Written by Heather Erhard. Reprinted with Permission.
"The whole notion of retirement has been radically changed. Formerly we thought of retirement as the beginning of the end; today we simply think of retirement as a new beginning. The retirement transition is actually the beginning of a new career/life stage called RENEWAL." Richard P. Johnson, Ph.D., author of The New Retirement© and creator of the Retirement Success Profile™. I think it's the skill of living in the present that I have mastered in the last 25 years. It is the key to enjoying your life in full. Enjoying life doesn't mean being unreasonably excited all the time. On the contrary, as I became older I realized that the first step towards finding the joy of life was to accept reality openly and sincerely, accept everything as it is. Reality is not perfect. But it is important to face the truth. This attitude works wonders. By the way, speaking about joys, after sixty I fell in love with dancing."
We’re living in what’s been termed “the age of loneliness”: we’re more connected than ever before, and simultaneously, more isolated. We rely on social media in place of face-to-face contact. We bemoan the deterioration of conversation as we spend more time looking down at our screens than up at the people we’re talking to. But, really, the problem is that we do not give ourselves permission to talk about the things that truly matter.
One of our biggest sources of resilience in combating loneliness is what psychologists call “common humanity”: the degree to which you see your struggles as part of the human experience. “To feel less lonely in your stress, two things help,” writes Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal. “The first is to increase your awareness of other people’s suffering. The second is to be more open about yours.” -- Jennifer Bailey > > > Read more Let us be women to lay down our words,
our sharp looks, our ignorant silence and towering stance and fill the earth with extravagant Love. Let us be women who Love. Let us be women who make room. Let us be women who open our arms and invite others into an honest, spacious, glorious embrace. "Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the growth occurs while you're climbing it." Andy Rooney. So very true. The joy is in the journey. The finish line of course is sweet but it is what you have learned along the way that brings the most satisfaction. If you are working towards a goal savor every moment of the process because it's those moments when you feel truly alive! (An RN 'Tamara Gorey-Nelson')
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reflectionsThe Joy is in the Journey Archives
October 2018
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