Originally published in Boston Common Magazine.

Originally published in Boston Common Magazine.

Originally appeared in Whole Living magazine, November 2010

Originally published in Whole Living magazine, July/August 2011

Originally appeared in Whole Living magazine, March 2011

Originally appeared in Body+Soul Magazine.

Originally appeared in Whole Living magazine.

Words of Wisdom from the Brothers Behind the T-Shirts

Originally published in Body+Soul Magazine, December 2009. Click here for a PDF of the article as it appeared in print.

How powerful is a positive outlook? Ask Bert and John Jacobs, who believe T-shirts are an art form, optimism is a verb, and life is very, very good.

When a record-breaking run of rainy days in New England last spring threatened to wash out the fifth annual Life is good festival on the Boston Common, Bert Jacobs put his mother, Joan, 82, in charge of things. This was, after all, just the kind of issue Mrs. Jacobs had been hired to handle.

“Ma, what are you going to do about this rain?” he asked her. “It’s not gonna rain,” she said.

“You sure? It’s not looking good.”

“Trust me,” she said. “It’s. Not. Gonna. Rain.”

And before the festivities began that day, as if on cue, the clouds parted, and all who attended enjoyed an afternoon of games, music, and fund-raising — without a single drop. Bert and his brother, John Jacobs, were thrilled, but not surprised. After all, as the cofounders of Life is good — the wildly successful T-shirt company built on a message of optimism — they were already well-versed in the power of a sunny outlook.

Call it a stroke of genius, good timing, or simply a charming visual concept. But the fact is, 15 years after the company’s inception, Life is good has gone from homespun dream to big business, having recently passed the $100 million mark. From the original flagship store on Newbury Street in Boston to the now 130 dedicated shops and retailers nationwide, the venture is, by all accounts, a roaring success.

Jake, the cartoon hero of the Life is good brand (and the handiwork of John Jacobs), flashes his toothy grin on T-shirts, tire covers, tote bags, and more — all purchased and displayed proudly by moms, athletes, cancer survivors, and movie stars alike. It’s an icon that has successfully staked a claim in the pop culture landscape.

In fact, there seems to be nothing Bert and John can’t do with Life is good — except take credit for its success. While they unquestionably put in the hard work to get the company off the ground, they’re quick to tell you that they were initially clueless about retail, and that they got the most valuable advice from their friends (many of whom went on to work for the company). Bert will concede that theirs is a “nice boot-strapping story for the start of an American business,” but he insists that it doesn’t explain all of their good fortune.

What does? It’s their mission: to spread the power of hope. And not just a glass-half-full philosophy, but a strategy for living.

“Optimism focuses on what’s right with the world, rather than on what’s wrong,” says Bert. “It’s tremendously empowering.” While not an action in and of itself, it invites collaboration and outreach. “It allows you to meet new people, learn new things,” he adds. “It’s the belief in the possibility of something — because then there’s a chance of getting there.”

“Made You Laugh”
As the youngest of six kids growing up in a crowded home in Needham, Massachusetts, Bert and John were raised on very modest means. Their mother’s unsinkable spirits, they say, kept the family afloat. No bad words about anyone ever crossed her lips, and she saw the bright side and kept her sense of humor even when money got excruciatingly tight.

“I like being out of money,” she’d say. “That way, I don’t have to think about what I have to buy.” When the whole family sat down to dinner, as they did every night, Joan would ask, “So, what good thing happened today?”

Her upbeat outlook rubbed off on Bert and John. While some brothers compete for attention or athletic prowess, the two youngest Jacobses spent their bunk-bed years trying to see who could make the other laugh the hardest.

“Bert was in the top bunk, and I was in the bottom, and at night we’d go back and forth, trying to outdo each other,” says John. “I was pretty good, but Bert was relentless. Just when I thought I’d won and had rolled over to go to sleep, Bert would lean over and start talking again, and he wouldn’t stop until I was laughing.”

It wasn’t until they were in their 20s, in 1989, that the two hatched a plan that would change their lives. “We wanted to do something creative,” says John, who attributes this artistic inclination to Mom’s encouragement. “We knew that making and selling T-shirts was the most accessible and inexpensive way to connect with other people through art. It’s not like we had the money to open a gallery.”

John had been writing, drawing, and collecting favorite sayings since high school, and between the two of them, they had no shortage of ideas. For the next five years, the brothers rented a small apartment that served as home base in Newton, Massachusetts, and hit the road for six weeks at a time, trawling colleges and universities up and down the Eastern seaboard, as far south as Virginia, trying to sell their T-shirts. They lived out of a van they called “The Enterprise” and subsisted largely on peanut butter sandwiches.

They had their share of rough times — like when they sold barely enough shirts to cover their expenses, or when they fought, which always killed their selling mojo. “Sometimes I’d really question myself,” John recalls. “I’d be selling T-shirts on a street corner in Harvard Square in the middle of winter with snot coming out of my nose when I’d run into a friend from high school in a business suit and think, ‘What am I doing?’” But one thing kept them going, and that was their goal of sharing a simple, unadorned message of hope, one that runs counter to the kind of badnews-centric, stress-addled world we live in.

For them, it wasn’t just about moving shirts, but about creating a brand that meant something. “We wondered if we could create an icon, some symbol, that would celebrate what’s right with the world — and whether people would buy it.” One day at a Boston street fair, they got their answer. Jake, their stick-figure character, made his debut that morning. To their shock, they sold out of their stock of 48 shirts in 45 minutes.

“We couldn’t believe it,” says John. “Everyone went straight for the Jake pile — Harley guys, schoolteachers, skateboarders, you name it. Bert and I looked at each other and thought, this is it.”

Today, Bert surmises that the “Life is good” message, coupled with the carefree image of Jake, was simple enough to swallow, light enough not to be mistaken for preachy, and profound enough to matter. “There’s a reason why the phrase ‘Life is good’ works,” he says. “Note that we don’t say ‘Life is great!’ We say life is good, period. Three simple words. People connect with it instantly.”

Pay It Forward
There’s even more to the spirit of the brand than just good intentions. A natural-born philanthropist, Bert chafes at the idea of paying lip service to good causes. If you want to spread optimism, he says, you have to give people a way to do it. And this is where the rubber meets the road: the company’s passionate involvement and partnership with Project Joy. This nonprofit organization (the prime beneficiary of the Life is good Kids Foundation) fosters the development of at-risk children through the art of play — which, Bert says, aligns with Life is good’s whole philosophy.

“Play is so much of who we are and how we engage with the world,” he says. “We want to create awareness that adverse social conditions — poverty, violence, abuse — are life-threatening conditions, just like cancer.” So when people walk into one of his stores, Bert wants them to see how they can help children. “You can volunteer at a festival or buy a book or fundraising T-shirt, and 100 percent of the profits will go toward the Kids Foundation.”

Thanks to a loyal and enthusiastic customer base, Life is good has raised more than $4 million for the cause through merchandising and through the increasingly popular Life is good festivals — fun, family-oriented events made possible by thousands of volunteers, generous corporate sponsors, and support from local cities and towns. It’s no surprise that a company built with such heart would pay its good fortune forward.

What is striking is the scope of the fan base. As it turns out, optimism is not just for the happy-go-lucky. Sure, the Jacobses receive countless letters and photos from smiling coeds and carefree surfers, but they also hear from people who say that they wore their Life is good shirts or hats to get through tough times.

