I am always a little disoriented between the seasons when I travel to Argentina or Brazil. When it is autumn in Canada, it is spring in Buenos Aires. It is a beautiful and refreshing time of year. I am thinking about the clichéd parallel between the seasons and the phases of our lives—this being the autumn of my life. Yet as I travel, I can see how fluid and changeable the seasons can be depending upon where you are standing. This is an apt metaphor for living every moment creatively—consciously
International Conflict Resolution Day
The third Thursday of October marks the second International Conflict Resolution Day. The World Mediation Forum and the Association for Conflict Resolution co-sponsored the first event. At the same time last year, the International Coalition of Concerned Mediators (ICCM) presented a Call to Action at their annual conference and began working to create a global community of like value-minded Alternative Dispute Resolution professionals and members
Long-Term Commitments
By Rick Fullerton | Bio
On Thanksgiving weekend (the Canadian version that happens in early October), my wife and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary with family and friends. Our children—now adults living on their own—arranged everything so all Phyllis and I had to do was arrive at the church hall at the appointed time. For those of you with younger families, there is hope!In anticipation of this event, we pulled out photographs and other
mementos of our married lives together and recalled our earlier 25-year
milestone celebration. We learned that some of our memorabilia, as well
as an oil painting by our daughter, would be displayed at the
reception. We looked forward to being involved, yet also felt somewhat
out of the loop since others were doing all the preparations.
Phyllis
and I decided we would make our entrance to the festivities
Balance: My Choose-o-Meter
By Shae Hadden
Bio
No matter what the extent of my commitments, I see ‘balance’ as my ability to be ‘grounded’ and ‘present’. In each moment, I’m doing what I’m doing…and just that. Nothing else. The whole idea of ‘balancing work and life’, as if they are polar opposites, makes no sense to me.
Life is everything I experience.
Work is what I choose to label as work. Pleasure is what I label as ‘play’. Both work and play are made up of the actions I take as I live.
Balancing
Take Action: Register Your Complaints Online
Are you fed up with pre-recorded telemarketing messages, spam messages on your cell phone or junk faxes? You can report unsolicited messages, ads and billing issues with your phone service provider to the Federal Complaints Commission with this online complaint Form 1088. Just fill out the section that pertains to your type of complaint. If you provide enough information, the FCC can go over the perpetrators under the Communications Act of 1934.
Has your phone service been changed to another telephone
Father and Son
I was speaking about the future with my son recently over an obscenely large steak at an Argentinian restaurant in Mexico City. We’d just seen a real ‘shoot ’em up’ film which just happened to be called Shoot ’em Up. The hero, a kind of homeless James Bond, lives on the street, reminiscent of Lee Child’s character Jack Reach. They are both tougher than tough guys, the kind of character who make the bad guys feel bad that they ever met. Last night’s film was about 500 guys
AARP Calls Congress to Act Responsibly
Congress is attempting to stop drastic cuts to payments to Medicare
physicians. If approved, the cuts could force more doctors to leave the
system, making it more difficult for older Americans to have access to
healthcare services. Instead of raising Medicare premiums, they are
looking at legislation passed by the House of Representatives that
would reduce excess payments to private insurance plans in Medicare. Full story
What if We Really Paid Attention?
By Don Arnoudse
Bio
Just me completely present, wide awake, and paying attention to you. Attention that is full of interest in you, infused with compassion, alive with good humor, energized by the mere fact of our being together and having this conversation. Attention that comes with no judgment about good or bad, right or wrong, do I agree or disagree. Just pure mindfulness of this precious moment together.
When was the last time you experienced this with someone? When was the last time that you
Time and Temporality
Lately I have been thinking about the future and the distinction between time and temporality. Our relationship to time can vary depending upon our culture and the era in which we are living. If I imagine living 300 or 400 years ago in what was primarily an agricultural ‘reality’, time was cyclical—we measured it in terms of seasons and lived in the certainty that life didn’t change much from one generation to the next. I can contrast that to today when time
Funk
I was having a cup of coffee with a very good friend of mine the other morning. He was feeling down—actually, he said he was feeling a little ‘crazy’. On one level, his life has never been better, his work is satisfying and, best of all, according to him, he has a new Porsche that is requiring he move to the next level of performance in driving. Life is good.
Yet, amidst all his success (which includes a loving, happy marriage and new grandkids), he was in a deep ‘funk’. I say funk because