 By Jim Selman | Bio
There is an amazing website called The Brave Nation
that is showcasing people who’ve made a difference. Many of these
examples of human vision, commitment and perseverance are boomers who
challenged ‘the system’ in the '60s and '70s and are now sharing their
experience with the current generation of ‘change agents’. It is
inspiring to remember and reconnect with the idealism of our youth and
perplexing to wonder what happened to so many of us who have drifted
into complacency about (or in some cases complicity with) current
events.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Wisdom in Action
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 By Elizabeth Russell | Bio
Read Part I of this series.
As soon as I got over thinking of myself as an oddity in the
environment and began looking around, I discovered some very
interesting people. One of the early people I met had been a detective (a Private I!) for
over 35 years and had some hair-raising stories to tell, including her
gathering evidence against an East Bay union boss who was using sexual
coercion against women seeking work. [ Read More]
Written by admin at Fearless Aging
Tagged with:
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By Jim Selman | Bio
I
have been talking about ‘completion’ a lot lately. It is basically that
state of being where we can let the past be in the past and not try to
control everything to make the future turn out the way we want it.
Completion is a necessary state if we want live in the present. One of
the things that keeps us from being complete is guilt. Guilt is a waste
of time. It is blaming ourselves for whatever we think we’ve done
wrong. As far as I can tell, it is also a cover-up for not being
responsible for whatever we did that we’re feeling guilty about.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Fearless Aging
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 By Jim Selman | Bio
Nathan Oates, a Christian minister who writes a very thoughtful blog called “ Theologically Speaking”,
did a nice piece on loneliness. His point: how we seem to fragment our
society into all kinds of niches and end up not relating to or
connecting with most of the people around us. Even in the churches that
one would imagine to be the most community-oriented institutions, the
norm is to break the congregation into oriented ‘special interest’
groups according to age—the tots, teens, 20 ‘somethings’, 30
‘somethings’, middle-agers and seniors. While such segregation might
make sense in terms of some ‘educational’ objectives, it makes no sense
spiritually and undermines the whole idea of a multigenerational
community.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Fearless Aging
Tagged with:
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The Journal of Positive Psychology recently published the
results of a multi-year study of 818 people between the ages of 18 and
94 into the origins of life satisfaction throughout adulthood. The
research team's findings indicated that:
- The key components of successful aging are not cognitive or physical functioning (older people tend to rate their happiness as high or higher than young people, in spite of medical concerns)
- Self-reported health is not a key predictor of satisfaction
- Knowledge, skills and experience required in life are not significantly associated with satisfaction
- The capacity to reason abstractly and draw inferences was a key predictor of satisfaction in younger and middle-aged adults (intelligence is highly valued when one is still in the workforce)
- Things that dissatisfy us the most remain constant
Lead author Karen Siedlecki, a post-doctoral research fellow in the
cognitive neuroscience division at Columbia University, stated that,
"The really key components of successful aging may be how happy you are
and how satisfied you are with your life, and these factors don’t tend
to decline with age.”[ Read More]
Written by admin at News
Tagged with:
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Companies and organizations across North America are looking to retirees as part-time or temporary workers. Hewlett Packard is reaching out in a different way
to capitalize on the power of its former employees. In this year's
annual gathering of HP retirees, chief executive Mark Hurd asked people
to get involved in volunteer sales, join local alumni clubs, speak up
about legislative issues the company cares about and represent
Hewlett-Packard in philanthropic and community events. Third-party
endorsements and word of mouth can generate goodwill for the company
that will help it achieve its goals.
With the emphasis on participation being its own reward, it
will be interesting to see how former HP employees, some of whom
'built' Silicon Valley, respond. Other high-tech companies like IBM,
Intel and Xerox have similar networks of retirees, but their loyalty is
often focused on particular communities of practice or projects rather
than the company.Considering that many retirees have spent much of their working lives,
if not all, with one company, such calls for institutional loyalty are
being closely watched.
[ Read More]
Written by admin at News
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By Elizabeth Russell | Bio
I
had enormous resistance in moving into what I thought of as “an old
folks’ home.” For years I had said to my children, “I’ll never live in
one of those places!” When circumstances conspired to make such a move
wise, I spent much of the first few months in my new home looking at
San Francisco apartment ads, traveling to the city to look at those
apartments. As I did, I began to notice the difference it would mean to
me living in one of those apartments as compared with living in
Woodside Terrace. Increasingly I acknowledged that it no longer made
sense for me to live alone and, with that acknowledgment, came the
appreciation of having my apartment cleaned and my linen changed
weekly, having meals prepared for me and having emergency help as near
as the cord next to my bed or by the shower in my bathroom.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Fearless Aging
Tagged with:
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By Jim Selman | Bio
Since Alvin Toffler published Future Shock in
the 1970s, futurists have been speculating what will happen in the
coming decades. As with most attempts at long-range predictions, the
proof is in the pudding. Most turn out to be somewhat accurate, along
with lots of unpredictable ‘surprises’. No one, for example,
anticipated the Internet, globalization, Google, global terrorism, cell
phones or the unimaginable cost of energy. The future continues to be a
fickle mistress and pretty much does what she wants to do, regardless
of our prognostications.[ Read More]
Written by admin at The Great Turning
Tagged with:
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By Jim Selman | Bio
If
we think about retirement or growing older in general, it seems to me
that most of us are trying to figure out what we want for our future.
Our orientation is to explore options given whatever opening we have,
rather than to consider that aging is an opening and the challenge is to create new possibilities—not simply cope with our circumstances.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Fearless Aging
Tagged with:
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perspective
rainbow
retirement
wisdom
 By Marilyn Kentz | Bio | Website
Unlike
in our mothers' and grandmothers' day, you and I are bombarded with
young, beautifully and magically enhanced women 24 hours every day.
Frequent ads remind us that we should be defying our age. Half the
time, I don't even know I should be worried about something until a
commercial tells me so. [ Read More]
Written by admin at Fearless Aging
Tagged with:
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