“Whether it’s going through chemo or losing a loved one, they tell us they have come to know what’s really important in life,” says John. “Over time, these are the people who have taught us the depth of our own message.” The dream of creating a viable business was one step, they add, though it isn’t the be-all, end-all. “We feel like we’re just getting up to bat,” says John. “We’ve received so much support along the way from family, friends, and strangers — and we have a long way to go to balance the equation.”

In the end, they say, we all have a choice. We can focus on what’s wrong with the world, or we can see the sunny side, even when it rains. “One of my favorite sayings is, ‘Remember that the music is not in the guitar,’ ” says John. “We get to decide how to use what we have. We can see and support the good in ourselves and others, one gesture at a time.” “That’s the great thing about optimism,” adds Bert. “You don’t start it or own it. You simply let it loose in the world and help it grow.”

A pilgrim braves Hezekiah’s Tunnel in Jerusalem.

Originally published in Best Women’s Travel Writing (2008)

From the moment I left it at the check-in counter at Newark International Airport, I knew my bag wasn’t going to get to Tel Aviv. I kept looking back over my shoulder, blinking dumbly, as you do at something you may never see again. So it was a confirmation of my worst assumptions about chaos and human flaw when my oversized duffel didn’t tumble out with the rest of our group’s luggage onto the carousel when we arrived. At that point, having flown countless hours and eaten only foil-wrapped salty foods for the past day and a half, I was short on resilience. I started to well up and then all-out sobbed at the inhumanity of it all.

Losing your luggage can be traumatic, especially on a trip to a foreign country. Because you don’t lose just your luggage. You lose the one string tying you to anything and everything that you know for sure exists: a yellow hairbrush, a tube of moisturizer, sandals that have taken on the shape of your feet. You don’t lose your bag. It loses you. The system, the gods, fail you. And when your bag, that symbol of all you possess in the world, fails to appear, the string breaks, hurling you into the unknown.

For the first day or so, as I waited for my brain and body to catch up to the local time, I tried in vain to push the luggage-worry out of my head. I felt regret, though I hadn’t done anything wrong. “It’ll show up,” everyone said. As if my wayward duffel had just taken the long way, made a stop in Paris, and that I shouldn’t take it personally. Then the guilt emerged; after all, given the rare opportunity to travel so far, many would gladly go with just the clothes on their back, and not work themselves into a lather because they didn’t have an alternate pair of shoes. I tried to assume a Buddhist posture of non-attachment. And then went back to pining for my hair gel. It was an extreme and tiring exercise in faith.

This, of course, was fitting, as I was on a ten-day study tour through the Holy Land, led by my uncle, Father Robert Barone, a professor at the University of Scranton. I was one of fifteen or so travelers (assorted priests, nuns, and lay folk) whom he’d handpicked for the journey, many of whom had made this trip before. I was twenty-four years old, and this was my first trip with my uncle, my first time to Israel. Being the newbie of the group, I kept hoping this was some kind of initiation, a Catholic hazing, and that as soon as I gave up my material longings, someone would come trotting out of the kitchen, with my duffel in tow. “You passed the test!” No chance. Not yet, anyway.

My roommate Arlene felt particularly sorry for me. Sweet Arlene, whose husband owned a sub shop outside Scranton, and who had arrived at the airport armed with a sack of ham and turkey sandwiches. She wore red glasses à la Sally Jessy and a soft blonde bob, and spoke in a way that made you believe she’d never done a careless thing in her life. “I’m so sorry about your bag,” she whispered tragically, digging through her immense Samsonite. “I don’t know what I’d do if that happened to me.” She handed me a billowy flowered nightgown with ruffled sleeves straight out of Betty White’s trailer on the Golden Girls (when I’m stressed, I go straight to my ’80s-TV happy place). “I know it’ll show up, sweetie. They always do.”

We were staying at the White Sisters, a convent and rooming house run by French nuns who catered to pilgrims. Located just outside the Old City, it was, as you’d imagine, a clean, sparse setting: polished linoleum floors, tiny, hard beds, blank walls, a crucifix in every room. The White Sisters were warm and hospitable hosts, starched and scrubbed, with such a soft step they seemed to float through the halls. Here’s how the days went: rise before dawn, mass in the garden at 6 A.M., and breakfast at 7 A.M.—a delicious meal of ripe tomatoes, warm, fresh-baked bread, cheese, jam, and cold cuts. Meet my Uncle Bob for a morning lecture tour in the Old City, return for lunch, siesta, and then out again in the afternoon.

One of our first and most memorable excursions was to Hezekiah’s Tunnel, for which, without my blasted luggage, I was somewhat unprepared. We set out in the morning for the City of David, where the ancient passageway awaited. Dug by hand around 700 B.C., the mile-long tunnel runs beneath an ancient hill in Jerusalem called the Ophel Hill, transporting water from the Gihon spring to the Pool of Siloam in the southwest corner of the city. Two teams simply started digging toward each other and met up somewhere in the middle, led by the sound of each other’s shouts. When Jerusalem was attacked by Assyria in 701 B.C., this tunnel (named for King Hezekiah) saved the city from destruction and capture by its enemies. With a constant supply of fresh water, the inhabitants could resist surrender, and not, as the Assyrians had hoped, get trapped “like birds in a cage.”

I feared that we might very well get trapped like birds—in a cave. Did I mention that once inside, you’re wading through water of ever-varying depths? That water levels may be at your knees one minute, mid-thigh the next? And no sign outside indicating that you must be “this high” to enter? My uncle, a large man at six feet, 275 pounds, with a bad knee, had gone through alone years before, with water up to his chin—something I wish he had waited until afterwards to tell me.

We walked a half mile to get to the tunnel through a depressing landscape, a littered and largely abandoned valley of scrap-metal shacks, and as we got closer, I instinctively started looking around for, I don’t know, a ticket booth, some big fanfare, a bored-looking employee collecting stubs. But there was no governing presence to be seen. That is, unless you count the two questionable fellows slinking around the entrance selling t-shirts that read “I Survive [sic] Hezekiah’s Tunnel.” They flashed glinty, dangerous smiles and said they’d wait for us on the other end—”in case” we made it through.

We weren’t the only people there for a little off-road adventure. A small cluster of Asian tourists—complete with backpacks, cameras, and hats—was collecting at the mouth of the dark cave, moving downward into the roar of water. You’d have to be crazy to go in there, I thought. And in we went.

This kind of unpredictable outdoor activity was the very reason I had packed the way I had, and without my suitcase, my efforts were all for naught. I fantasized about how much more ready I’d be with my own flashlight, amphibious footwear, and vaguely appropriate clothing. If the mounting anxiety about being in a closed, dark, water-filled tunnel wasn’t enough, I looked and felt ridiculous. Lorraine from two doors down at the convent, a fellow traveler, had taken it upon herself to dress me, since we happened to wear the same size (“Well how do you like that!”). I had politely declined, but she’d insisted, and I was taking on the day’s challenge in a pink-striped babydoll dress that she said was “just darling” on me. I looked as if I was about to launch into a rendition of “On the Good Ship Lollipop,” not brave an ancient ruin. My shoes, a pair of imported blue rubber Chinese flip-flops, were a half size too small, on loan from Sister Margaret.

