Tag Archives: choice

Wisdom in Action

The Future Habit

By Jim Selman | Bio

It is almost impossible to turn on the television or read a newspaper or a magazine without encountering one pundit, expert or “man on the street” either talking about the future or trying to blame someone for something. Our media commentary is rarely about what is happening now: mostly it’s about what happened in the past or what someone thinks is going to happen in the future. Combine the establishment media with all of the blogging and chatting going on, and it is incredible

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Fearless Aging

Giving Up ‘Giving Up’

By Jim Selman | Bio

My partner and I were recently enjoying one of those lazy weekend mornings just chatting about life in general when we got onto the subject of getting older and how we feel about it all. I made the point that my passion and The Eldering Institute® is about transforming our culture’s view of aging and teaching people that we can change how we relate to the future—and, as a consequence, we can have more choices, more possibility and more ‘aliveness’

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Wisdom in Action

Global Warming & Our Commitment to the Future

By Rick Fullerton | Bio

Recently, I have been focusing more and more of my attention on
global warming and, in turn, on understanding my own reactions and responses to
what’s happening. The results so far have been both fascinating and
challenging.

One aspect of the global warming conversation involves the role
of the media in reporting scientific evidence and projections regarding the
effects of carbon dioxide in heating the planet. In particular, I have learned
about the disproportionate

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Fearless Aging

Mastery

By Jim Selman | Bio

Over the course of my lifetime, I have heard many  ‘bottom-line’ bits of wisdom. For example, “the key to happiness is loving what you do”.  Or, “at the end of the day, you can either resist life or surrender and live life on life’s terms”.  These kinds of nuggets are usually true and are certainly valid in a list of maxims and aphorisms for living. “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum is a great example of

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Fearless Aging

Choosing Your Future Every Day

By Kevin Brown | Bio

This week I have been having discussions with several of my friends and business associates concerning the apparent absence of choice as we are nearing retirement. It seems that for some people, there appears to be no choice but to remain with their current employer in a job they no longer find satisfaction in due to an anticipated financial loss associated with pension and health benefits. For many, this realization has them feeling like they have no choice in the matter.  I have also noticed a similar view held by folks in the second half of their career, who are in their mid to late forties. They already have a sense of this apparent lack of choice, working in jobs they do not find satisfying and holding the view that they have few, if any, real options. They have mortgages to pay, a family to provide for, and the risk of changing jobs in this economic downturn just reinforces their apparent absence of choice.  Do our actions, as a result of this deeply held belief, impact how we will experience aging as we enter our fifties, sixties, and beyond? Might this perceived absence of choice, if not confronted, place limits on our experience of aging? What can we do now, regardless of our age, to lay the groundwork for a future full of choice? Could we create for ourselves an experience of aging in which there are endless possibilities, with freedom and fulfillment a natural by-product? At the Eldering Institute, we hold the vision of living life as a possibility. Choice and possibility appear to me to go hand in hand. When we consciously choose how we relate to our circumstances, we allow for what is possible to come into our view. Even when life throws us a curve ball, we can choose to play the game and hit the ball as pitched or wait until the game of life occurs the way we would like it to occur. One response places us actively in the game of life: the other has us on the sidelines waiting for just the right conditions to arrive. We cannot change the circumstances of our lives. But could it be that we have choice about how we relate to everything in our lives? Take the employee who believes he cannot change jobs so late in his or her career and is experiencing a loss of power, freedom and possibility. They may feel trapped if the financial loss of leaving without another job to go to is a compelling reason to remain with the current employer. What if they simply accepted that they need an income and are, at the moment, choosing to remain with their current employer. Choosing gives them space to create a new possibility for themselves—perhaps a new game for themselves at work in which power, freedom, and fulfillment are present or perhaps new relationships to their career and money. What might be possible in your future if you were to play with the idea that you are always at choice in all areas of your life each and every day?  © 2009 Kevin Brown. All rights reserved. read more
Fearless Aging

Between Trapezes

By Jim Selman | Bio

I think there is a time when we realize that ‘what got us here’ isn’t sufficient to get us ‘where we want to go’. These times are the transition points in life, the points where we have an opportunity to make major choices and embark on a new phase of our lives—to experience a transformation in how we observe and relate to ourselves, other people and the world in general. I can recall having this feeling when I left home for college, again when I got married, when my children were born and at various times when I changed the direction of my career.

I think most of us face the hard questions about who we are and what our life is about when we retire. I don’t think you need a special occasion, however, to experience a transformation. A transformational moment can happen anytime we realize that we have a choice we didn’t know we had. These moments often come as a surprise, and are often accompanied with a rush of excitement combined with a touch of terror.

