 By Jim Selman | Bio
Read the rest of the 12-Step Program > Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3We’ve been drawing an
analogy between the state of affairs in the governance of our country
and the various kinds of addictive conditions we face as individuals.
Specifically, we’ve been saying the ‘system’ is broken, we’re out of
control and we need to find something larger than the political gridlock
driven by special and self-interest groups we’re witnessing in
Washington. In watching the final hours of the
healthcare debate, I was heartened when
[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Wisdom in Action
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A reminder to join Kathryn Mahoney, UNHCR public information officer
in Djibouti, tomorrow for a live Twitter Q&A session. Kathryn is
from New York and has been working in Djibouti assisting and protecting
refugees since May 2009. Send in your questions to her by email (donors@unhcr.og) in advance, or if
you use Twitters, send a tweet and add the '#askunhcr' hashtag. In North
America, the event will run:
2 pm EST
1 pm CST
12 noon MST
11
am PST
Read our post about Somali refugees in Djibouti.
If
you or your organization are interested in contributing time or
resources to the process of empowering the Somali refugees living in
Djibouti, please visit www.givethemshelter.org
and join UNHCR’s campaign to send them 2,600 much needed tents.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at News
Tagged with:
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By Shae Hadden
The New York Times reported on March
5th that the U.S. is helping the Somali government prepare to take
back Mogadishu. As part of a counterterrorism strategy, this
American support may make the country, steeped in anarchy for 20 years,
less hospitable for Al Quaeda and Al Shahab and its allies. Young Somali
men who have been training for the past few months in neighboring
Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Sudan are now reinforcing the
6,000 to 10,000 troops, freshly armed and equipped, that will be led by
General Gelle. What this means for the Somali people waits to be seen,
but in all probability, it will involve more forced displacements and
refugees seeking asylum.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Wisdom in Action
Tagged with:
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By Jim Selman | Bio
I have been making the
case that our country is trapped in a vicious cycle, analogous to
alcoholism or any addictive spiral that inevitably leads to ‘hitting
bottom’, and that we need a rigorous ‘recovery’ program. Our
Constitutional Democracy cannot work if our founding principles, the
Constitution itself , and the institutions responsible for sustaining it
are not aligned and functioning as a whole. In the ‘recovery’
literature and all 12-Step programs, the first and primary question to
resolve is “Where is the bottom?” Have we had enough of having enough?
Are we ready to acknowledge that the system is broken and we are
powerless to fix it? If we are, then we can begin the real journey to
recovery.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Wisdom in Action
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By Jim Selman | Bio
Anyone familiar with 12 Step programs knows that the literature generally characterizes the ‘ism’ or addiction as a disease of ‘self-centeredness’. This is basically a way of saying that the behavior (that is, the alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, etc.) are symptoms—not causes. The nature of the problem is that people become trapped in a ‘self-referential’ relationship with the world, live in various states of denial, and pursue increasingly self-destructive behaviors until they ‘hit bottom’. At that moment, they can begin the process of recovery—assuming they will take the first step—to acknowledge that they are out of control and powerless and that their life is ‘unmanageable’.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Wisdom in Action
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Looking for a way to immerse yourself in a different culture AND make a
difference? Consider a volunteer vacation. Opportunities exist for
people of all ages to use their skills and abilities in a variety of
situations. Some organizations
specialize in one particular type of volunteer work[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Fearless Aging
Tagged with:
Women and men experience pain differently. Recent studies reveal that
women, when compared to men, experience more recurrent,
severe and longer lasting pain....
[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Health
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By Jim Selman | Bio
I work with organizations that are attempting
to change. At the beginning of working with a new client, I point out
what’s missing for any organization that has recurring or seemingly
intractable problems: what’s missing is a different way of observing.
Whether we’re talking about a company, a community or a continent, a new
perspective always gives us an opening to create new possibilities,
have new choices and take new actions: a new way of observing the world
effectively gives us a different future than some variation of ‘more of
the same’. We need to stop asking what the problems are and start
asking why they persist. When we do, we begin to realize that we
have a paradigm problem. Until we deal with that, none of our seemingly
intractable problems—from staggering debt to unending war, climate
change to the underlying causes of the mortgage crises—can be solved.
Albert Einstein expressed this concisely when he said that sometimes our
problems cannot be solved by thinking the way we thought when we
created them.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Wisdom in Action
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