The Gerontological Society of America will be holding its 61st annual scientific meeting in National Harbor, MD from November 21st to 25th. The theme this year is "Resilience in an Aging Society: Risks and Opportunities". Research presented at last year’s meeting led to articles published in the NY Times on Walking
Body Breakdowns
By Jim Selman | Bio
You hear about it and know it is true—the body breaks down as we grow older. Naturally there are lots of exceptions. If you take really good care of yourself, you might make it to the end of the game without any major physical impairment. However, for most of us we’re going to encounter some life-limiting change in our bodies. I encountered my first this week.I showed up for a meeting with an orthopedic surgeon to have what I expected to be routine work done on a torn tendon in my shoulder, only to learn that it was inoperable and that I would need to accept the fact that, for the rest of my life, I will have limited functionality. That means I’ll probably not play golf or anything else that requires mobility or power in the left arm. The good news is that my right arm can still be repaired.
What was interesting to me was to watch
Positive Aging Conference
The Second Annual Positive Aging Conference will be taking place November 12, 2008 in Minneapolis. The conference intends to promote a national conversation around positive aging, and will share important tools and resources for exploring purpose, vitality and meaning in the second half of life. This day-long event, featuring world-renowned experts and authors including Richard Bolles
Staying Engaged
By Jim Selman | Bio
I’ve been thinking about aging and
observing the human phenomenon for a long time and I know that most of
the chatter in my head isn’t ‘me’—it’s just the tapes of my past and my
ego playing the tune to which my culture expects me to dance. For
example, I believe and know from experience that the key to health and wellbeing is “participation”—staying
engaged in whatever games I choose to play. Yet, that little voice
Site Down
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Where are the Boomers in a Bust
By Jim Selman | Bio
It’s getting hard to stay ‘upbeat’ in the face of all the economic news. The line between a recession and depression is blurring more and more each day. It seems pretty obvious that we’re entering what will be a long road to some sort of prosperity. The old joke about a recession is when your neighbor loses his or her job and a depression is when you lose your job isn’t so funny anymore. I learned today that China is embarking on an official policy of selling directly
The Wisdom to Know the Difference
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.
On one level, I have learned a degree of serenity and think I am more or less accepting of most things in life. Yet I still fret about our political leadership, the drift toward corporate oligarchy, the environment, TV programming, traffic and a hundred other things that I think should be
Appreciation
We Are Hard-Wired to Care and Connect – Part IV
By David Korten | Website
Reprinted from "Purple America," the Fall 2008 YES! Magazine
284 Madrona Way NE Ste 116, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110. Subscriptions: 800/937-4451
Read the first part of the article here.
=&0=&Getting out of our current mess begins with a conversation to change the shared cultural story about our essential nature. The women’s movement offers an instructive lesson.In little more than a decade, a few
courageous women changed the cultural story that the key to a woman’s
happiness is to find the right man, marry him, and devote her life to
his service. As Cecile Andrews, author of Circles of Simplicity,
Political Leanings
By Shae Hadden | Bio
Today is the day after the Canadian federal elections. It’s also Blog Action Day on Poverty. Admittedly, poverty is an important issue, and so are politics. Since Canadian Falun Gong activist Caylan Ford was forced to resign after lamenting there was a double standard for white supremacist terrorists, some may say that the Canadian federal elections have now become more