Chip Conley

Dr. Laura Carstensen and the Stanford Center on Longevity are doing an in-depth, multi-disciplinary study on A New Map of Life. Here are their six principles to guide long lived societies:

Isn’t it odd how our truth might elude our primary language? Sometimes you have to go halfway across the world to find the perfect word. I loved the French expression “joie de vivre” so much that I named my boutique hotel company after that exquisite phrase.

As I outlined in this blog post entitled “What % of Your Adult Life is Still Ahead of You?” we vastly underestimate our future while occasionally dwelling on the past. Then, along comes this recent NY Times article, “If You Live To 100, You’ll Need More Than Money.”

When you hear the word “Ageism,” what does it conjure up? For me, I think of employment discrimination against people with a few more wrinkles. Or I think about women in Hollywood who aren’t cast as romantic leads after age forty (“Sexism” rears its ugly head there as well).

You were first introduced to Lisa Carmel a few weeks ago when she wrote a guest post called, “How Do You Use Your Voice?” She’s a very active member of the MEA alumni community having come to Baja for both a workshop and Sabbatical Sessions while also participating in MEA Online.

“A man ceases to be a beginner in any given science and becomes a master in that science when he has learned that...he is going to be a beginner all his life.” - Robin Collinwood

Today, we have six generations of adults inhabiting our planet. The original 20th-century premise of adulthood learning revolved around the simple idea that we would learn until early adulthood and then use that learning for the rest of our lives.

Some time ago, I wrote a post called “Mentoring Stones” in which I outlined why the fine art of rock balancing had a lot in common with mentoring (thanks to Christine for introducing me to this art!). It’s all about presence and knowing when to take a step away and allow your stone or your mentee to stand up on their own after you’ve heard the “click.”

In English, age is an identity as in “I am 60 years old,” just like “I am a man” or “I am Asian.” Unfortunately, age is an identity that often brings shame. A friend recently said she was “65 years young,” as if being “old” is a curse. I get it. It can be a curse, but it can also be a blessing.

Thank you to so many of you who send me gems like this one from Wisdom Well subscriber, Michael Louie, who found this lovely poem written by Mario de Andrade (San Paolo 1893-1945) who was a poet, novelist, essayist and musicologist. He was one of the founders of Brazilian modernism.