By Jim Selman | Bio
Stephanie Chen, a writer for CNN, recently published “No Retirement for These Older Folks, Just Work” about older workers and the fact that more and more people have to keep working well beyond their ‘retirement age’. For some, this is purely a function of economic necessity. For others, it
By Jim Selman | Bio
Of
all the complaints and fears we hear that are associated with aging,
the number one is boredom. After a lifetime of activity and
accomplishment, it is incredible how many of us move into “elderland”
only to discover that we’re unsatisfied and bored. How can this be?
Granted that we might not be as spry as we once were and some of our
libidos are lackluster, but goodness gracious, do we really expect our
circumstances to make
By Shae Hadden | Bio
This New Year’s Eve was a refreshing break from the past for me: a friend and I went to a local hall to listen to a concert of Buddhist chants and instrumental music while we walked the indoor labyrinth. The hall was crowded, filled with adults seriously intent on purposeful walking. Two little girls were dancing and skipping the labyrinth together—one following the other. Whenever they encountered an obstacle (that is, an adult moving slowly), they would weave around whoever was in their path. While all the adults were focused on meditating or intensely concentrating on their ‘experience’, these two girls were laughing and smiling, joyously taking whatever life placed in front of them at their pace, slip-sliding in their socks all the way to the centre and back out again.What struck me was not only that all the adults looked as if they carried the weight of the world on their shoulders, but that they took three times as long to do one circuit. And not one of them was smiling. It made me wonder whether we assume martyrdom is part of ‘being an adult’ in our society. Do we really need to lose our sense of joy in living, our sense of play, by carrying our work, our relationships, and the circumstances we find ourselves in as obligations or
By Shae Hadden
Bio
I was surprised to sit down to dinner at a restaurant last night and
look up to see a table full of women boldly wearing red hats sitting
across from me. Few people wear hats these days, fewer still with any
sense of style. Yet these ladies, members of the Red Hat Society, were obviously comfortable with themselves and sassy enough to carry it off.
Curious
to know more about them than just their trademark red hats and purple
outfits, I went over and chatted with them