To get into the tunnel, we walked down a set of steps, but we couldn’t see them beneath the cold, rushing spring. We had to hold the single handrail and feel our way down through the current. Absent the hot sun, the temperature dropped by ten or fifteen degrees, and the cool, damp air, while a relief, raised every hair on my arms. I stuck close to the front of the line with Ed, my uncle’s former student and right-hand man, and one of the few people with a flashlight. And I tell you I have never seen darkness like that. Not during a new moon, not in a closet, not anywhere. Even Ed’s flashlight beam seemed to get swallowed up by the inky black atmosphere. Because we were beneath the holy City of David, Bob said, we were essentially in holy water. I told myself no one could die in holy water. I didn’t know if that was true. It didn’t matter.

Walking proved tricky because I wasn’t walking at all but rather wading through knee-high water on an uneven and rocky path, the hem of my silly sundress flapping with each step. Sister Margaret’s flip-flops were clearly not up to the task, designed more for strolls on the boardwalk than offshore excursions. With each slip over the stones, the hard rubber jammed into the webbing between my toes and threw my balance, but luckily there wasn’t anywhere to fall. I could flatten my palms against the walls without fully extending my arms. In some places, the ceiling hovered just inches above my head. For the claustrophobe, it was the kind of scenario you might spend a lifetime trying to avoid.

While I struggle with my own long history of generalized anxiety, I’m not a textbook claustrophobe. I stride into elevators or tight spaces with relative ease. But I do consider myself somewhat adventure-averse—and I’m a lousy person to have around at an amusement park. There’s something taunting and horrid about their manufactured thrills, and even as a kid, I felt no desire whatsoever to strap myself into a plunging basket or a perilous, zipping tube. But while this tunnel walk was more vigorous sightseeing than amusement ride, they had one thing in common: once you started, there was no getting off until it was over. There were no exit signs, and no way out; turning around was not an option. Which made this little jaunt through Hezekiah’s tunnel fairly metaphorical. Here, as in life, there was just no going back out the way you came in.

Given that this was a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I expected sightseeing, academic lectures, interesting discourse on the roots of the Catholic faith. I even expected prayer—some internal dialogue, self-reflection. I did not, however, anticipate having an existential crisis that hovered somewhere between travel gear and fear of the dark. I wasn’t sure if I was testing my mettle or indulging some Goonies-esque fantasy in which I brave feats of danger for buried treasure (and the ’80s hits keep on coming). And I must confess: back at the tour bus, when I realized what I was in for, I’d downed half of a Lorazepam—just enough to stave off any disengaged moments of panic that might befall me underground. Faith could only take me so far.
And yet in many ways this tunnel was a testament to faith—certainly of the men who dug it in hopes of resisting their enemies. On this trip, I would go on to visit many churches, temples, and mosques, beautiful, awe-inspiring houses of prayer. But nothing came close to the kind of religious experience I felt moving through that narrow passage under the Ophel Hill. Ed snapped off his flashlight, plunging us into pitch black, like the inside of a velvet pocket. “Look at that,” Ed said. “I mean, is this incredible or what?”

The rushing water was long behind us now, and the tunnel grew quiet, save for the drag and splash of our legs moving through it. No one spoke. For a few long moments we moved in silence, and the initial fear and disorientation fell away. I was strangely comforted by the notion that, even without a light to see by or any tangible idea of how far we’d come, we all knew where we were going, and that we weren’t alone. What shoes I had on hardly seemed to matter.

Because of the twists and turns, there wasn’t a sign of light until the very end, which took us about forty-five minutes to reach. I was used to walking a mile to the train station in far less time, but this wasn’t a mindless commuter jag; it was a sacred delivery from one end of darkness to the other. And when the first break of light appeared, we cheered and yipped as if we’d been traveling for days. It occurred to me that this was the kind of experience every twelve-step program, ropes course, and trust fall aims to replicate, but I can’t imagine any coming close. To be struck, then and there, with the realization that you would make it through, after all.

As we emerged, one by one, blinking in the daylight, we became giddy in the heat, and grateful beyond words. The spring water was a clear, jade green in the sunlight as it poured from the tunnel into the Pool of Siloam, where, as told in the Gospel of John, Jesus rubbed mud on the eyes of a blind man, and gave him sight.

Later, over vegetables that had been boiled to within an inch of their lives, we regaled each other with tales of our own fright and fearlessness. The front desk attendant interrupted the meal with an announcement. “Terri?” he said tentatively. I raised my hand. “The airline called. Your luggage will be here in one hour.” And I was seized with such joy I leapt up and hugged him, which scared him half to death. A whoop of applause and laughter went up from the group, and for a moment we reveled in the peace that comes when things return to their natural order.

Back in my room, I opened my bag: there were my worldly possessions, just as I’d left them. And yet, I felt oddly disappointed. Not sure why—after all, what did I expect would be in there? The Holy Grail? Some sacred talisman? A treasure? Nope. Just some socks, extra shirts, my amphibious sandals, dry as a bone. A bottle of styling gel (which in truth I was glad to have). My luggage, in some ways, had become a moot point. And that night I slept soundly, in a t-shirt that smelled like home.

In a Bahamian resort, three sisters experience the “hyperreal”—and remember the art of play.

Originally published in Best Women’s Travel Writing (2009)

I was starting to panic. Not the sudden, debilitating type of panic, but the kind that starts far away and gets closer, like hooves in the distance, a cavalry of fear approaching. I climbed the stairs behind my sisters (who were blazing a trail to the top of the tower without hesitation) pausing every once in a while to re-read the warning signs. As a healthy thirty-four-year-old woman of average height, there was no real reason I couldn’t be there (and trust me, I checked). I wasn’t pregnant, no discernible heart problems, no recent back injuries. I was out of excuses.

This was the first family vacation we’d been on in about twenty years, and about as many years since I’d put myself in the uncompromising and unflattering position of being frightened at the top of some foolish amusement. We were in the Power Tower, one of the newest attractions at Atlantis in the Bahamas. This “exhilarating new waterscape” promised to “deliver a sensory journey unlike any other.” The subtext being, “guaranteed to scare the shit out of you and your whole family.” If you call hurling yourself from fifty-eight feet in the air down a wet surface a “sensory journey,” then a root canal could be described as a bone-chilling thrill, and my last Pap smear, a probing, inward exploration.

And if you’ve never been to Atlantis, let me sum it up for you in four words: Club Med on crack. With its larger-than-life scale and Disney-esque artifice, it’s what Italian novelist and scholar Umberto Eco would call an example of hyperreality: a superior fake that not only seeks to imitate reality, but to improve upon it, to exaggerate the edges of experience in order to make them bigger, better—more real than real. It’s sort of the driving principle behind Disney World, Las Vegas, and for that matter, Chuck E. Cheese. And it’s why we flock to these places to begin with: We’ve had it to here with real. We want something more.

The conceit, in this case, is obvious: The resort is modeled on the lost city of Atlantis, that mythic place first described in Plato’s dialogues as a highly evolved civilization destroyed by an earthquake around 9500 B.C. and swallowed whole by the sea without a trace. Many argue that Atlantis was never an actual place, but a metaphor for utopia—a perfect ideal which the material world is doomed to forever fall short of. And yet, the legend persists, and the debate of Atlantis’s rise and fall rages on, no doubt feeding the appetites of an obsessed few, while providing fodder for the occasional special on A&E.

But here, of course, the idea of Atlantis remains very much alive. Families by the thousand pay top dollar every year to rediscover, in a sense, their own lost cities, the ones where their imagination and sense of play once thrived, and which, like Atlantis itself, were swallowed up somewhere along the way, submerged under years of sediment.

