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What Is Your Path?

Feb 6

Posted by Jacquie Harkema in Enjoying Life after 60, Sixty Something Now and Beyond, Thoughts and Musings | Add a Comment

What has your life’s path been?  This is not as rhetorical a question as it may seem.

By this time of your life, I’m sure that more than once you said to yourself, if not someone close to you… “Wow, where did all the time go?  How could so many years have gone by so quickly?”

Recently I attended a milestone event with my husband at his college.  It was to honor the 50th Anniversary of the Men’s Basketball championship team of 1962.  My husband was a sophomore that year and a member of the team.

This is a Division III school with a current enrollment of 1400 students; about 900 students 50 years ago.  There were four players and their spouses and two cheerleaders in attendance from that year.  This was Alumni weekend, so there were many other alumni attending the various events.

An interesting mix of people, these fellow teammates were.  Lots of memories shared.  Having gone to a similar type school, it so had a familiar, actually family feeling to it.

Personally I had an interesting conversation with one of the wives.  She is a few years older than I and a retired attorney.  I found it fascinating that she had been an attorney for many years.  When I was growing up and contemplating college, the messages I was getting, included, but not limited to:

Go to college to find an educated husband–get the B.S. then the Mrs.

Become a teacher, then you can have your summers off, and take time off to raise the kids and go back to teaching–and have the same hours as the kids.

This has prompted me to reflect on my life’s path and the concept in general.  We’ve all been influenced by those around us at a young age.  Good, bad or somewhere in between, while growing up, we are susceptible to what people tell us either by their actions or their words.

Think about your life’s path to date.  Where are you.  Where would you like to have been?  Better yet, where do you want to go now?

Personally, I have given much thought to these concepts.  I keep wanting to learn stuff.  New stuff. Maybe I’m looking to take my life’s path in new directions.  I believe this blog is one. Maybe there are some others out there as well.

What about you?  Let me hear from you.

 

 

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Imported From Detroit

Feb 5

Posted by Jacquie Harkema in Having Fun After 60 | Add a Comment

Imported from Detroit was the phrase/title of the Chrysler 200 commercial last year.  It was at Superbowl last year, 2011, that this vehicle was rolled out.

I personally loved this commercial because it was special.  It was different.  And it was longer than the norm, about two minutes in length.  And probably since I live in the southeast Michigan area, it just made us all feel good about Detroit.

Here is the commercial from last Superbowl..

Interesting to note a few things resulting from this out of the ordinary commercial.  First of all, last year 2011, Chrysler had record sales and growth.  Not only a record for the Chrysler Corporation, but also compared to the other two American manufacturers.  Secondly, many of this year’s commercials are longer.

Historically, I believe commercials have been between 30-60 seconds.  This year, since many of the commercials have been posted to Facebook early, it’s noticeable that many are longer.

What part of Superbowl is your favorite…  the Game or the time between segments of the Game?

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The Dog Strikes Back

Feb 4

Posted by Jacquie Harkema in Having Fun After 60 | Add a Comment

The Dog Strikes Back: 2012 Volkswagen Game Day Commercial is the official title of this video.  Of course this is one of the many pre-released Super Bowl commercials.

If you remember the Darth Vader Volkswagen commercial from last year, this one ends up kind of alluding to that one.  This video seems to start out about the dog and ends up a bit differently.  Enjoy viewing it.

Will you be watching the game?  Will you be paying a bit more attention to the commercials than to the game?  Let us know.

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Overcoming Adversity

Feb 3

Posted by Jacquie Harkema in Personal Development | Add a Comment

Recently I came across this YouTube video from Dustin Hughes, and felt it was worth posting here.  This is very well done and I hope you enjoy it.

From Dustin Hughes:  Live your passion.  Live your purpose.  Live your dreams.

We’re never to old to live with passion and purpose and always continue to dream.

Let me know if this resonates with you.

Emotions and Thoughts

Feb 2

Posted by Jacquie Harkema in Personal Development, Thoughts and Musings | Add a Comment

I’m intrigued whenever I hear about or read about the correlation between our feelings or emotions and our thoughts.  I had read about this many years ago and have had this awareness since that time.  What has really intrigued me is that knowing it and controlling feelings and emotions are not the same.  At times, I’ve actually been aware that I chose to feel bad or sorry for myself because of some incident until I was ready to move on.  Fortunately for me, this type of thing doesn’t last long.  I know that the ‘move on‘ part is important and I do.

