There is a growing malaise affecting our youth. Running on Empty--Transcending the Economic Culture's Seduction of Our Youth, offers a hopeful and comprehensive paradigm that can transform and reverse the downward trends causing youth's suffering. Gang membership has grown 40% in 3 years, suicide is up 89% in 12-14 year-old children in the last two decades, anti-depressant use in children is up over 400%, and 40% of all children and are born outside of marriage. Bullying, cutting, anorexia, bulimia, borderline, and anti-social personality disorders are all on the rise. This is but a small sampling of painful trends affecting young people. Running on Empty presents a powerful case for the cause behind these destructive trends, and offers a comprehensive and hopeful path to help youth transcend their deepening pain. Through blending ancient wisdom traditions with contemporary psychological and educational insights, this book offers a blue print that can end youth's spiraling downward trends and help them create a bright future. Through mindfulness experiments, youth reveal in their own poignant and often humorous words, the keys that transformed their struggles.