Meanwhile, my own, long-buried memory of being an unadventurous kid at a water park had come screaming back to life. “Oh God. Ahh crap,” I muttered as I lowered myself into the plastic raft. I looked around: slack-chested men, teenage girls in impossibly tiny bikinis, mothers waggling their pedicured toes. “It can’t be that bad,” said my sister Lori, hitching uncomfortably at her flowered bathing suit top. “Seriously. Any ride in a tube can’t be too intense.” I nodded, though the logic escaped me. “I mean, look at that kid,” she said. We watched as a tow-headed ten-year-old who weighed about as much as broomstick neared the precipice, and was gone.

If Atlantis is a place of dream-like fantasy, then the Power Tower, a dark and imposing structure, was, to my mind, the stuff of nightmares—and an eyesore to boot. I can’t figure out quite what they were thinking when they designed it. This, after all, is a land of benign beauty: Swordfish dance atop the regal coral towers, winding paths afford scenic views of waterfalls, exotic fish flicker beneath the surface of the lagoon. There’s a different swimming pool for every day of the week. The Power Tower, by contrast, with its weathered iron façade and dark windows, looks like an evil cathedral, a haunted factory feeding on sunburned tourists, their high-pitched screams raising every hair on my arms.

While the physical thrill of a water slide is one way to kick your childlike instincts into play, another is to spend some time engaged in pure wonder. Earlier that day, we’d toured The Dig, a mock archeological excavation site at the resort where you can wander dimly-lit caverns, admire cave drawings (circa 2005), and peer through floor-to-ceiling glass walls at all manner of aquatic life. Silver schools of fish shimmer in the watery sunlight, restless sharks pace back and forth, and stingrays shudder along the bottom, lifting off like flying saucers. Behind them, a scene worthy of a Hollywood set: tumbled stones, rusted artifacts, crumbling staircases that lead nowhere. For a moment you could believe you are looking into the past, at the remnants of another age. And then you remember this is nothing more than an artfully cultivated relic—a reconstructed and imagined memory, calling to mind the classic poem by Marianne Moore, about “imaginary gardens with real toads in them.”

That was where I encountered the largest and most stunning sea creature I had ever seen. He emerged from a dim corner of the lagoon, as if from the very depths of our collective imagination. With a wingspan of twelve feet, and weighing in at about 1,000 pounds (think of a SmartCar with wings), this mysterious manta ray, Zeus, was the king of this underwater lair, undulating past with incredible grace and ease, casting a shadow, and a kind of spell, over everyone and everything in its path.

The shrill whistle of an intimidating Bahamian lifeguard broke my reverie, and before I knew it, we were being pulled up the ticking conveyer belt toward the apex of the water slide. “Hold on tight,” she warned, “and don’t forget to lift your butt up!”

“Do what?” we yelled.

“Lift your butt up! Or else you’ll hit the bottom.” Needless to say, I did not appreciate receiving such critical information this late in the game. But there was no time to argue, and we had little choice but to face our fate with fists and butts clenched.

There was a long, yet imperceptible pause as we tipped over the edge, and gravity took hold, reminding me that for all our big ideas, we’re little more than pieces of inert matter being shuttled along by unseen forces. Seconds expanded into one eternal moment as my body splintered and shook from sheer momentum. We plummeted down the steep camel-back drop at a heart-stopping rate, only to be shot back up the other side, then plunged into total blackness, careening around the unseen corners of what seemed like a large intestinal tract. This must be what it feels like to be digested, I thought, to be broken down into your most vital, simple parts. There’s something incredibly liberating about being shaken loose from your surroundings, coming temporarily unglued and flying frictionless through the dark. I never stopped screaming—which, after a few seconds of the initial knee-jerk reaction, ironically kept me calm, like a terror-induced mantra. As long as I heard my own voice echoing back at me, I knew I was still there. I was a waterlogged bat sounding my way through the unknown.

Then, just as suddenly as it began, those long, strange moments collapsed, snapping shut like a telescope, and we were spat out the other end like so much waste. The end.

I climbed out of the pool, trembling with adrenaline and newfound pride, falling into breathless step with my sisters as we giddily padded our way over the white-hot pavement. We would go back a few more times before the end of the week, and by then, I could anticipate, even enjoy, the drop and swerve, the hapless hydroplaning. This in itself seemed an accomplishment of sorts: To learn to love a fearful thing for its own sake. To be, as the Buddhists teach, truly present. This is, of course, the essence of play. And while it’s a native land for children, as an adult, you often need directions to find it again.

A week after I got back, I was checking my email before work and half-watching The Today Show when Meredith Vieira cut to a reporter on location in Atlantis. The man explained that the largest manta ray in captivity had been scraping the leading edge of his wings against the walls of the aquarium—a clear sign that he’d simply grown too large for the place. I watched in utter disbelief as Zeus was airlifted from the lagoon in something that looked like a giant diaphragm, and gently lowered into the open water. I was sad to watch him go, knowing that I’d never see him again. But I understood. Sure, it was fun being the big fish, but even in a place like Atlantis, things could probably get old after a while. As Zeus fluttered free of his net, I wondered what it felt like to return to your natural habitat, to stop swimming in circles and instead feel a whole world opening up ahead of you, a deep familiar pull drawing you home.

Our lapsed-Catholic writer hadn’t prayed in ages. But after a life-changing event, she found herself moved to pick up the conversation once more.

Originally published in Whole Living Magazine, December 2010. Click here for a PDF of the article as it appeared in print.

MY BEST FRIEND BRIDGET FOUND RELIGION when we were 24 and living in a rented house near Boston College, where we’d gone to school. Though she’d attended weekly masses in college, she’d considered herself vaguely Protestant; her church-going was as much habit as it was social. Until that year, when Bridget suffered two major losses: Her grandfather died, and soon after her parents embarked on a bitter divorce.

She started getting up early on Saturdays to drive 40 minutes to Bible study, then to Mass on Sunday nights. And she started to pray. At every meal. It didn’t matter where we were or what we were about to eat or with whom: dinner downtown, pizza in front of the TV. As soon as the plates hit the table, all talk ceased. Bridget dropped her head and closed her eyes, blissfully unaware of the awkward pause she’d just created. Some nights I’d ask her a question, then found myself having to wait, dumbly, for the trance to pass, for her to lift her head like it was nothing. “What were you saying, T?”

I never got used to the prayers, nor did I ever ask her about her newfound faith. I knew it made her feel safe and steady during a difficult time. Who was I to question it? To ask her whether God would really love her less for diving right into her grilled cheese? So I said nothing. Whoever was around learned to accommodate these episodes, the way you might a friend with Tourette’s. The minute of discomfort would pass, after which the person you knew returned.

There’s a reason they call themselves born-again Christians. She was in the midst of a spiritual do-over. Gone was the Bridget who gossiped, who talked about, or even had, sex (to the chagrin of her boyfriend). Her new piety irked me; though she refused to judge anyone, I felt judged. I told myself this was what she needed to do to bind up the pieces of a life that seemed to have wildly unraveled. But still, I resented it.

