Tag Archives: ego

Wisdom in Action

Showing Up for Those We Care For

By Kevin Brown | Bio

There was a time when ‘showing up’ for a meeting, an appointment, or a family event left me thinking about being on time, what I must remember to bring, or what I should wear. Increasingly though, I have been thinking about how I ‘show up’ in conversation with the people I interact with. I am talking about conversations with my work colleagues, fellow churchgoers, friends, extended family members, my son, my wife, and even with my God. When I began to consider how I show up for others in conversation, I realized just how little attention I was giving to being responsible in my conversations.

I have come to realize that much of the way in which I show up in conversation has more to do with my very active ego than with intentional thought on my part. I do not consider myself an authority on the subject of Ego, but it seems to be a tireless worker. My ego is quick to form a conclusion about the other persons’ character, their mannerisms, attire, language and intellect (and pretty much anything) for my ready access. With little or no effort on my part, a conclusion

read more
Fearless Aging

Loneliness

By Jim Selman | Bio

Nathan Oates, a Christian minister who writes a very thoughtful blog called “Theologically Speaking”, did a nice piece on loneliness. His point: how we seem to fragment our society into all kinds of niches and end up not relating to or connecting with most of the people around us. Even in the churches that one would imagine to be the most community-oriented institutions, the norm

read more
Learning

Listening and Learning

Life happens while we are having conversations with ourselves and other people.

Not learning from others may have a lot to do with not truly ‘listening’ to what others say. Listening is the context that makes life intelligible, allows anything to have meaning, and forms the basis for all communication (both written and spoken). It is a whole lot more than just ‘hearing’ the words that are spoken. I’m always listening, always bringing a prior interpretation or understanding of my world

read more
Personal Empowerment

Guilt

I was speaking with a friend recently about age in general, how we ‘remember’ our lives and the power of memories to affect our day-to-day experience. From one perspective, I think that living in the present is the point of living—experientially at least. When we are present, our memories are just memories and don’t affect us either positively or negatively. Our memories are our ‘story’, and we can relate to our past as just that—a story. On the other hand, our moods and our memories

read more
Wisdom in Action

Legacy

I was having a conversation recently with an old friend who is deeply committed to a spiritual practice intended to release us from the vicious cycle of ego and our addiction to the material world. I was sharing about Serene Ambition and my commitment to do what I can to encourage our generation to ‘make a difference’ and leave the world in better shape than we found it—to leave a legacy of possibility to those who come behind us.

My friend pointed out that this is a terrific focus for service

read more
Wisdom in Action

Listening & Learning

Life happens while we are having conversations with ourselves and other people.

Not learning from others may have a lot to do with not truly ‘listening’ to what others say. Listening is the context that makes life intelligible, allows anything to have meaning, and forms the basis for all communication (both written and spoken). It is a whole lot more than just ‘hearing’ the words that are spoken. I’m always listening, always bringing a prior interpretation or understanding of my world

read more
Health

My Body

I have been thinking a lot about my body. In my work, the body is a key to learning anything. Unless we ‘embody’ new distinctions, we continue to operate inside our habitual worldview and way of being—‘inside the box’. What I can see is that my conversation about my body, like all my conversations needs to change as I grow older. If I attempt to apply the same concepts and tools I learned and used as a young man to deal with who I am today, including my body, then I am going to be trapped

read more
Personal Empowerment

Participation

One of the concerns ‘older’ people share with us is how important it is to keep our health. Hypochondriacs aside, the majority of us still hear and believe that the older we get, the more difficult maintaining good health will be. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that if we lose our health, we lose most—or all—of our other options. I confess I am not a health expert: the latest developments in nutrition, dieting and exercise are not my key concerns. Yet I am healthy and, while I could

read more
Personal Empowerment

Wasting Time

I am not sure it’s possible to waste time. It is possible to spend time, and waste is always a judgement relative to some standard or expectation of what we should be doing with our time.

We can use time to do things that we judge as having maximum or high value. When we are really up against a deadline and there is more to do than we think can be done in the time allotted, we can even somehow create time.

Yet, there are many times when I just don’t feel like doing whatever it is I think I

read more