Transformational moments are like swinging between two trapezes:

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Retirement

Retirement and Choice

By Kevin Brown | Bio

In my previous post, I mentioned two books that I was in the process of reading, Ken Dychtwald’s "With Purpose" and Don Tapscott’s "Grown Up Digital".  Ken’s book calls us to consider how we will spend our time and apply our life experience in the later stages of our life. Don’s book has us consider the impact the ‘Net Generation’ is having on the world at large. I have only begun to read "Grown up Digital" and already I am reading it from the perspective of aging. While considering the impact of the ‘Net Generation’, I am really listening for "What does this mean to the generation of baby boomers (my generation) that is about to retire and how will it directly or indirectly influence our generation’s impact on society going forward?" Traveling regularly back and forth between Calgary and Edmonton (the two largest cities in Alberta, Canada) allows me to interact with the many friends I have made in both of the cities in which I have grown up, gone to school, worked, and contributed socially.  For many of my friends and I, our conversations are increasingly turning to the subject of retirement. For some, retirement is eagerly anticipated and just a few short years away. For others, it is on the mind, but seen as something that will occur five to ten years in the future. The question that I have been asking my friends when the discussion turns to retirement is, "Could we have a more powerful discussion about our future by focusing on possibility?" One doesn’t have to spend much time researching aging to conclude that life expectancy continues to increase (in Canada 83 for women and 78 for men and in the United States 81 for women and 73 for men). There is every likelihood that, with the constant improvements in medicine and in health and wellness research and practices, we will continue to live longer lives with greater levels of health.  If, therefore, we can reasonably expect to live into our mid to late 80s with healthy bodies and minds, then how will we spend our time and contribute the best of ourselves back into society?  What if our focus were to shift from one of "Retirement" to one of "Choice"? Each calls us to consider very different possibilities for aging. Webster defines retirement as "withdrawal, as in withdrawal from one’s occupation or profession". Choice is defined as "the opportunity and power to choose or reject a possibility". Shifting our focus from one of "withdrawal" (in which the future is defined by our past and we see only diminishing opportunities) to one of "choosing” (in which the future offers endless possibilities for us to choose) creates an opening for action and contribution and engagement.

At the Eldering Institute, we speak of "Eldering" as a way of being in which we are creating purpose and mastery in later life. One of our program offerings is "Eldering: The alternative to retirement". This interactive one-day workshop is intended for individuals who are focused on choosing how they relate to their future. Eldering is a masterful way of relating to the rest of our lives—one

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Wisdom in Action

Moods

By Jim Selman | Bio

Perhaps the most pervasive and omnipresent aspect of being alive is our moods. We are always in one mood or another. Moods are either positive or negative and they ‘color’ our experience of living, affect how we relate to others and our circumstances, and have extraordinary power to open or close possibilities. If we examine this phenomenon, we can see that our moods are portable—we take them with us wherever we go. I can be angry at home and find that mood affecting me at work or even on the golf course.

Moods are also contagious. Have you ever been in a meeting where everyone is in a good mood and then the boss or someone enters the room in a different, perhaps negative, mood and it isn’t long before everyone has ‘caught’ the new mood?

Moods constitute the contexts in which we normally live and experience our lives. But most importantly, they are almost always involuntary—they happen to us. We rarely choose what mood we will be in, especially when we get our ‘buttons

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Fearless Aging

Pessimist or Optimist: Who Has the Edge?

By Jim Selman | Bio

I was reading an interesting article by a prestigious think tank this morning that was saying perhaps the ‘recession’ isn’t as black or white as most of us make it out to be and that it most certainly isn’t as bad as conventional wisdom and media hype would have us believe. I noticed I felt a little better after reading it, but then I wondered why my mood shifted so easily based on only one article. Tomorrow I could read a darker scenario by another equally reputable

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Fearless Aging

An Abundance of Choices

By Jim Selman | Bio

There are increasing numbers of theories and formulas for aging well. As far as I can tell, these fall into a number of categories that pretty much all revolve around the central question of “What do you want to do?”  This is not a question that my grandparents spent much time thinking about. Even my father’s generation is more focused on the question of what needs to be done.  The question of  “What do you want to do?” is a modern question that comes with the fact that we have so many choices coupled with a somewhat self-centered fixation on ourselves as individuals—the ‘me’ generation. I know very few people who aren’t working on this question.

For example, consider that in the area of health and fitness alone there are hundreds of diets, exercise regimens, spas, and new age therapies (not to mention the entire medical establishment). How do we know what will be best for us? When you don’t know what to do, you can always hire a coach. The same abundance of options appear in the areas of where we live and our lifestyle. Do you want mountains, seashore, urban landscape? Even on a daily basis, we are confronted with

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