I’m no stranger to prayer. As a product of Catholic school, I attended what was, in essence, prayer boot camp. We prayed each morning, at church, before meals (and, with Sister Lois in the first grade, anytime an ambulance blew by). At the stroke of a bell or the hum of an organ, you simply assumed the position. Standing, sitting, on your knees. Prayer was a choreographed, memorized, sung, or mumbled reminder of what was important. Because we knew each prayer by heart, we didn’t even think about it; the very act of praying rolled out of us unconsciously in a murmured wave.

Today, I’m a lapsed Catholic in every sense of the word. I look back on those early practices with nostalgia and some small measure of pride, the way I might at the pins on my Girl Scout sash. They were relics of a simpler age, when faith was as plain and dull as a loafer, something you didn’t think much about so much as slip on and stumble around in.

But if my faith was an old shoe, Bridget’s was a brilliant Technicolor dream coat that she never took off. The tide of her life was shifting, and each prayer seemed to signal it.

She found new friends at church—a happy group that took weekend trips to the mountains in the winter, to the lake in the summer. She told me I should come; I never did. She broke up with the old boyfriend and grew serious with a man from the church group, Steve, who’d fallen hard for her.

Eventually, Bridget moved out. I joked that I’d lost my friend to Jesus. But I hadn’t entirely. I visited her in her new place to eat slice-and-bake cookies, and when she married Steve, I stood up as a proud member of the bridal party. (Though I cringed when the priest told Bridget that it was her job to follow and Steve’s to lead.) And then everyone bowed their heads to pray.

Bridget called me from the hospital in May 2008, when she was 35. She and Steve had had a daughter and moved to Portland, Oregon. She was settling in and pregnant with her second. I had every intention of coming to visit soon.

She called to tell me about some tests she’d had done to assess the blood clots that had been forming inexplicably in her arms and legs, and other fluke issues that had popped up in recent months. They turned out not to be a fluke at all. She’d been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, she said, with a few weeks or months at best. When the doctors peered inside and saw what was happening, what in many ways had already happened, they simply closed her back up again.

When you hear bad news, especially the kind that only the writers of Grey’s Anatomy could dream up (young, vibrant, God-fearing pregnant mother, stricken with terminal cancer), it changes the meter of your life. And from the day she was diagnosed, my every action, thought, gesture, effort was limned in an aura of heightened awareness—the closest thing to divine I’d known. I don’t know if holy is the right word, but I went from banging around my days as usual to stepping very carefully, afraid something might break.

In Catholic school, the concept of the Holy Spirit is the toughest to grasp. God is the father, Jesus is the son, but the third member of the Trinity is nebulous. While the other two have pretty big personalities, the Spirit is more a quality of presence, which is what I might have sensed shadowing me. No matter what I did those days, I had assumed the posture of prayer. The prayers took many forms: sometimes crying, sometimes running, sometimes lying in bed, staring into space. I didn’t stop to pray as much as I was animated and infused by it. In some ways it seemed as though I was suspended just above my life, going through the motions the way you’d thumb a rosary, but peering at it through the lens of something greater.

I did wonder if my divine calling card might have been revoked when I’d failed to re-up my member- ship. But I prayed anyway – without the Hail Mary or the Act of Contrition, as if being sorry, really sorry, for anything might help. A thousand Our Fathers weren’t going to rearrange the cells of Bridget’s body. I didn’t beg for Bridget to be magically healed (though I can’t say I didn’t wish it). But I talked in my mind to someone who might be God but looked and sounded like my late Uncle Bob, a priest who’d succumbed to prostate cancer a few years earlier. I offered up prayers like bags of coins scrounged from every corner of my house. Is this enough? Is this enough to keep her from suffering?

I saw Bridget once, the day she started chemo. I flew out with my mother, and we watched American Idol while Bridget devoured scrambled eggs that a friend had brought warm from her kitchen. She joked about being MVP of the maternity ward, and we knew she dreaded the pending move to the cancer floor. At around 11:30, my mother started to doze off, and Bridget caught my eye. “T, your mom’s tired,” she whispered. I nodded. If she hadn’t kicked me out, I’d never have left.

The doctors delivered her healthy daughter, Chloe Faith, by C-section at 26 weeks. Bridget’s mother tells me that, through that tumultuous time, what kept her daughter’s fear at bay was her unwavering belief in a God who loved her. The faith kept her strong, but the prayer itself, that consistent and diligently worked thread, formed the deep stitch that bound her to it. She warned her family that when it looked as if things were getting worse, they should let her go. Which they did.

I still pray, though the prayer isn’t as charged. Since prayer is basically a conversation, I hold conversations with Bridget in my head, and with my Uncle Bob, who remains for me God’s proxy. I’ve come to realize that prayer isn’t a rote activity or an ongoing negotiation. At its best, I believe, it can help coax us open to things that scare us, to sit with disappointment, fear, even boredom, knowing none of it lasts.

Of course, I can’t help but feel some great, cosmic injustice was done, is done, whenever a young mother is taken from her family, and in Bridget’s case, from a newborn whom she never got to hold. But the fact that those things happen is not what we’re out to fix when we find ourselves wanting and needing to pray. And she’s the one who taught me that— that the whole point isn’t to wish things away or shift scenarios in our favor, so much as it is to simply love when we can and accept what is.

Can a First-Date Yoga Class Fan the Flames of Romance?

Originally published in Boston Globe Magazine, October 2008. Click here for a PDF of the article as it appeared in print.

A few weeks ago I was trolling profiles on a dating website when I came across a decent-looking guy who wanted suggestions for a good yoga class. That was a nice change, given the number of yahoos on there just looking for a girl who can touch her toes.

I dropped a line and said I knew of just the place.

We agreed to meet up for power yoga at Inner Strength studios in Watertown on a Tuesday night. The sports-themed first date has its place, of course (the lovably awkward tennis scene from Annie Hall comes to mind). Plus, I thought a yoga date held some interesting, and perhaps daring, potential. After all, I’d not only be spared the tedious small talk (at least for now), but I could assess his athletic prowess and even get an idea of what he looks like sweaty and half naked – without having to sacrifice my virtue.

I found Scott sitting on a bench outside the studio, removing his shoes. I offered a dorky handshake, noticing that his nose was a bit pointier in person. He was average looking in the best sense of the word, and by that I think I mean benign. He could walk off with your wallet and you’d have trouble describing him to the authorities and an even harder time picking him out of a lineup.

We settled into adjacent spots on the floor and dove into 90 minutes of intense yoga practice. And I found that there was an honesty to this stripped-away experience. The sheer effort, followed by moments of surrender, rivulets of sweat coursing over our faces and limbs, the audible breathing. I wondered if this was a brave new world, a sansmakeup, martini-less route to dating that might expose other approaches as little more than a silly, self-conscious charade.

When the class came to its grateful (and soggy) close, we rolled up our mats, mopped our brows, and stumbled through small talk as we made our way out into the night. We decided to grab a bite at the new Super Fusion on Mt. Auburn. The short version of this story? The sushi was good, the service was lacking, and the conversation, easy and flat, like a bike ride without much scenery. It was, in a word, stress-free. While this might seem like a big plus on a first date, it also turned out to mean electricity-free.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault, really. I should have realized that trying to make snappy and fascinating conversation after yoga is akin to balancing your checkbook after an hour-and-a-half-long massage. My body felt wrung out and limp as a sock, my brain capable of only the most basic calculations. We had succeeded in rooting out and eliminating every last pocket of tension, unplugged the power cord.

