we owe of life to something bigger; to parents, friends, teachers, plants, trees, animals, and the planet itself. Practicing gratitude can also create a sense of contentment, having enough, and restraint for the good of all. Robin believes gratitude to the earth is our next evolutionary step if we are to survive as a species.
This honest and soulful video called Recovering the Diamonds offers us an intimate look at one man’s journey to move beyond judgment to connect with the souls of the inmates. Juan Carlos Molina, Director of Rehabilitation in the Guatemalan Penitentiary System, narrates his journey to connection and understanding that lie beyond judgment. I aspire and advocate for better communication and understanding between people, but I don’t know that I could do this with a prison inmate covered in gang tattoos. Could you?
May your week be filled with compassion, reciprocity, and creativity.