That explains it

Something to think about on a lazy Sunday in July:

Possessing the audacity to do the mundane while expecting miracles to come from it, explains every heroic and supernatural feat known to humankind. 

Don't Quit

--Author unknown 

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,

And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;

Don't give up though the pace seems slow--
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,

Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor's cup,

And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out--
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,

And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,

So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit--
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

Biggest regrets?

We are always getting ready to live but never living.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Australian palliative care nurse, Bronnie Ware, put together a list of the most common regrets people approaching death expressed, it went viral. But surprisingly, not because her article was so incredibly profound.

Quite the opposite really, as it was the simplicity that struck a chord with most people. What the article stated was that it’s the small things in life that matter; but often the things our pride, ego or desire to please others gets in the way of.

So after reading it and being reminded of what really counts, I wanted to share her findings with you too…

1. “I wished I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
Sometimes the easier path to take is to breeze through life, as it takes serious soul searching to work out what’s going to make you happy. Not to mention the courage to pursue it – especially if it means disappointing your family, partner or society’s expectation of you.

But it’s your life. Only you confront the reflection in the mirror each morning – so it’s worth making sure you’re happy with what you see.

(And just a reminder, if you’re not, it’s never too late to make a positive change.)

2. “I wish I did not work so hard.”
Life regrets by those approaching death

This one is especially true if you have a family.

Being a provider for someone else is a big responsibility. Wanting to have a nice house, a car, medical insurance and the option to send your kids to a good school are perfectly understandable goals.

But there needs to be a balance in this equation.

If you need to work 80 hours a week only to slump in a heap on the couch on your only day off – the fancy new car isn’t going to mean anything to your attention-starved kids.

Or if you don’t have a family, continuously working to the grind and never making time to pursue some of your other dreams – such as travel, adventure sports or falling in love – is going to leave you with a heavy heart at the end of it all.

Work isn't everything. So don’t let it be the only thing that defines who you are.

3. “I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.”
Why would you deny yourself of such a powerful expression?

As Buddha said:

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of harming another; you end up getting burned.”

So by holding onto anger and resentment, or not letting more heartfelt statements such as “I forgive you” leave your lips – you’re only harming yourself. Not to mention messing up your inner peace… as it’s hard to be happy when you’re enshrouded by negativity!

Don’t miss a chance to let those you care about know how you feel – as you never know when that chance may be taken away from you.

4. “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”
For most of us, over a lifetime, the number of sincere friendships that have had a significant impact on our lives probably won’t equate to double digits.

You know the kind I mean. The type who become like family. The ones who are always a steady rock during life’s ups and downs  – and who aren’t afraid to confront you when you’re acting out of line!

Make an effort to stay in touch with these friends.

Don’t let petty differences or life get in the way of the people who have valued you the most.

Life regrets by those approaching death

5) “I wish I had let myself be happier.”
I think on a whole, society gets happiness wrong.

It’s not the result of having waited for the right job, partner or a fat bank account to materialize.

It’s a choice. And it’s a conscious one you have to make every day. Are you going to choose to be happy, or are you going to let your happiness be washed away by the events of the day?

There are always going to be reasons to be annoyed, disappointed or angry about something.

But that’s life.

Once you realize this, and decide to choose happiness, you’ll notice it improves tenfold.

Pretty powerful!

Friends can help

Have you noticed that you can often learn surprising things from just watching your friends? Because chances are extreme some of what they chose this lifetime for - facing certain fears, mastering certain challenges, and raising certain bars - you chose for yourself as well, which was part of the attraction that brought you together and made you friends.  

So if you can see how your friends handle a situation, you will get a sense of how you might handle the same situation.

Way back when

When you look at old photos, it's obvious isn't it? You were good-looking back then. Really good-looking. Yet somehow, at the time,you didn't quite believe it.

Try to learn from yesterday, because today you're even better looking than you were then. Way better. You're smarter, too. Funnier. Wiser. More compassionate. Less serious. Life is strange that way. We get older and we get better, believe it!