And all at once, the night had lost its spark. And you know what? I missed the tension. I was not only off-kilter without my ritualized pregame activities (the outfit, the hair, the makeup, the strutting around my apartment in heels), but I was also feeling less than sexy in my wet head and old tank top. (He actually asked me if I’d washed my hair in the bathroom after class. “Or is that sweat?”) I realized I actually wanted that prickly touch of anxiety, the whiff of sexual energy. I didn’t feel charged up. I felt damp.

Our meal took on a kind of verbal posturing that came very close to the yoga class itself: We held one line of conversation for as long as we could, then shifted to another, moving from talk of jobs to family to pets as through a series of predictable and rehearsed asanas.

I wondered if we’d have had a better chance of connecting if we’d been trapped in an elevator together, maybe held up at gunpoint at a 7-Eleven. I imagined him racing into a burning building to save me or pulling me over for speeding. Were we too relaxed for any kind of hormonal chain reaction to take place? Too contented, too unconcerned with how the night was going in order for it to matter very much?

Maybe. I suppressed a yawn. Unsuccessfully. And when the check came, we split it. Of course.

Can the wrong pair of jeans throw a first date into serious doubt?

Originally published in Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, January 2009.

In the world of dating, average may be the new hot. I’m serious. In my experience, the super-gorgeous raise suspicions (and usually confirm them). Some beauties are so bound up in their looks that they have forgotten to develop a sense of humor or a shred of sensitivity. Average, to me, says potential – a neutral canvas on which just about anything might be painted.

Appearance is the storefront. It should be nice enough to make you want to wander inside, see what else is doing.
Which is precisely why a certain high school teacher from Brookline caught my eye on nerve.com. Was he drop-dead gorgeous? No. More like mildly attractive (which is really just another word for average). That was just fine by me. As a 30-something single, I’m looking for more than just a pretty face. And don’t I, after all, want someone to think of me as something besides cute?

Shortly after connecting with him, I scored press passes to a lecture at Harvard Medical School to hear a best-selling author talk about mind/body medicine and world peace. I thought it might be the perfect occasion to meet this guy in person. I had to give myself props for boldly inviting a stranger to a smarty-pants event on a first date (instead of bringing my mother, as I’d originally planned). Especially since I knew the night would be rife with heady topics like human consciousness and psychic despair.

When I breezed into the foyer of the auditorium, I felt that mental split we all experience when meeting someone for the first time: Half of my attention was trained inward on my own poised anticipation; the other half scanned the room with dating radar at full throttle. And then, there he was, simple as a glass of water at room temp – a harmless, mildly attractive man in his late 30s, the narrow face I’d only seen in slightly unfocused shots, now in clear, crisp 3-D. And as I took in the full, life-size scope of him, I saw something that stopped me cold.

It was the jeans.

I don’t say this proudly, either. I say it with regret – and not a small degree of self-loathing. But those jeans! If only he had chosen something else to wear that night: perhaps a looser-fitting khaki or a trim pair of trousers. Instead, my sweet, upbeat date wore a pair of jeans that should probably have been retired during the Clinton administration – a pale, washed-out denim with a hem that hung like a question in the air, a half an inch or so from where it should have landed.

Now, I’m no fashionista. I’ve dated plenty of men who were not strong in the wardrobe department. But in the words of my dear friend Stan, a soulful guy with a killer sense of style: “My dear, the hem makes the man.” And it’s true. I can deal with a poor choice of color or an affinity for golf shirts (groan). But ill-fitting pants I could not abide. It wasn’t something he was born with, after all. This was something he chose.

Believe me, I tried to get past it. After the lecture (during which I took copious notes and stared straight ahead), we got noodles at Wagamama in Harvard Square. He talked about how he loved his students, how he’d always wanted to live in Boulder. I told him I wanted to write a book. I felt comfortable. Maybe a little too comfortable. In a fit of optimism, I suggested hot chocolate at Burdick’s. But as I sipped a demitasse of the rich, frothy treat, I knew this just wasn’t going to happen.

By 8:30, I was talked out. I could no longer put on the show of a date going well. But why? The man was a sensitive, decent person. Could a flawed garment really do such damage? Couldn’t people change? And yet, therein lay the problem: the idea that someone needs fixing from the start. It occurred to me that the jeans had become little more than a tangible excuse for why two people sometimes just don’t click.

We shared a fatal hug and parted ways. I watched his socks as he got into his SUV, and breathed a sigh of relief tinged with psychic despair. Sort of like when you’ve spent a few hours in a store, seeing a lot you might like but ultimately walking out empty-handed.

Guys really do make passes at girls who wear glasses.

Originally published in Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, March 2008. Click here for a PDF of the article as it appeared in print.

Dig back into your ’80s archive, and you may recall the ZZ Top video for the song “Legs.” In it, a bespectacled young woman is rescued from her job at a shoe store and transformed by a troop of fishnet-clad women. She loses the glasses, feathers her hair, dons a pair of pink pumps, and rides off in a hot rod with the man of her dreams. That was my pop-culture fairy tale. I wanted a gaggle of hussies to come save me and turn me into the kind of girl whom a boy might follow around.

That’s because, if you’d asked me what I considered my romantic liability, I’d have said it was my glasses (I already had the feathered hair). So when I finally reached contact-lens-wearing age, I figured my riding-in-cars-with-boys days were just around the corner. Not quite. But still I persisted with the contacts, despite painfully dry eyes and more hassle than convenience. I was a female Clark Kent – student by day and a barefaced supergirl by night.

Around the time I turned 30, I decided there were certain immutable truths: This is the body I was born with, the hair, the eyes. I won’t ever be blond or blue-eyed or taller. And though a good stylist and makeup can work wonders, I will always look like me. And these glasses are as much a part of me as my hips or the size of my ears. They’re who I am.

Plus, I realized that my glasses were far from a liability – they set me apart from the pack. So, I no longer surreptitiously slip off my specs for photos or pine for 20/20 vision. I’ve committed to this look – with interesting results in my love life. One being the discovery that my online dating profile gets far more hits spectacled than not, and not just from nerdy, bookish types, but from big, bearded men, several members of the armed forces, married cops who just want to chat, and 23-year-old man-babies with a thing for older women.

I proudly wear my specs out now on first dates. And while it made perfect sense to wear them when I met a tenured Harvard professor for a glass of sherry at Solea, it worked like a charm when I accompanied a handsome wellness coach to Kendall Square Cinema, where brainy glasses seem a prerequisite.

Somehow glasses impart a no-BS kind of presence, but they also give me just the bit of distance and perspective I need – particularly when I’m sussing someone out. Peering through them at a man, I can be flirty and self-effacing, demure and yet inquisitive in ways that barefaced women cannot. Glasses seem to say: I may not be all that accessible. But I’d love to see you try.

On the rare occasion when I’ve worn my contacts, I believe my judgment has been impaired. It wasn’t until I slipped on my trusty frames at a party recently that I realized I’d mistaken a self-centered twit for someone resembling a gentleman.

Never underestimate the effect glasses have on the one being observed, either. I find that men thrive under this kind of focused attention. Because what you’re telling them is that you’re taking them seriously, at least for the moment.

The only tricky thing I have yet to master is that ill-defined point when the glasses must come off. This is a particularly vulnerable moment. Keep them on, and you risk your date smashing against them, leaving an oily smudge. But take them off too soon in a preemptive gesture, and you might find yourself in an equally awkward predicament. Not to mention fumbling around for them afterward.

