Monthly Archives: May 2008

Fearless Aging

Renewing Relationships

By Rick Fullerton | Bio

Earlier this month, I was away from home for over a week on business. In itself, this is not a big deal. Lots of people travel more frequently and farther than I do. Yet for me, this trip was filled with unexpected feelings of gratitude and wonder.

At the outset, it was to be a routine work trip to two cities to conduct seminars at the completion of the MBA course I teach. What set this apart was the opportunity to be in Calgary, the home of Canada’s energy sector and fastest-growing city in the country. But it wasn’t the booming economy or the shocking growth that impressed me. Rather, it was being able to connect and have time with friends and family members whom I haven’t seen in many years that touched me

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The Great Turning

Growth Too (Continued)

Here is what I call the ‘Eldering Consumer Checklist’ in this new marketplace. Actually it is a checklist for all consumers—it just comes more naturally as we get older and start living on a fixed (finite) income. We can take it with us and ask these questions before we spend a nickel on anything.

  1. Is this something I need? (As in, will I suffer without this?)
  2. Will I need this in the future? (Does this have continuing value?)
  3. Does the production of this item (or service) harm or potentially harm others?
  4. Does my consuming this contribute to our collective quality of life?
  5. In consuming this, who should I thank? Is there anyone I should apologize to?

“But wait a minute!” you say. “What about all the things I don’t really need but really do want”? My answer is that you still have a choice. But as long as our

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The Great Turning

Growth Too (Two)

I wrote a post on growth a while ago about how insane I think it is to believe we can grow forever—at least in terms of economic growth. I was also reading The World We Want posts by David Korten that echoed the same sentiments but that go further to point out that all the breakdowns that are appearing are perhaps the greatest creative opportunity in history. That got me thinking that while I

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The Great Turning

The World We Want: What If We All Wanted the Same Thing?

By David Korten | Great Turning website

Read more posts in The World We Want series.

Wouldn’t it be nice if it turned out the choices we must make together to survive together are the same choices we must make to create the very world most of all the world’s people want? If that were case, then we should be able to just get together and make it happen. Wouldn’t that be cool? Maybe we should start a conversation to find out what people truly want…

Actually, that conversation started quite

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Retirement

Memorial Day II

Today is Memorial Day in the USA. This is usually a long weekend filled with family and fun. I am at Lake Kiowa in Texas, a retirement community of about thousand homes. My Dad and sister live here. There is a lot of golf, fishing and endless clubs. This is a prototypical retirement community—most people are active. There are flags in front of most of the houses, there is apparently a cottage industry that will put up and take down your flag on special occasions like this weekend, election days

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News

Memorial Day

Long weekends are often an opportunity to catch up on chores, connect with family and friends, and sometimes find time for reflection. This Memorial Day, the reality of the war in Iraq is very present in our thoughts and conversations. This article, Thinking for Ourselves, by Shea Howell, from the Michigan Citizen, invites us to commit to ending the war and to "restore our people and our country to life."  

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Retirement

Working Longer

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

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Learning

Listening and Learning

Life happens while we are having conversations with ourselves and other people.

Not learning from others may have a lot to do with not truly ‘listening’ to what others say. Listening is the context that makes life intelligible, allows anything to have meaning, and forms the basis for all communication (both written and spoken). It is a whole lot more than just ‘hearing’ the words that are spoken. I’m always listening, always bringing a prior interpretation or understanding of my world

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Learning

The Lightness of Being

By Shae Hadden | Bio

The green-crested hummingbird is at my window again this morning, hovering in mid-air sunshine and snatching bits of food from the plants as they begin to bud. He appeared in my life a few weeks ago, and has been coming back every day without fail. Today his weightlessness seems like a metaphor for a new way of Being. I have a choice about who I am being in the world, and I choose to be as light and iridescent as this beautiful bird. This isn’t about reducing my body to its less than 115-pound weight or changing my hair color and wardrobe. Nor is it about casting myself differently in different situations or seeing myself from different angles or perspectives.  Lightness of Being is about letting go of all that weighs us down: negative thoughts, beliefs, actions, habitual patterns of pain or suffering…anything from our past that keep us chained to the earth and that limits us from becoming who we choose to be and living the life we want to live.  This is the only way for human beings to fly—by consciously setting themselves free. read more
The Great Turning

The World We Want: The Big Picture III

By David Korten | Great Turning website

Read more posts in The World We Want series.

This brings us to the third element of the big picture of the human confrontation with the limits of our Mother Earth: the governing institutions to which we give the power to set our priorities and our collective course. We might wonder how such injustice could happen in a world governed by democratically elected governments. The answer is simple and alarming.

Our world is not governed by democratically elected

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