By Scott C. Miller Last year we sold a car, gave up most air travel, and I joined Gwen in eating plants. We are happier for it. Here is the question that got us there: what are your non-negotiable values, and does your life actually match them? Ours didn't. So we changed it. Our Deepest Values Gwen's Values: Love and kindness for all people, and helping others live healthier, happier lives through changes like whole-food, plant-based eating. Scott's Values: Common-sense app

What our political extremes miss about the common ground beneath them By Scott C. Miller Last month, my friend hit a golf ball into a thicket of cholla cactus. I warned him to leave it. The ball was worth a few dollars, and anyone who has lived in the Southwest knows that cholla does not negotiate. He went in anyway and stumbled out with barbed segments in his clothes and skin. I had to pull them out with pliers. All of that pain for one lost ball. It captures something about

Why I Believe Joy Is Inevitable My new book is called The Inevitability of Joy: Higher Consciousness, Better Systems. Happier People. That subtitle is the whole thesis in a breath. Here's where it comes from. In April of 1979, a friend told me I had to meet two women. They were coming through Chagrin Falls, Ohio, so I drove over from Kent to spend a day with them. Their names were Arleen Lorrance and Diane Pike, and I was never the same again. They handed me a set of princip