Something happens, though, when you slide them back on: Things that seemed fuzzy regain their clarity, the world clicks back into place. Nearsightedness, by its very nature, implies that you need things closer to appreciate them, which, to me, is pretty much what intimacy is all about. I’ll even go so far as to say that we myopic types have a natural gift for it. Because we’re already aware that the only way to know what’s worth getting involved in is to take a good, long look at what’s right there, in front of you.

Originally published in Lola Boston, October 2008. Click here for a PDF of the article as it appeared in print.

UNTIL RECENTLY, if you scanned my bookshelves, you would’ve found exactly what you might expect of an English major: Shakespeare, Sophocles, Elizabeth Bishop. Proud pointers to my education. Proof positive, I thought, of who I was and should be. Here, a book I’d read once and once only, during my undergraduate years at Boston College. There, a collection of poems I’d acquired during my MFA at Emerson. Sure, some of them I’d enjoyed. Others, not so much. Many were little more than false friends, people you pretend to know at parties but whom you don’t know at all, or anymore. It dawned on me that I was no smarter for having kept them and would be no less of a person if I let them go.

This exercise made me call into question exactly who I thought I was. Though it might be easier to blame our parents, our upbringing, or society in general, the hard fact is that when it comes down to it, the biggest obstacle to living a more genuine life has everything to do with our perception of who we can, and can’t, be. We may think we need to persuade others about who we are – when, really, we might just be better off persuading ourselves.

After all, there’s a lot of talk lately about what it means to live “authentically.” Pick up any brochure for a weekend retreat or browse the websites of countless life coaches, and that’s the crux of what you’ll find. But what does it all mean? The term “authenticity” often gets lumped together with other catchwords like self-discovery and self-actualization, alignment, truth – all of which start to taste the same after a while, like chewing gum if you jaw at it long enough. Because even the notion of living an authentic life can come off as sounding cliché – it’s simply a moot point. Who doesn’t want to live a life that’s “true” and “aligned” with her higher intentions?

Case in point: I used to sell jewelry as an independent rep for a party planning company. I carted boxes of jewelry into women’s homes and laid out a sterling-silver feast for hungry shoppers to feed on. Some of the stuff was basic and conservative, but what drew people in were the real show-stoppers – layered necklaces choked with stones, chunky rings. What’s laughable is that before I sold the jewelry, I never wore much of anything beyond a pair of $12 silver hoops I picked up at the mall. And yet in order to build my own business, I had to be the person who could get away with wearing a tangle of bracelets and a pendant the size of a baby’s fist. The decision to start to be that person made all the difference. It wasn’t any less me because it was new or different from what I’d been used to.

At one of my first parties, a woman in a simple sweater approached the table and picked up a statement-making silver bracelet. “Oh, isn’t that gorgeous,” she said. “I wish I could pull that off.” When I asked why she couldn’t, she dropped the bangle as if it had bitten her. “Oh no, no, no. That’s just not me,” she said. “I can’t wear things like that. I’m not like you.”

Now, that woman could have just as easily slipped on that bracelet and for all the world looked like someone who wasn’t afraid to make a statement, just like me. I didn’t know who won that round – had I become the person who could carry a certain look, or had I just fooled her into thinking I was? Had she won for staying “true” to herself, or had she just missed out on the chance to evolve and explore?

Who we think we are isn’t set in stone – it changes and morphs over time. For years, I’ve been a girlfriend, over and over again, like a recurring role in so many one-act plays. And whereas the role used to be tailor-fit, it now clings like a cheap suit in all the wrong places. So what does that mean? If I’m not a girlfriend and not sure I ever want to be a wife, what does that make me? Single? Independent? A free radical, roaming dangerously in a world of matched molecules? Is that who I am?

I’m not sure yet, and that’s OK. I don’t need to hang on to tangible identity markers – whether it’s books, jewelry, or men – to cement my image. This is our fate, in many ways: to spend the better part of our lives stitching together an evolving image of ourselves to present to the world. It’s the question at the heart of most decisions we make, the diamond edge we sharpen ourselves against, whether it’s a new car, a new job, or a new love interest. Is this me? we think. Could it be?

In the end, I packed up those books and gave them away, to whoever and whatever would take them. And what a relief! It was as if I’d broken through a major arterial blockage in my ego or paid off some karmic debt. But this was more than just a lesson in clutter clearing. It was about seeing for the first time that the things I thought defined me were getting far too much credit. And the books were just the beginning.

And this, it seems, is the trick of authenticity: knowing who you are, but at the same time, who you might be, if you gave yourself half a chance.

Originally published in Body+Soul, September 2007. Click here for a PDF of the original article.

The reasons for giving vary as much as the people who do it. Compassion, duty, love, guilt – all these motives prompt us to share our time, our money, and our energy. But new research has revealed a surprising fact about what we get in return, whether we’re supporting disaster relief or giving Grandma a hand with the groceries. In what can only be considered a blissful karmic payoff, it’s more often the giver – not the receiver – who reaps the biggest payback.
[pullquote1 align="right"]Regular exercise and a low-fat diet are the best way to better health, right? Not exactly. The simple act of giving actually benefits you more than anything else.[/pullquote1]

The take-away, say scientists, amounts to much more than a passing feel-good moment: It’s literally your health that stands to gain. In one study of 2,000 people conducted at the Buck Institute for Age Research in Novato, California, those who volunteered for two or more organizations had a whopping 44 percent lower likelihood of dying compared with those who didn’t – and that’s after adjusting for other factors such as health, exercise, and marital status. Volunteering even beat out exercising four times a week (30 percent) and going to religious services (29 percent) when it came to promoting longevity. Another study of 427 women found that those who did any kind of volunteering had better physical functioning 30 years later. Next to quitting smoking, giving is the best possible thing you could do for your health – making virtue truly its own reward.

How does this work? The reasons behind the giver-receiver relationship are unclear, but as recent research published in Molecular Psychiatry suggests, “nurturing others may feel good because it is rewarded by spikes of dopamine” – the neurotransmitter linked to cravings, pleasure, and reward. But it almost doesn’t matter whether we have “helper’s high” or some other factor to thank. “If you want a better life, better health, and the sense of being connected and hopeful in this world, the answer is to give,” says bioethicist Stephen Post, Ph.D., coauthor (with Jill Neimark) of Why Good Things Happen to Good People.

It all starts with small, consistent acts performed with consciousness and intention – not quitting your job to join the Peace Corps (but go ahead if you’re so inclined). As you’ll discover in the following pages, altruism takes countless forms, even ones you’d never expect. Use these inspirations to start making generosity a part of every day, whether it’s leaving a big tip or listening to a friend. You’ll better align your actions with your values, get more spiritually grounded, and deepen your relationships with the people around you. Simply put, says Post, “Give a little every single day, and you’ll live a hap- pier, healthier, and longer life.”