What does love mean

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, "What does love mean?"
Source What does love mean?

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."

Rebecca - age 8

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.  You just know that your name is safe in their mouth."  Billy - age 4

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."

Tommy - age 6

Last year we spent Xmas with my daughter, and my grandson, what I remember is spending a lot of time getting the right present. Time, care and love went into buying the gifts. On Xmas morning we watched as Ryder opened the present, watched the looks of adoration on the faces of the parents, then noted the surprise that moves across their faces that changes in the next moment to disappointment, finally, as the light dawns, to delight.

What did we see? We saw Ryder open the present, look at it briefly, discard it, and, then happily play with the box and wrappings for hours.

I love this story as do so many other parents and grandparents, because what we are seeing is the childs love of the ordinary everday life and small miracles and how that can steal your heart. 

Now, what ordinary miracles do I see at home?  Home too is paradise if I would but look.  This trip I was bowled overby how beautiful Vancouver is.  Everywhere I look, I see the Divine.

What is sacred and magic about the ordinary in your life? Find it.  I promise you its there.

Exercise:  Go outside for 10 minutes, look with your artist's eye, and find three things that knock your socks off.  That make you say, "Oh, wow!"  Get back into the dreams and the wonder you had for life when you were a child and carry that into your retirement goals, dreams and actions.

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the best of us walk about well wadded with stupidity. - George Eliot 

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. - Our old friend, Henry David Thoreau

Fall is the Best time of the year

Beause of:

• Cooler temperatures!
• Getting to wear sweatshirts, and sweaters,.
• The clouds return to the mountains and every day the view is new
• Hot chocolate
• Hot apple cider
•  Hot spiced wine
•  The anticipation of upcoming holidays, gathering with friends and family
•  The gradual winding down of yardwork
•  Stormy colours in the sky
• Halloween…decorations, kids on the street, spookiness
• Thanksgiving. Perfect holiday. Family, friends, food, gratitude.
• Giving in to the seasonal desire for new notebooks and pens!
• Fall fruits – apples, pears, etc.
• Fall veggies – acorn squash, yams, etc.
• The smell of apple crisp or gingerbread bakingBrightly colored leaves on the trees
• Getting the fireplace going
• Pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks
• The debut of new shows on TV (yeah, I admit it)
• People complaining about the (relative) cold
• People saying, “I wouldn't mind if it never got any colder than this.” 
• Comparing our weather in BC with the weather in Ontario.
• Feeding and watering the house plants less oftenStarting to think about Christmas gifts for people
• Good hiking weather
• Orion dancing through the morning sky
• The Leonids meteor showersHot tea on a cool morning patio
•  Fat pine cones on our pine tree
• Christmas decorations starting to show up in the stores…I really don’t mind. I like the colours and the anticipation.
• Lighting candles in the evening
• You know that scent, right? It is earthy and rich and moist. It comes later in the fall when the leaves have been falling for a while and have probably been rained on and maybe there have been a couple of slightly warmer days so the decomposition has started. You must know that scent. It is autumn
• Pumpkins everywhere. They’re so common, they’re like a piece of furniture this time of year and they’re good until Thanksgiving!
• Witches and black cats. I love the history and origins of Halloween and all the symbols, too.
• Haunted houses. We didn't get to go to any “haunted” houses this year but I love being scared. Halloween and costumes. I loved seeing the kids from babies to near-adults (and some adults, too) dressed up from cute to freaky. 
• Trick-or-treat. I love this culmination of the scary-season: the costumes, 
• Daylight savings. Yes, it’s controversial but I become more productive in the morning because of it
• New autumn smells permeate the air. The first time you catch a whiff of smoke coming from a neighbour's chimney, you know fall as officially arrived. That smell mingles in with the dry leaves cluttering the ground and your olfactory senses can't deny that the smell of fall is in the air. 

