Tag Archives: uncertainty

Simplifying Uncertainty

By Shae Hadden | Bio

Spring flowers bloom passionately on this sunny West Coast day, birds are preparing nests for their young and people run madly by me as I sit by the ocean and ponder what it takes to survive in these times. My search for a place to live has not yet been entirely successful, and the conversations I’ve had reveal both desperation and gnawing hesitation in myself and others to actually put a stake in the ground—metaphorically speaking—and declare that this is the future we are committing to. It’s almost as if, with so much uncertainty about so many things in our lives, we are afraid to take a chance—whether on an investment, a potential tenant, a business expense or a relationship.

What do we lose when we put aside possibility and focus on surviving?

I think that we lose touch with our courage and creativity. When things look difficult, change is tumultuous and our internal sense of balance is thrown off kilter, we often forget there is a silver lining to the economic doom and gloom. We now have an opportunity to return to the heart of things, to simplify our lives, to free ourselves from practices that might have had us living beyond our means.

There

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Vanishing Pensions

By Jim Selman | Bio

I have had several conversations with friends in Buenos Aires about how people deal with their financial security in their older years. To my surprise, the uniform answer is that they mostly don’t. Then I hear a story which, by my naïve North American standards is shocking, but whhich reveals something important for all of us as we contemplate our own future and worry about the uncertainties in the financial markets.

The story goes like this. Prior to 1994, all pensions in

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Christmas 2008

By Jim Selman | Bio

Well, here we are, another Christmas Day, almost another year gone by and people everywhere are at home or, if not, are hopefully getting ‘something special’. I am saying a special ‘thanks’ to all those people who are working today so the rest of us can relax and do whatever it is we’re doing on Christmas day—the soldiers, the firemen, the police, the health care workers and even lots of people in the hospitality and transportation industries.

I woke up today thinking about other Christmas mornings when I was a child or when my own children were young. There is nothing quite like the squeal of anxious toddlers peering with wonder at gifts left by the magical Santa. I remember one Christmas when we left chocolate kisses on the stairs for the children to follow while “Jingle Bells” played on the stereo. The memory fills me with joy and happiness and just a touch of nostalgia for those times when we were young.

There

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The Beauty of Uncertainty

By Don Arnoudse
Bio

My 20 year-old daughter, Sara, was in full voice, speaking rapidly with both tension and inspiration. “Dad, there are so many things I want to do. I’m going to Spain in the fall, but I wish I were staying on campus [at the University of New Hampshire] so I can meet the presidential candidates before the primary. I don’t know at all where I’m going to live next spring. This summer, I’m interested in an internship in Washington, DC, but people tell me it’s a great time to be on campus. There’s another overnight leadership workshop next weekend, but I’m just not sure if I want to go again. I might want to take an extra semester before I graduate because there are so many courses I want to take and I’m running out of time. I feel like I should get a job and make some money, but I’m not sure how I would fit it all in. Everything is just so up in the air!”

After our discussion was over, I
found myself thinking about the energy of the conversation. Sara was
bemoaning her uncertainty in the face of so many choices. She was
feeling the fear of, perhaps, making some wrong ones. She was hungry
for life, with an appetite for tasting many things, but knew that not
all of them were possible. She was exhilarated at the prospect of
working in Washington, DC with a non-governmental agency that’s focused

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