Category Archives: Wisdom in Action

Wisdom in Action

Tradition & Ritual

The Christian celebration of Christmas Day, like other traditional “holy days” such as Eid al-Adha for Muslims, is not just a chance to share our abundance with our families and the poor and needy. Like New Year’s, it is an occasion to pause, to slow down the normally hectic pace of our lives, and to take time out to reflect on some perennial questions.

  • Who are we?
  • Why are we here?
  • What do we want out of life?
  • What do we want in our relationships with others?

The rituals and traditions associated with most special days, especially the ones that are handed down through the centuries, define us and

read more
Health, Wisdom in Action

6 Secrets to Help Seniors Enhance Their Health and Happiness by Jason Lewis

As we get older, we tend to feel a little less in control of our lives. It seems harder to stay healthy, but making an effort to control your physical and mental health is the best way to have an immense impact on the quality of your overall wellness. To bring balance and benefits to your life, work these healthy practices into your routine:

Stay on Top of Your Healthcare

It’s inevitable: the older we get, the more we’ll need to visit the doctor, both because our aging bodies

read more
Fearless Aging, Learning, Wisdom in Action

Reflection on Aging

Serene Ambition started out as a blog site for reflections on aging.  While I get distracted by a variety of other interests, I am still interested in how we experience the last portion of our lives.  Somewhere in our 50s I think, there is a shift in how most of us relate to the future and ourselves. There is a ‘fork in the road’ where our bodies and our minds begin to move in different directions and age at different speeds.  My thesis has always been that how we experience age (and

read more
Leadership, Learning, Personal Empowerment, Uncategorized, Wisdom in Action

2015 – Have We Hit Bottom Yet?

rock


It’s now the time of year when everyone seems to be doing recaps of what happened in 2015 and making resolutions or predictions for 2016. I usually like these efforts and look forward to being reminded of all that has occurred and the speculations of what lay ahead. This year, however, is different. Our challenge and my message is that if we’re going to have next year be better than this one, we need to get beyond thinking in terms of a ‘good year’ or a ‘bad year’ and

read more
Leadership, Learning, Wisdom in Action

Responsible Gun Ownership

1012

How we approach change and how we personally relate to issues can make all the difference between whether we get upset and fight to defend the status quo and our values or whether we listen and consider that maybe we can have our cake and eat it too! Like most progressives, when presented with hard-line conservative positions, I just shake my head and become resigned. Gun control is one of those issues. I simply cannot understand how unrestricted and laissez-faire attitudes toward guns make

read more
Leadership, Wisdom in Action

Who’s Leading? Who’s Responsible for Leadership in Government?

capitol_building_tulips

There is a lot of talk in the Public Service about leadership.
We say we need it. The question we don’t ask, however, is
“who is responsible for leadership?” Moreover, if we
stop and reflect, we recognize that leaders don’t lead without
the commitment of those who follow and that uncommitted followers
can destroy any leader no matter how talented or sincere. Leadership
can be a solution to many problems, but it is a solution ONLY IF
we are

read more
Learning, Wisdom in Action

Where is offense?

2 Comments
JimBioPic

Like most of us I have been following the tempest succeeding the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris, the wave of anti-terrorist rhetoric, the rendering of Mohammed as a kind of ‘we’ll-show-you’ counter-punch, the counter-counter punch of Muslims being offended by the rendering, and on it goes. Everyone seems offended by something.

I spend a lot of time thinking about and trying to observe the phenomena that are being referred to in ordinary conversation — when we are speaking and listening.

read more
Wisdom in Action

Between Trapezes

1119 Selman

By Jim Selman | Bio

I love the metaphor of being ‘between Trapezes’. In one image it connotes the comfort and familiar arc of my current life, the emerging possibility of moving from where I am onto an entirely new trajectory, and most compelling — the excitement and terror of letting go and confronting that existential moment where annihilation seems to be a genuine possibility.

Charles Dubois once said that the most important thing in life is the willingness to let go of

read more
Health, Learning, Wisdom in Action

Why do we procrastinate?

1026

It’s a bit more than a week into the new year and I am already behind on all the things I was going to get done during the post-holiday lull. I am procrastinating. As with many of my less agreeable habits, I decided to do a workshop on the subject for a European client late last year. The overarching question of why we procrastinate was framed a bit more specifically as “Why don’t we do the things we KNOW we need to do to accomplish what we SAY we want to accomplish?” The correlation

read more
Personal Empowerment, Uncategorized, Wisdom in Action

Compassion

1004

For some reason I have been feeling acutely connected to people I am encountering these days. In addition to my friends, family and others I know, I am observing all sorts of people – on the street, providing services, working in stores. It is as though I am more ‘present’ to them individually, and more conscious of who people are and the uniqueness of each one’s lives. We all are in pretty much the same soup — working, raising families, dealing with problems, dreaming, and dealing

read more