Taken from papers written by a class of 8-year-olds:
I came home still a little teary and deeply moved after seeing Peter O’Toole’s new film Venus,
a tour de force about a love affair, albeit chaste, between Maurice, an
aging (80 something) lothario, and Jessie, an angry and unsophisticated
young woman (20 something). I was eager to read the reviews and shocked
to find that most viewers had put it down (6 on a scale of 10) largely
It’s Jim’s birthday today and everyone at Serene Ambition would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the difference he has made in our lives. Thank you, Jim!
"Happy birthday, dear Jim. As you have transformed so many things in your life and in the lives of others, I acknowledge you for now transforming our notion of what it means to be 65. For so many in our culture, it has defined the age of taking ourselves out of the action and retreating to the sidelines…from being an active contributor to being subsidized by those still working. Thank you for leading us…by your example, through the Serene Ambition community, and through so many other thoughtful and courageous actions to change our conversation of “aging” …and for opening up new options for vital living as elders. Many blessings on your birthday, Jim."~Don Arnoudse"Of
the many thousands of people we come across during our lifetime, there
are only relatively a few that make a deep, profound and lasting
impact. Jim Selman is one of those people for me. He is the dearest of
friends. He was born a teacher. He developed himself into a being an
inventor,
The word transformation came into vogue as a personal and social phenomenon in the 1970s principally through the success and notoriety of Werner Erhard, a friend I have admired and worked with for a decade. His est training touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and generated numerous books and a couple of films. The ‘training’ was a four-day intensive immersion into a smorgasbord of experiential exercises and intense lectures punctuated with engaging ‘coaching’ conversations
A middle-aged woman had a heart attack and was taken to the hospital. While on the operating table she had a near death experience. Seeing God she asked "Is my time up?"
God said, "No, you have another 43 years, 2 months and 8 days to live."
Upon recovery, the woman decided to stay in the hospital and have a facelift, liposuction, and a tummy tuck. She even had someone come in and change her hairstyle and color. Since she had so much more time to live, she figured she might
During the five months I’ve been blogging, I’ve spoken with more than a hundred people in their 50s and older about their experience and views on aging. The resounding consensus is that life is great and getting better all the time. It seems to me this is indicative of a real transformation underway: instead of growing older being a story of ‘decline’, a couple of generations are starting to declare that the 2nd half of life might be the best half.
Here are a few of the common themes from
By Marilyn Kentz
Bio
In
my case, the last to go was the vasectomy-reversal baby. That’s right.
I asked my husband to get a vasectomy, then I changed my mind. I was
38, and my first midlife crisis was beginning. At that same time, my
boys were just about to become nasty teenagers. So, when I was 38, I
successfully pushed my little daughter into this busy world and bought
myself 18 more years of motherhood.
We had an extra special
bond. I think it’s because I taught her to be just like me—shallow.
I recently saw a CBS 60 Minutes segment about aging. It
revealed, once again, how we view age as a physical state that we can
control with “anti-aging medicine”—as if various ‘fixes’ such as growth
hormones, plastic surgery, erection drugs and myriad vitamin therapies
will somehow put off the inevitable. I am not saying any of these
medical remedies are bad. In some cases, it is neat to be able to do
things at 80 that most 80-year-olds aren’t
Relationships will atrophy over time. Not because of intentional
neglect or lack of love, but because, like any ‘muscle’, relating takes
exercise. Use it or it will lose strength and functionality.
I see a lot people in various states of ‘midlife’ crisis confronting
their primary relationships from the perspective of ‘time left’. This
perspective is different for most of us than the one we had in the
early years of relating—even different from the perspective of
By Lilly Page
As I continue to follow my passion, helping people ‘feel’ beautiful, I’ve come to notice that beauty and self-image are one and the same. The journey to real beauty is an interesting path of self-appreciation.Many
women and men ask for my help to ‘look’ more beautiful. These
individuals have often felt a prompting to change their behavior, even
more so than their look. They are beginning to see the possibilities in
themselves and just need a little encouragement to ‘be’ themselves, to
fully express who they are. Whether they receive an image make-over as
a gift or whether they ‘gift’ themselves, the inspiration usually comes
from a