“The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
A birthday is a special day for many of us. We all make wishes on our birthdays. Yet it seems that this is more of a ritual as most […]

By Margaret Greenberg
Earlier this month I attended a women’s leadership conference sponsored by The George Washington University (GWU) in DC. I didn’t go to the conference with the intention of writing a Positive Psychology News Daily article – I went simply to recharge my batteries, learn something new, and of course support my daughter […]

They weren’t PhDs. They didn’t have millions in NIH grants, or access to well-oiled research and development labs. In fact, neither Augusto nor Michaela Odone had even a basic background in biology. Despite their lack of resources, the couple landed a spot in history; they are known for developing a treatment that successfully halts the […]

If you’ve never seen a wrestling match, you’ve never seen one of the grittiest athletic spectacles known to man, and one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to watch as a nervous mother (through laced fingers over my eyes, to be honest). And if you haven’t heard about Dustin Carter, you’re about to learn […]

I have always been drawn to the quote by Friedrich Nietzsche that “Freedom is to struggle with no hope for reward.” There a great deal of courage in that line. There is comfort in the notion that something can us keep us going, even when the circumstances seem insurmountable. As I have maneuvered the various […]

The design for the opera house was the result of a world-wide competition in 1955-56. Jørn Utzon, a Danish architect submitted the winning design, but it did not meet the criteria of the competition and had drawings described as “simple to the point of being diagrammatic.” One of the judges did a crayon sketch to use in presenting the winning design to the Permier and public. The design was so far different from the prevailing state of architecture (though not entirely without precedent), that one widely reported story about the selection process relates that Utzon’s design was discarded in the initial pass and only reconsidered when a late-arriving judge demanded to see the discarded entries, recognized its genius, and brought it back into consideration.

“Raindrops on roses and
Whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and
Warm woolen mittens”

Julie Andrews sang about them. Oprah has them. And so I now want to do a fun column about “My Favorite Things,” too, to pay homage to some of the things that bring happiness and contentment to my life in the hopes […]

“Peace is more precious than diamonds, silver, or gold.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
This month I thought that I would visit a topic that is near and dear to my heart: peace. I have thought about peace in many ways and from many perspectives, from the eyes of an angry brother, an anxious student, a […]

Florida State University researcher K. Anders Ericsson is best known for his work as the expert on expertise, studying top performers in fields as diverse as medicine, athletics, chess and music. Ericsson set out to find out what makes some people the “best of the best.”
What he has discovered may contradict everything you have come […]

I love peanuts. I like them salted or unsalted. I like them sweet or savory. You can put them in my dinner or in my dessert. I never met a peanut I didn’t like. It is a joy to eat peanuts!
It’s also a challenge to eat peanuts. Peanuts pack a caloric punch. Too many peanuts […]