Natalie Audelo

So how do we keep doing all this passion work that needs doing? How do educate, and make art, and create spaces to enjoy it? How do we comfort the infirm, and protect the vulnerable, and agitate for a better world? We can agree that the outcome of this type of work is valuable and venerable. It is essential . But the we value the people doing the... See more

One of the fundamental choices that you face on Earth is the degree to which you’ll pursue deeper but riskier fulfillment or practice avoidance that exempts you from bad feelings but leaves you bereft of good ones.

And if I know one thing it’s that if you’re experiencing a genuinely moving moment, if you’re really in it, the absolute last thing you want or think about doing is taking out your phone, cutting through it and cheapening it. The best love is quiet. The best confidence is quiet. And so are the lives with the most meaning.

When . . . you began to study the quality of awe, that feeling of being in the presence of something vast that lifts you up, that can transform your sense of the world. At first, you made the erroneous assumption that to experience awe, you needed to go into something like a redwood forest and gaze upon the majesty of the trees. But then you

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Self-actualization means, at least partly, that you have designed a life that fits you—that allows you to express your human potential. And as I talked about in the last part, to make a good design, to find a fit, you need to perceive the context you are designing for clearly.

Our social and political divides aren’t just about income brackets or political parties, but about fundamentally different lived realities operating in parallel. A divide that is harder to measure; it must be experienced.

“You can store meat in your own pantry or in the belly of your brother. Both have the result of keeping hunger at bay but with very different consequences for the people and the land which provided that sustenance.” —Robin Wall Kimmerer

Why do we always remember our childhood friends? Why do so many people look back on college with fondness? Why are so many married couples nostalgic for those hardscrabble early years, with the crappy jobs and tiny apartment and borrowed baby clothes? It’s because, while those environments were materially constrained (we had fewer choices), they... See more