This week Awesome Stories brings you kindness, awareness, play, free college, love and creativity.

Kindness in Action

This story of Matt being helped by a stranger touched my heart. I’ve been stranded on the highway, and it’s not fun. Read how George saved Matt’s family vacation. In Matt’s words, “With tears in my eyes, I pulled away from this wonderful man’s house. I’ll never forget the way I felt — thankful for the goodness of people, the kindness of strangers, the amazing story I’ll recount for years.”

The Digital Now

The digital world compresses time and space to bring everything here and now seemingly. This almost sounds like the spiritual ideal to be here now, but according to Abha Dawesar, the digital now is a parallel track that mostly takes us away from the present moment. I like and agree with her suggestions to carefully choose our digital tools, slow down, unplug and bring our full awareness back to the present moment. While the digital world tends to feed the distraction, busyness and lack of connection to the present moment, we always have a choice. By slowing down and being mindful, we can bring presence/ awareness into any moment or situation.

Play Time!

Lusitano and his horse Cruz certainly know how to have fun. How about you? Are you ready for a recess?

Gravity Batteries

This is a very intriguing idea using simple technologies and gravity to create and store energy for use later when needed. As you may know, there is abundant solar energy available from the sun. More than enough to solve the world’s energy needs if we can create better systems to harness and store the energy for when it’s needed. Therefore, batteries and energy storage are the key areas to unlock the vast solar potential. I hope GravityBattery finds sources to start testing this great idea. Right now, it’s simply a theory.

I Love You!

What a beautiful experiment. I’ve done this with hugs, but saying I love you to strangers would be a stretch for me. How about you?

Share Your Ride?

Car sharing might be the future of cars, at least according to this study by Alexi Partners. The demand for car sharing is very high and fits well with younger generations who have different life priorities like convenience, lower cost, variety and sharing. The study found that car sharing in 10 US cities kept 500,000 cars from needing to be bought. This is great news for the environment. We don’t have it in our small town, but I’d love to use car sharing. How about you?

Creative Mom

This mom sure knows how to have fun. Queenie Liao is a photographer who found her inspiration by exploring a whimsical dreamland with her son Wengenn, featured in this creative collection of photos called Wengenn in Wonderland.

Free College?

At least two US states are considering offering free college tuition to any students that want to attend. Lawmakers in Oregon believe that the cost will be returned by inspiring young students to pursue higher education and be better prepared for the world of work. Expensive college costs and debt burden are becoming limiters of who can attend higher education. I’m all for this plan and would like to see more social programs offered by the government like health care, social security and education. We could easily pay for these with reasonable corporate taxes, cutting subsidies, and reducing our military spending. According to wikipedia, the US military budget, at $682B, is more than the next ten countries combined!

What’s inspiring you this week?

I’d love to hear your awesome stories, even if it’s one simple step toward your dreams. Please share below.