Purpose Serves Us.
Chip’s Note: I asked Ray to recite his poem at the start of a MEA Midwest alum regional chapter Zoom a couple of months ago and people appreciated it. Hope you do as well.
ContinueChip Conley's daily blog: Thoughts on the art of living
Chip’s Note: I asked Ray to recite his poem at the start of a MEA Midwest alum regional chapter Zoom a couple of months ago and people appreciated it. Hope you do as well.
ContinueChip’s Note: What a joy it was to meet Cassius at our first Black Modern Elder workshop a year and a half ago. We’re honored that he’s become an MEA facilitator and I appreciated that he volunteered to write this blog post.
Chip’s Thought: MeiMei and I’ve been through the ups and downs of life. She’s like my kid sister so it’s hard to imagine she’s going through menopause.
“Authenticity is not something we have or don't have. It's a practice—a conscious choice of how we want to live. Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It's about the choice to show up and be real.” - Brené Brown
I’ve spent most of my career as a crossing guard at the congested, complicated intersection of psychology and business. My books and blog posts have profiled psychology wizards from Carl Jung to Viktor Frankl to Esther Perel.
I thought I graduated from Cancer School on January 12 when I rang the bell after 36 sessions of radiation. Three days later, I was on Good Morning, America. A day after that my book came out. And, the day after that, I was blowing air kisses to Hoda on The Today Show set. I felt surprisingly remarkable as ending the radiation and being off my hormone depletion pills gave me such a spurt of energy.
“A Yes is nothing without the No that gives it boundaries and form.” - Michael Bungay Stanier, “The Coaching Habit”
Really enjoyed this recent UK Guardian article (https://bit.ly/3vMIYyh) about older people making significant changes in their 90s. There’s the story of Maybelle Blair, who proclaimed, “I was in the closet for 95 years. Then that door blew open!” Imagine coming out as a lesbian at 95. Wow!
Chip’s Thought: When I read Chuck’s guest post, my mind went very visual which is a sign of good writing. Hope you enjoy this one.
Chip’s Note: I love my dear friend Wanda who was in our first MEA beta group more than six years ago. We’ve created reggae music festivals, ventured to Burning Man, and will soon be living near each other part-time in Baja as she’ll be a resident in my co-founder Jeff Hamaoui’s Baja Sage community.
“Wholly unprepared, they embark upon the second half of life. Or are there perhaps colleges for forty-year-olds which prepare them for their coming life and its demands as the ordinary colleges introduce our young generations to a knowledge of a world and of life? No, there are none. [...] that is not quite true. Our religions were always such schools in the past, but how many people regard them as such today? How many of us older persons have really been brought up in such a school and prepared for the second half of life, for old age, death, and eternity?”
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