Bright Ideas Come To Us At Night, Not In Office Hours

By: Colin Fernandez / Source: Couriermail.com.au

EARLY to bed, early to rise, makes you healthy, wealthy and wise, so goes the old proverb. But it seems the advice holds little truth.

Research now suggests that if you want to be the wisest, you really need to stay up – well, until 10.04 pm at least.

This is supposedly the best time for a eureka moment, according to research.

And around a quarter of us feel we formulate our most cunning plans when we are burning the midnight oil, a survey of 1,426 adults found.

By contrast, despite what many managers may believe, daytime in the office is not conducive to blue-sky thinking.

The afternoon, when most people are at work, is when an overwhelming 98 per cent of those polled say they feel most “uninspired”.

The creativity drought just gets worse over the nine-to-five working day, hitting rock bottom at 4.33pm.

When asked about methods they use to get their creative juices flowing, 44 per cent said they took a shower.

Unfortunately for mankind, even when we do get a stroke of genius, more than half of our ideas are lost for ever.

When inspiration strikes, 58 per cent of us fail to write the idea down immediately and forget it, according to the poll conducted by hotel chain Crowne Plaza. Women were better than men at jotting down their best ideas for posterity.

A third of over-35s chose to scribble the thought on the back of their hand, perhaps having learnt from experience how forgetful they are.

The findings echo an Italian study in 2006 that found those who stay up late have the most original ideas.

Night owls came up with the most creative thoughts – perhaps because they are more likely to be unconventional and bohemian than early birds – according to the research by the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan.

Perhaps creative types have a good reason to stay up.

Research in February 2006 showed creative types such as artists and poets hook up with two or three times as many sex partners as other people throughout their life.

A UK study by Newcastle University of 425 men and women found the creative types averaged between four and 10 partners, while the less creative folks had typically had three.

Fire plans and being in the lake in a heat wave

One of the interesting things about living in the rolling grasslands of Australia is that you have to have fire plans in place in the summer. The heat can get extreme and one careless act or a lightning strike can cause great damage. When we were there this year, the extreme heat had not yet hit the area we were staying, but my daughter and her partner had set up their fire plans for and had everything packed for a quick getaway if needed (it was not).

So we do made sure that our valuables were ready to go. It is interesting trying to decide what valuables you want to take if you only have a short time to leave. It was important to plan because what you leave behind may be destroyed forever. What are important, items which bring back memories like,  pictures, souvenirs,important papers (passport, birth certificates, wills, mortgage documents, etc) or material things like clothes, TV’s etc. 

After we had taken the time to set up everything by the door, we were able to relax and went off to the lake. Lake Eldon is a beautiful and big lake and we did not have far to go to set up on the beach

It was interesting to me that when we set up we were the only ones at our location. We were close to the road and within about two hours, other people from my daughters’ area came and settled in with us.  

We enjoyed a wonderful afternoon swimming, and enjoying the heat of the day while meeting a number of my daughter’s friends and their children. The next day the fire warning had dropped and the extreme heat had move on, so d we could relax and enjoy the summer sun without the extreme heat.

Women over 60!

In case you  missed it on 60 Minutes, this is what Andy Rooney  thinks about women over 60.       60 Minutes  Correspondent Andy Rooney (CBS)       A woman over 60  will never wake you in the middle of the night &  ask, 'What are you  thinking?' She doesn't care what you  think. If a woman over  60 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit  around whining about it. She goes and does  something, she wants to  do, & it's usually more interesting.      Women over 60  are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match  with you at the opera or in the middle of an  expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it,  they won't hesitate to shoot you, if they think they  can get away with it.   Older women are  generous with praise, often undeserved. They know  what it's like to be  unappreciated.   Women get  psychic as they age. You never have to confess your  sins to a woman over 60.   Once you get  past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 60 is far sexier  than her younger counterpart.   Older women are  forthright and honest.. They'll tell you right off  if you are a jerk or if you are acting like one. You  don't ever have to wonder where you stand with  her.   Yes, we praise  women over 60 for a multitude of reasons.  Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal. For every  stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 50,  there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants  making a fool of himself with some 22-year old  waitress. Ladies, I apologize.   For all those  men who say, 'Why buy the cow when you can get the  milk for free? Here's an update for you. Nowadays  80% of women are against marriage. Why?  Because women realize it's not worth buying an  entire pig just to get a little  sausage!   Andy Rooney is  a really smart guy!   Share this with all the fine, fun, fabulous, fancy-free female over  60. Male friends can benefit from these words of  wisdom as well! ;- )   Even if you  aren't over 60 yet, you have to admit, this is  funny! Lord bless  Andy! As I grow in  age, I value women over 60 most  of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

