I liked Seth Miller’s post about flying JetBlue on his birthday for no particular reason other than the fact that it made him happy. He boarded a plane, flew for an hour, and then turned around and went back. “It was a cheap flight. My round-trip fare was about $60 plus $10 for the MTA…
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Every Friday is giveaway day. Comment to win! Three years later, Nathan Minnehan started making leather journals and selling them in Buenos Aires at the San Telmo street fair. The journals are now sold internationally and in more than fifteen stores in the U.S. He also has a scholarship called the Dream Box where he…
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Online interviews are a dime a dozen… except when they’re done amazingly well. Jonathan Fields decided to rise to the challenge of producing thoughtful, in-depth features on interesting people. He’s kept at it for more than three years and is still going strong. I asked him why he started Good Life Project, otherwise known as GLP. Here’s…
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This is a traveler case study. (Read others or nominate yourself.) I’ve known Austin for years, and I appreciate his perspective on combining a number of different interests: travel, startups, teaching, and more—all viewed through a filter of gratitude. Here’s more. Introduce yourself! A couple of study abroad semesters in college gave me wanderlust and…
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Approximately 3% of the adult population has seriously attempted to end their lives, but most of those who do never speak of it. “The nation’s oldest suicide prevention organization, the American Association of Suicidology, decided in a vote by its board last week to recognize a vast but historically invisible portion of its membership: people…
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*** Update: You can now order the book! *** Order from Amazon Order from BN.com Order from iBooks Order from a Local Bookstore Greetings, all! Big news today. I’d like to officially unveil my new book, The Happiness of Pursuit. In this post you can learn more about it, read a FREE excerpt, sign up…
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Last year we started a foundation, making an initial investment of $100,000 and pledging to support “Scholarships for Real Life,” a program to enable people to pursue a dream of their own while also addressing a problem that affects others. In this short series, we’ll highlight our initial grantees. *** “My life sometimes has been…
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I stumbled upon an essay by an anthropologist who had a diverse background before settling in Michigan. But where is she actually from? When I travel and a stranger asks if I’m from Michigan, I immediately reply: ‘I live there, but I’m not from there.’ I feel compelled to tell everyone about my immigrant past:…
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I love big cities, and always enjoy returning to Hong Kong, New York, and Sydney—among many others. But what about those unknown gems that are off the beaten tourist path… those obscure places that are just waiting to be explored by real travelers? Our new “Mini City Guides” are here to uncover those gems, and…
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I. Around the World Things I found on long walks in foreign cities, or perhaps when someone posted them on Twitter. Interview with David Foster Wallace — “Somehow we’ve allowed the culture to teach us that the point of living is to get as much as you can and experience as much pleasure as you…
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Every Friday is giveaway day. Comment to win! I first wrote about Megan Hunt in The $100 Startup. Since then she’s continued to inspire, working on various projects, raising her daughter, and co-founding a new fashion company called Hello Holiday. Hello Holiday features fun women’s clothing (in great colors!) from emerging designers. In a true…
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Two years ago at WDS we gave everyone $100 and sent them off with a charge to do something fun and meaningful. Throughout the next year we heard a lot of great stories about what happened with the money. We shared many of those stories at the following year’s event. Also that year, we…
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From a Harvard Business Review article cited by Tom Fishburne: “Executives and entrepreneurs face two very different sorts of risks. One is that their organization will make a bold move that failed — a risk they call ‘sinking the ship.’ The other is that their organization will fail to make a bold move that would…
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Marina Keegan was a writer, activist, and student at Yale. Before graduation she shared a few words for her fellow students: We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just…
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I’ve been a fan of Shannon O’Donnell for several years. The posts on her site are always well thought out, and she’s also known for her work on international volunteering
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