The information in this post is from Henry Lodge, MD, one of the authors of Younger Next Year For Women.

There have been questions as to which is the lead, thoughts or emotions.  And the research has shown that most of the time our emotions take the lead.  Our thoughts follow.  Maybe it should be the other way around, but it is not.

Emotion literally precedes thought at the neural level.  So a positive emotion will tend to generate a positive thought in response.  And, like an ongoing circle, having a positive thought will generate a positive feeling.  Here’s the other side of the coin… The same loop works for negative thoughts and feelings.

Actually, according to Dr. Lodge, the research has shown that we have a remarkable ability to think and feel our way into happier or more depressed states, regardless of external reality.  And, you can train yourself to live in either an optimistic or a pessimistic frame of mind regardless of your external circumstances.

How you view your life has a surprisingly large role in determining how your life goes.  So there is a real premium on having positive emotions.  The good news is that you can create positive emotions by consciously creating positive environments.

The doctor’s advice:  Good stimuli like exercise, decent sleep, rational diet, love and play.  Happiness comes primarily from building connections, giving and getting love and friendship.  All of this takes work, but how satisfying it is when you have done it.  In other words, connect and commit to generate those positive emotions  that will give you great thoughts and a happy life.

What are your experiences with this?  How do you keep your emotions and thoughts in good shape?

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2012 Socialnomics

Feb 1

Posted by Jacquie Harkema in Learning and Using the Internet and Social Media; Technology | Add a Comment

I find it so fascinating what’s happening with technology all around us.  How about you?  Are you enjoying it or overwhelmed by it?

Either way, it would appear that it’s not going away any time soon!  So how are you handling it?  How are you dealing with it all?  Are you swimming upstream and pretending it doesn’t exist or will soon leave our everyday life?

Personally, I don’t think so!  Check out this video from Erik Qualman.

We’d really enjoy hearing from you about all of this.

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Great Role Model

Jan 31

Posted by Jacquie Harkema in Having Success After 60 | Add a Comment

Chris Crowley is a great role model…  I believe.  Perhaps you will find this true as well as you watch this video.  I have posted this previously, but felt it was worth re-posting.

Recently I have talked about Younger Next Year, by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, M.D.

This video of Chris Crowley, who is about 75 today, is perfect for us to view.  He speaks here of transitioning into retirement.  Talk about success after sixty!

Watch this and let me know if you resonate with it.  It’s a little longer than the 3 minute limit I normally like, but it’s worth your time.  He talks about stuff that may resonate with you.

So let us know how you feel about this stuff and if you are inclined to take his advice or perhaps if you already are doing these things.

Would love to hear from you.

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Care, Commit, Connect

Jan 30

Posted by Jacquie Harkema in Enjoying Life after 60, Thoughts and Musings | Add a Comment

Recently I wrote about two of Harry’s Rules, from Younger Next Year and Younger Next Year for Women, by Chris Crowley and Henry Lodge, MD.  Care and Commit & Connect.

This video captures the essence of these concepts.  This video is actually under three minutes and towards the end, it mentions the benefits to the individuals of volunteering, which is caring, committing and connecting wrapped into one neat package.

What do you think of this concept?  Is volunteering on your calendar on a regular basis?  We’d enjoy hearing about it and how it benefits you.

P.S.  Oops!!!  I’ve broken my own self-imposed rule here by showing a video with the ‘S_____’ word all through it.  However, I have not written it here.  I feel the benefits of posting this out-weigh the negatives of you seeing the ‘S’ word.

Perhaps you know someone you want to pass this along to.  Feel free to do so.

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SOPA/PIPA

Jan 29

Posted by Jacquie Harkema in Learning and Using the Internet and Social Media; Technology, Thoughts and Musings | Add a Comment

Have you heard of SOPE AND PIPA yet?  Do you know what these are?  Check out this video to get the real story about them.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

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Customers’ Choice Awards For 2011

Jan 28

Posted by Jacquie Harkema in Having Fun After 60 | Add a Comment

Are you aware of something called the Customers’ Choice Awards?  Until recently, I was not.  This is something I stumbled upon and thought it would be interesting, if even just a bit.  (NRF is the National Retail Federation and here is a link to the blog with this announcement.)

I found this list fascinating and some listed were kind of a surprise to me.  I’ve had excellent experiences with Nordstrom, L. L. Bean, Lands End and Amazon.  Quite frankly, I’m not sure which I would say was the very best.

What would be your first choice.  This survey was done with no prompting on the part of the survey.

 

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