The Joy of Giving: Caring for Volunteers
Not every volunteer experiences a helper's high, but many could if they were better managed. A new professional group, volunteer managers, has emerged over the last decade as more and more...
View ArticleUpdating the Helper Therapy Principle
The therapeutic benefits of helping others have long been recognized by everyday people. This concept was first formalized in a highly cited and often reprinted article by Frank Riessman that appeared...
View ArticleIt's Good to Be Good
Over the centuries spiritual and moral thinkers have prescribed ways of living that lead to greater happiness over the course of a lifetime, and the best of them from Socrates to Buddha, from Jesus to...
View ArticleA Statement on Happiness
In the summer of 2008, we moved to Setauket, New York, up along the North Shore of Long Island. In the village of Setauket sits a lovely park dedicated to the memory of Frank Melville, Jr. (1850-1935)....
View ArticleBIG MOVES - Adjusting to New Places Through Helping Others
Sometimes we do not realize how challenging big moves from one part of the country to another can be. Loss of job and place are two of the three big stressors in life, and it can take a couple of years...
View ArticleHow Wise It Is: Volunteer to Stay in Touch With the Joy of Giving When You...
We can be anywhere, so long as we are helping others and caring for the,. This is probably the one source of stability in our lives that we can truly depend on, and so in the end we are never really...
View ArticleThe Fragility and Distortions of Our Love of Neighbor
The sources of our love for others are unstable aspects of human nature, and often overwhelmed. And yes, there are forms of giving and helping that are unhealthy. We need not overstate these things, or...
View ArticleGood Things Don't Always Happen to Good People, But It's Still Good to be Good!
Imagine being ill, or having a major accident that leaves you in a wheel chair for life. Some really caring physician, nurse, social worker, or pastor is able to connect such that you feel that your...
View ArticleCompassionate Medical Care Benefits Professionals, Patients, Students and the...
Compassion in health care benefits professionals, students, patients and the bottom line. What's not to like about it?read more
View ArticleDoing Good for Others this Holiday Season
Ebenezer Scrooge begins with a "Bah humbug!" He is both miserly and miserable. As the story unfolds, he eventually discovers the "givers glow," as I like to term it. He is dancing on the streets in the...
View ArticleA Holiday Message for America and Wall Street in Hard Times
Many people in America will be celebrating the holidays a little more simply than in past years, for these are hard times. But there is a way through these times, and it holds promise for everyone....
View ArticleHelping Other Alcoholics Helps the Helper
In the Fall of 1990 Bill Wilson made Life’s list of the “100 most important Americans of the 20th Century” for his efforts, along with Akron’s Dr. Bob Smith, in establishing Alcoholics Anonymous in the...
View Article
