By Jim Selman | Bio
When we know that there is an end to a
particularly strenuous period of work, we can feel energized and become
even more productive. When we think that the flow of work is endless or
that we have no choice in the matter, then we may begin to break down,
feel disempowered, become tired. Life begins to feel like a burden. I have found that resolving these kinds of chronic negative moods about workload and feeling overwhelmed begins by[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Health
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By Jim Selman | Bio
Perhaps the most pervasive and omnipresent
aspect of being alive is our moods. We are always in one mood or
another. Moods are either positive or negative and they ‘color’ our
experience of living, affect how we relate to others and our
circumstances, and have extraordinary power to open or close
possibilities. If we examine this phenomenon, we can see that our moods
are portable—we take them with us wherever we go. I can be angry at
home and find that mood affecting me at work or even on the golf
course. Moods are also[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Wisdom in Action
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By Jim Selman | Bio
Last week was not a good week for the planet
and I've been taking it personally. Aside from the Iran Crisis and
North Korea, we had the usual games being played in Europe, South
America and Southeast Asia. At some moment, I realized that I had once
again drifted into a spectator role. I was trying to sort out the good
insurgents from the bad insurgents, the real terrorists from the
"revolutionaries", and I was finding that the conservative/liberal
divide seems to be a universal constant everywhere we look. As President Obama is declaring[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Wisdom in Action
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 By Jim Selman | Bio
It occurs to me that in less than 36 hours
about half of the nation and a good percentage of folks around the
world will be disappointed and resentful that their candidate for the
US Presidency will have lost. These are two of the most unproductive,
in fact counter-productive moods we can have—especially resentment.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Wisdom in Action
Tagged with:
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I was speaking with a friend recently about age in general, how we
‘remember’ our lives and the power of memories to affect our day-to-day
experience. From one perspective, I think that living in the present is
the point of living—experientially at least. When we are present, our
memories are just memories and don’t affect us either positively or
negatively. Our memories are our ‘story’, and we can relate to our past
as just that—a story. On the other hand, our moods and our memories are
very connected. While the past is the past, it can have an impact on
the present. Memory can enrich our lives and allow us to ‘relive’ happy
moments or it can displace and diminish our lives, burying us in
caskets of regret, resentment, fear and guilt.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Personal Empowerment
Tagged with:
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How many people in a day do you see treat other people as objects, as a
means to an end? From ignoring those we are in the room with while
tensely thumbing a Blackberry to yelling impatience at a store clerk,
many relate to others as if they are simply there to give them
something. Unfortunately, our moods are more infectious than we may
realize. Recent advances in neuroscience have discovered that our brains are
wired to be social, and that our inner states affect those around us.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at News
Tagged with:
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It’s been said a lot of different ways that life is not a destination,
but a journey. A lot of homespun wisdom and formal philosophy attempts
to clarify ‘the purpose of life’ or various other questions about what
we’re doing with our lives and why we do it. A good friend was recently
seeking my advice about his relationship to money. He was somewhere
between perplexed and depressed that he hasn’t been able to produce the
financial results in his business that he wanted. This man is a very
well educated, experienced and competent businessman. He had been
successful working in other companies, but is still in the process of
getting his own business off the ground. I mention this because I think
a lot of us are at that point in our lives where we begin to take stock
of where we are, what we’ve accomplished and what we have in mind for
the next phase of our lives and career. The conversation with my friend
revealed three distinctions I think are generally relevant to anyone
and are worth noting.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Personal Empowerment
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Tagged with:
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I was having a cup of coffee with a very good friend of mine the other
morning. He was feeling down—actually, he said he was feeling a little
‘crazy’. On one level, his life has never been better, his work is
satisfying and, best of all, according to him, he has a new Porsche
that is requiring he move to the next level of performance in driving.
Life is good. Yet, amidst all his success (which includes a loving, happy marriage
and new grandkids), he was in a deep ‘funk’. I say funk because he
wasn't quite depressed, but wasn't feeling well either. He’d spent the
better part of the last month trying to psychoanalyze himself to find
the source of his malaise and achieved not much more than the usual
circular reasoning that we get into when we become trapped in our own
psyche.[ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Personal Empowerment
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I like this word. I don't know why…perhaps because it is one of those
words that seems to express itself in speaking of it. The word means
'anxiety'—a kind of generalized anxiety with being alive. The existential philosophers talked a lot about angst. In fact, we
normally associate angst with existentialism—existential angst. The
word is usually associated with a negative mood such as depression or
what Thomas Merton characterized as "the dark night of the soul". I
think that Heidegger talked about it as the inherent tension between
'being' and 'non-being'. I think that angst underlies the 'suffering'
that Buddha associated with human existence and probably is behind the
concept of 'original sin'. Whatever its origins or deeper meanings, it
is a day-to-day practical reality for most of us in our unending quest
to 'get it right' and 'be happy'. There are lots of strategies for dealing with angst.[ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Personal Empowerment
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I had a lot of fun yesterday and last night. It was so much fun, I
wonder why I don’t have this kind of fun all the time. I am
distinguishing between happy and fun here. I am happy most of the time
and enjoy what I am doing, but fun is somehow different. The day was
spent playing golf with my buddies and then we all went to an Italian
cooking school and spent the evening laughing and eating an incredible
dinner. But
what we did isn’t the source of ‘why’ it was fun. [ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Fearless Aging
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