Author: Rick Bellingham

It seems fair to say we have lost our way and don’t want to do the work to find our footing.  I am not alone in that belief.  Over 65% of Americans believe we are “seriously off on the wrong track.” Given our current reality, I was thinking about how it might be possible to renew our sense of purpose and restore a sense of common values that might help us find a path back Read More

“Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.”  Stephen Hawking “He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.”  Albert Einstein   I’m not sure what’s more awe-inspiring—the wonder of impossibility or the wonder of possibility.  I spent my whole career Read More

At precisely 8:30 every morning, my granddaughter says to me, “Just a reminder.  Good Morning, I Love You.”  Ahhh, what a way to start the day! Even though the greeting is technology-enabled (she programmed Alexa to make that announcement every morning), her spirit still comes shining through with all its warmth and beauty.  It’s hard to be grumpy when your morning begins with a reminder from your granddaughter that she loves you. In my morning Read More

“When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.”  Joseph Campbell “Personal transformation can and does have global effects.  As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us.  The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one.”  Marianne Williamson “When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all of your thoughts break their bonds.  Your mind Read More

  It seems like it’s becoming harder and harder to survive in the margins of society.  The conditions are more severe and the margin keeps getting larger.  Still, we need to hang onto hope.  To be specific, in the last 20 years the median income for households with less $30,000 in income fell by 12%.  Remember, if a person works 40 hours per week for 50 weeks of the year at $15 per hour, that Read More

“There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in it’s roar.”  Lord Byron “All of connection is optimally rupture and repair.” Bonnie Badenroch   Well, it looks like instead of a rapture, we ended up with a rupture.  It remains to be seen how well we will be able to repair it.  I guess we are left Read More

Here’s the big secret: It’s the fear of death that’s driving all this selfish behavior.  Research in evidence-based psychology suggests a strong link between fear of death and increased selfishness or self-centered behavior. Terror Management Theory (TMT) is a prominent framework that explains how the awareness of death leads individuals to prioritize self-preservation and self-interest to manage existential anxiety. Multiple studies have found that mortality reminders increase selfish behaviors and reduce prosocial actions, supporting the Read More

Behaviors don’t come out of nowhere.  They are typically either inspired by a vision, driven by values, or restrained by rules. There is a reason that any transformational change effort—whether it’s personal or cultural—starts with vision, values, and rules which clarify why change is necessary and how it should unfold.   Without a guiding purpose and grounding principles, all actions are, by definition, random and reactionary.  The insane behaviors we are witnessing now, whether it’s the Read More

One of my fondest memories is a vacation my wife and I took in Belize.  I remember so vividly the jungle treehouse, the cave kayaking, and the idyllic little island where we stayed.  What I keep returning to in my meditations, however, is the experience of scuba diving in the crystal clear waters off the shores.  What I still visualize is floating weightlessly above a brightly colored coral reef (they still existed back then) and Read More

What I have found compelling over the years is how technology has impacted both trust and transformation. Technology has played critical roles not only in the broad erosion of trust, but also in the steep acceleration of transformation.  In particular, I have been closely following the evolution of A.I. over the past few years – first by writing about early experiences and then by inserting A.I.-generated paragraphs into my posts.  You may have noticed that Read More

It feels like a hard rain is falling – sort of like buckets of hailstones pelleting our bodies as soon as we step into the flood of news.  Most of us are asking, “What do I do now?”  Bob Dylan, a legitimate recipient of a Nobel Prize, had an answer: I’m a-goin back out fore the rain starts a fallin I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest   Where the people are Read More

One of the school assignments my grandkids had this summer was to read Animal Farm by George Orwell. We all decided to read it and hold a mini book group to discuss it. We were all shocked to notice how prescient Orwell was 80 years ago. My granddaughter found the last sentence of the book to be the most stunning: “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from Read More