Think Outside Yourself

Many of us would give more than we do – if we didn’t feel so boxed into certain roles. These self- images (mother, teacher, bank executive) can limit our view of what we can contribute. We think, “Why ladle soup for the homeless when finance is my strength?” Or, “That’s not my job, that’s some- one else’s.” But often the best help we can give is to simply fill a need, whatever it may be.
[pullquote1 align="left"]Give a little every single day, and you’ll live a happier, healthier, and longer life.[/pullquote1]

Gary Morsch, M.D., coauthor of The Power of Serving Others (with Dean Nelson) discovered this firsthand back in 1996. He’d arrived in Calcutta, India, with 90 volunteers and $12 million worth of medicine to work alongside Mother Teresa and the Sisters of Charity. But instead of being put to work immediately to aid the sick and dying, he was led to a fetid pile of trash, handed two buckets and a shovel, and told to take the garbage to the dump. Surely they were mistaken, he thought. (After all, he was a doctor!) It wasn’t until later that the sign inside the shelter, lettered in Mother Teresa’s own hand, struck him: “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.” The lesson, says
Morsch, remains with him to this day: “I discovered that true service isn’t about what I have to offer or who I am. It’s about being available, willing, and open to those in need.”

give it a try Think about all the labels you use to define and describe who you are. How may the way you see yourself be limiting your capacity to give where you’re needed most? Consider a few people, organizations, or events that could use your help, regardless of your skill set. Let the needs and the people you encounter dictate the best way to give, whether it’s a friend who could use some emotional support or a colleague who needs a lift. You might even discover gifts you didn’t realize you had.

Be Happy for Someone Else

One of the most generous things you can do for the world (and often the most difficult) is to share sympathetic joy, or true happiness for someone else’s good fortune. As Insight Meditation Society founder and Lovingkindness author Sharon Salzberg explains, “There’s this inherent fear we have that if someone else is happy, there’s less happiness left in the world for us. But it’s not true.” This kind of fear, she says, closes us off and has a kind of “stuck” quality to it. True generosity, on the other hand, is fluid and yielding. “The challenge lies in letting that spirit of generosity open you so that you can give yourself over.”

give it a try Next time you get word of a colleague’s promotion or a friend’s sudden windfall, counter that fear of “not enough” with joy. Rather than imagine that there’s less left for you, think the opposite: There’s more to be had as a result. In your shared joy, you welcome greater abundance. Celebrate in
a friend’s news, and you may find that good fortune and energy rubbing off on you.

Give what You Need

At first glance, this advice doesn’t make sense: If you needed something, how could you possibly have it to give away? Therein lies the whole point – and the magic – behind giving. A study published in Social Science & Medicine examined the effect of generosity on the well-being of the giver. People living with multiple sclerosis were trained to listen and provide support to others with MS. Researchers found that those giving the peer support showed markedly improved levels of confidence, self-esteem, and mood as compared to those on the receiving end. (Another study found similar results with Alcoholics Anonymous members. Those who helped other alcoholics were significantly less likely to go back to drinking in that critical first year than those who didn’t help.) “Often, we help others to overcome precisely the problems that beset our own lives,” says Post.

That’s not to say that giving from a place of need is easy – which is why we have to practice. “You might decide to give someone something,” notes Salzberg, “but then a clenching fear arises that you’ll need it, that you don’t have enough of it to give away. The key is awareness of that fear, and giving in spite of it. That’s what makes altruism a practice. It’s not about succeeding or failing; it’s about learning the nature of generosity.”

give it a try Rather than view yourself as bereft and in need of things from others, see yourself as the giver of those things, and you’ll be surprised at what happens. Think about what you’d like more of in your life. More friends? Make it a point to be there for someone in need; write a letter to an old pal with whom you’ve lost touch. More parties? Throw one of your own. More laughter? Share a joke or a funny story – and you’ll be laughing, too.

Use the News

Listen to the doom-and-gloom of the nightly news and it’s easy to wonder, “What can I do – and what difference would it make anyway?” But our response to the news media is a choice that’s un- der our control, says Morsch. “We have to start seeing the events and situations unfolding around us as opportunities to help, not problems to fix.”

Morsch, who founded the nonprofit Heart to Heart International, and who has worked in some of the most disaster-stricken corners of the world, warns against focusing on the problems in their totality. “The goal of working in a soup kitchen isn’t necessarily to end all hunger forever; it’s to feed a hungry person that day. You can change the world with the next person you encounter by being a positive force and a blessing to them.”

give it a try Every disaster or crime you hear about is not yet another sign that the world is beyond saving. Start seeing the news differently. Watch with a different perspective, using the information as a guide to where help is most needed. Knowing the facts will help you discern how to use your resources, whether it’s providing funds, giving your time, or starting a letter-writing campaign.

Reach Beyond Your Circle

Chances are, you give most to the people closest to you. While this might be where giving starts, says Post, it isn’t where it should end. “If the only people we help in our lives are our nearest and dearest, we’re missing the point. We need to strike a balance between giving to those we know and those we don’t. That’s the challenge – and the virtue – of generosity.” By widening your scope, you send a message that the rest of the world matters. Social entrepreneur Adam Hirschfelder has a suggestion for those ready to branch out: volunteer. Inspired by research showing the health benefits of older adults who participate in volunteer work, he created the Public Health Institute’s Rx: Volunteer project, one of the first national efforts to promote volunteerism and civic engagement among older adults in health-care settings. “The helper’s high is more than just anecdotal evidence,” he says. “We now know that volunteering has a powerful impact on the duration and quality of life.”
[pullquote1 align="right"]Showing generosity goes beyond just being nice to others; it means empowering them with a sense of value.[/pullquote1]
give it a try Find your volunteer niche. “Ask yourself what group or cause you’d like to benefit. It should be something you enjoy, not some chore you agree to,” says Hirschfelder. What groups do you like working with – teenagers, the elderly? Do you want to be making calls, gathering signatures, lending an ear, serving on the board? “Get involved with an organization in a way that excites you – not only to help others, but to connect with your community.” Visit volunteermatch.org to browse ideas and opportunities in your area.

Pass the Torch

Showing generosity toward others goes beyond just being nice; it means empowering them with a sense of value. In this way, giving to another per- son is akin to teaching a man to fish, as the saying goes. “You can also think of an act of kindness as a pebble thrown into a lake,” says Morsch. “The rip- ples continue to expand outward. Kindness precedes us, and it lives after us as well.” When you teach someone a new skill or technique, encourage her to pursue a dream, or praise her contributions, you enable her to be a better giver, too.

give it a try Who in your world could benefit from your attention and time? Think of people you know starting out in your profession who would like to learn the ropes or could use some encouragement. Find ways to give to others that enable them to be the best person they can be.

Give all Day, Everywhere

It’s a classic case in irony: The do-gooder spends all day advocating for worker’s wages, only to stiff his waiter a tip at dinner. “It happens to all of us,” says Post. “We get out of the flow of generosity, and before we know it, impatience or frustration sets us back a few paces.” It even happens to Post him- self on occasion: He may be president of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, but Post admits he has been known (albeit rarely) to lean on his horn when the car in front of him doesn’t move fast enough through a yellow light.

Look at your daily interactions as countless opportunities for generosity. You can be deeply moved by injustices and disasters all over the world, but the minute you snap at a Starbucks barista, you’ve lost some integrity. For Post, being consistently generous depends on an alignment between thoughts and actions – something he’s getting better at. “I have a good rapport with the folks at the laundromat, and it makes a difference.”

give it a try Where does your generous spirit tend to fall between the cracks? At work? At the bank? Try making a special effort to give attention and kindness to all the people you interact with, whether you know them or not. Notice how it changes your experience, your mood, and the way people respond to you. Salzberg suggests using a simple mantra to help you stay present to the people you meet, such as: May you be happy, may you be peaceful. “This helps you channel your attention toward someone, rather than allowing your judgments or indifference to pull you away,” she says.