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SereneAmbition
Aug 2008
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Brave Nation

Wednesday Aug 27 2008

   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

Tagged with: brave_nation commitment declaration future vision

Circumstantial Drift

Friday Aug 08 2008

   By Jim Selman | Bio
One of the biggest questions most of us have is “Why do we do what we do?”, particularly when what we do isn’t what we want to do or think we should be doing.  My answer is that, for most of us, most of the time we’re not actually choosing what we do. We are living our life according to our historical patterns within some narrowly proscribed personal and cultural ‘story’ about what is and is not possible and what our options are in any given situation. In effect, we live our lives in a ‘circumstantial drift’ where the future is determined by our past.[Read More]

Written by admin at Retirement

Tagged with: choice circumstantial_drift future past retirement time

Wisdom and Fear

Wednesday Aug 06 2008

   By Jim Selman | Bio
I heard someone remark that the best thing about getting older is they don’t have to be afraid anymore. While I think that is one of life’s ‘truisms’, it falls into the same category as your mother telling you “not to worry”—it doesn’t help much to know that when you are worried! From what I can see, most people get more fearful and anxious as they age. This anxiety takes various forms: fear of not having enough money, fear of being homeless, fear of being alone, fear of becoming dependent or of losing one’s faculties. The list could go on.[Read More]

Written by admin at Wisdom in Action

Tagged with: age anxiety certainty fear future wisdom

Lighten Up

Monday Jul 21 2008

   By Jim Selman | Bio
The 1970s in the USA may not have been the ‘Age of Enlightenment’, but it was certainly the ‘Age of the Pursuit of Enlightenment’.  The Esalen Institute was in its hey day, the est training was blowing everyone’s mind, and authentic Indian yogis were in demand. We thought the Age of Aquarius was really here and that peace and love were just a few years away. Maybe we were naïve, but it was a good time when young people were trying hard to be better people and when it wasn’t embarrassing to be idealistic.[Read More]

Written by admin at Fearless Aging

Tagged with: collaboration enlightenment fear future

Paradox and Confusion

Monday Jun 30 2008

  By Shae Hadden | Bio
Someone was telling me recently that some of Buddhist temples in Japan are guarded by two fierce-looking demon-like figures. These guardians of ‘Truth’ are known as ‘Paradox’ and ‘Confusion’. These days, paradox and confusion seem to be states I alternate between in my quest to discover who I am and what future I want to create. If I’m not confused, then I’m trying to embrace something that defies intuition. My ‘truth’ seems elusive.[Read More]

Written by admin at Learning

Tagged with: confusion eldering future paradox possibilities

Unreasonable

Thursday Jun 19 2008

   I spent a good chunk of my life learning to be reasonable. In business, the mantra for any proposal was always: “Is it practical?” It seemed to me that reasonableness (and its sister practicality) were virtues. People who were unreasonable or impractical seemed to be exceptions—they came across as flaky, dangerous, occasionally lucky, unpredictable, disconnected, loose canons and, above all, they weren't team players. When I turned 50, I came upon a quotation by George Bernard Shaw that hit me between the eyes and totally changed my approach to life and, in particular, my future.[Read More]

Written by admin at Fearless Aging

Tagged with: future possibility practicality reasonableness

Slowing Down

Friday Jun 06 2008

My neighbor and good friend is moving to an apartment without stairs in another city where there’s a better environment for retirees and a more laid-back lifestyle. She tells me that she is ‘slowing down’. I am sure she is making the right decision for her—stairs have become difficult following hip surgery last year. And I am sure she knows that our choice of wording reveals some of the bias hidden in our cultural predisposition to the future. To be sure, we hear a lot of people declaring that they’re slowing down. Yet, I wonder what ‘slowing down’ really means?

[Read More]

Written by admin at Fearless Aging

Tagged with: choice future lifestyle reality retirement slowing_down

Memorial Day II

Monday May 26 2008

Memorial Day is about remembering the sacrifices of our countrymen and women in past wars—it is all about patriotism and not forgetting that every American must do their part to sustain our democratic freedoms. As I listen to folks talking, however, there are no conversations about this or about much of anything other than reminences about last week's golf games or past adventures or what is so-in-so doing these days.[Read More]

Written by admin at Retirement

Tagged with: environment future intergenerational relationship retirement terrorism

Working Longer

Friday May 23 2008

According to Professor Yarrow, a history professor at American University, it is unpatriotic to retire while you are still in good health.
"Retiring when you're still in good health isn't just wrong, it's profoundly selfish and unpatriotic...Dropping out of the workforce while still in one's prime means ending one's contributions to America's strength, mortgaging our children's and grandchildren's future, and leeching trillions of taxpayer dollars from the economy... If millions of Americans worked until age 67 instead of 62...[they] would increase national output and personal wealth and keep the labor force at a healthy level."
[Read More]

Written by admin at Retirement

Tagged with: choice eldering future guilt participating responsibility retirement working

Futurists

Monday May 19 2008

In the 1970s, I belonged to The World Future Society. I even toyed with the idea of becoming a ‘futurist’. I vaguely recall that there was a magazine on the subject and various intellectuals were trying to get prediction raised to the status of a science. According to Wired magazine, the Society still exists and there are people who call themselves professional futurists, but the numbers are shrinking and their status seems to be less than in the past—primarily because the future is increasingly less predictable (if it ever was). Yet, why do people continue to seek answers to what will the future be?[Read More]

Written by admin at Fearless Aging

Tagged with: certainty choice circumstances control freedom future futurists prediction

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