 By Jim Selman | Bio
Think about the positive attributes of
growing older, and ‘wisdom’ will always appear near the top of the
list. Until recently, I had assumed ‘wisdom’ was a kind of ‘right
knowledge’. Every time someone says the Serenity Prayer, I am reminded
of this attribute again.
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot
change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to
know the difference.”
I wonder if I do know the difference.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Wisdom in Action
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By Jim Selman | Bio
I don't think that age is personal. I know
it feels like it is 'me' that is getting older, but I don't experience
myself as older. If anything, I experience my 'self' as being 'better'
than at any time I can remember over the past 66 years. I feel more
'alive', more engaged, more present and more satisfied than ever. It is
true that my body can’t run, wrestle or climb as easily as in the past.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Fearless Aging
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By Irene Noble
Admittedly my vision of my granddaughter
is somewhat impaired by my love for her, but for the life of me I fail
to understand how she became so wise so soon. We are
both an only child, both raised by a single parent (a father for her,
and a mother for me). We share a “jack of all trades” DNA. I watch her
now as she, like my younger self, slightly out of focus, tries her
wings. Like a hummingbird sampling nectars looking for the blossom with
the most satisfying sugar, she fearlessly plunges into an array of
interests that defy the time needed to perfect any one of them. I tell
you this by way of introduction hoping to lead you into a greater
subject. There she is at 23 with time to spare and here I am at 85
almost out of time. [ Read More]
Written by admin at Wisdom in Action
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 By Jim Selman | Bio
Either/or.
This way of thinking about and relating to life is one of the most
persistent and difficult aspects of our culture. Everything is either
this or that. And if it isn’t this, it must be that. This either/or mode of observing and thinking about the world is not a function of our brains.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Wisdom in Action
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I was talking with a fellow recently who was asking why this blog is
called Serene Ambition™. He thought that the two words didn't seem to
go together. He could get 'serenity' and also understand 'ambition',
but together they made no sense to him. In our normal way of relating
to the world, you can have serenity (meaning inner peace, calmness,
maybe even joy) or you can be ambitious (meaning committed to creating
or accomplishing something in the future)—but not both together. In some ways, we might say these two terms label the best of East and West.
[ Read More]
Written by admin at Fearless Aging
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 By Shae Hadden | Bio
I’ve been thinking about how we define success, and observing how
serene people become when they feel ‘successful’. For most of my life,
I’ve focused my thinking on achieving the traditional symbols of
success: significant recognition, meaningful associations with
particular people, my own home, specific possessions. Something shifted
in me a few years ago when I realized none of these ‘mean’ anything
when we reach the end of our journey. They hold only peripheral
interest for me now.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Personal Empowerment
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Recent research by neuroscientist Mario Beauregard of the University of
Montreal attempts to pinpoint what happens in the brain during a
'mystical experience'. Dubbed 'neurotheology' or 'spiritual
neuroscience', this new line of inquiry may marry religion in a science
in a way that could make it possible to make people's lives "happier,
healthier and better able to concentrate". Read the full Scientific
American article, Searching for God in the Brain, to discover what the test subjects revealed was their source of serenity.[ Read More]
Written by admin at News
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One of the things we need to learn if we haven’t learned it by the time
we reach retirement and our ‘golden years’ is how to deal with loss.
Aside from the obvious loss of friends and family though death and
incapacitating illness, we have a host of other things we can ‘lose’,
such as systems of support, material possessions, our physical
abilities and perhaps most importantly—possibility. Not everyone
experiences loss and certainly not in the same way. But loss, whether
real or perceived, is one of the primary factors that can either keep
us trapped in the past and living into an ever narrower future or it
can be a source of great learning and freedom as we grow older. Buddha taught that suffering is due largely to our attachments.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Wisdom in Action
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By Kay Costley-White
The most joyful person I have ever met was a young man dying of AIDS. Chris’s path to serenity had been long and difficult. In the early 1990s, his family, afraid of their community's reaction to
his gay lifestyle, rejected him. He moved from central Canada to
Vancouver, developed a family of choice, and lived with a partner
committed to a life-long relationship. But his partner and many of his
friends died of AIDS. Then his place of employment found out the reason
for his many absences for sick leave, and he was fired on the spot.
Later, life-threatening infections kept him in hospital, too weak to
care for himself. When I knew him, he understood that there was no hope
for a cure or prolongation of his life. Medicine could do nothing
beyond keeping him comfortable, and he was facing his imminent death.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Learning
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 Think about the positive attributes of growing older, and ‘wisdom’
will always appear near the top of the list. Until recently, I had
assumed ‘wisdom’ was a kind of ‘right knowledge’. Every time someone
says the Serenity Prayer, I am reminded of this attribute again.[ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Wisdom in Action
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