Thoughts on Post Secondary Education

The following is an interesting post fromn the disgruntled democrat  where he talks about the changes that are coming in higher and secondary education. As an early adopter of online teaching and as an early online instructor (I started teaching online in 2001) this is a topic I am interested in as we change how we learn and give credence and credibility to that learning.

As post-secondary education became part of the post war, publicly-funded panoply of social services offered to the population at large, enrollment in universities sky-rocketed. Universal accessibility became the mark of a developed country.

However, thirty plus years of neoliberal politics has brought the existing university business model to a precipice. Even with generous student aid programs in place, the cost of maintaining traditional universities has outstripped the state's capacity to guarantee universal access to post-secondary education.

The return to the user-payer model of university access is effectively reducing the numbers of lower and lower middle class students who can afford to attend university, especially when current economic conditions make it very difficult for recent graduates to find employment that generates sufficient income to repay their student loans.

Rather than accepting entry into a wage slave existence, increasing numbers of potential university students are deciding that they simply cannot afford to attend a traditional university.

Fortunately, their future need not be bleak.

In a wired world, higher education can be delivered to millions at a fraction of a cost as compared to the tradition model.

For example, Stanford's recent experiment in delivering an undergraduate course on artificial intelligence simultaneously to the 200 Stanford university students on campus and to approximately 100,000 students on line demonstrated that advances in information and communications technology make the traditional practice of bringing together a group of students in a lecture hall to hear the words to wisdom delivered by a professor appear quaint.
What remains to be done is to develop an appropriate certification process that recognizes that courses delivered via the Internet possesses the same intrinsic value of those delivered in the hallowed halls. MIT and Harvard are working together to address this need.

In my opinion, what's missing in the debate surrounding the increase in student fees in Quebec and the rising levels of student debt in the US is the notion that affordable university education can be delivered to those who desire it if the university business model is altered to take greater advantage of the economies of scale that the Internet offers.

But this means a large scale re-engineering of the present model, which will likely mean the loss of a great number of teaching positions as more and more courses migrate to the Web and an end to the lucrative business of academic publishing in favor of open access models.

Imagine being able to choose courses for credit from renown universities like Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, the London School of Economics, the Sorbonne and do the course work from the comfort of your home and the public library.

We have the technology. We just need the collective will.

Lend Me A Tenor (Metro Theater, Vancouver)

I went to the play that my wife is working on at Metro Theatre last Saturday. The Play was called Lend me a Tenor and there was a Gala before the play. Here are my thoughts and some history of the theatre.

This little Theatre which sits at the foot of Granville Street, has outlasted  the venerable Playhouse, is older than the Arts Club and without any form of Government support, is celebrating their 50th  consecutive year of providing first class entertainment.

After the 50th Gala Saturday was the opening of Lend Me A Tenor. Fond memories were rekindled as faces from Metro's past mixed with the present and all enjoyed a wonderful comedy directed by long time Metro Director, Catherine Morrison.

Metropolitan Co-Operative Theatre Society was spawned by the need a number of small non-professional organizations had to pool resources. Finding performance space, costumes, lighting equipment, attracting box office and back stage volunteers and then addressing publicity and promotion was a daunting task for small theatrical groups.

The Metro was, was, formed by eleven struggling Companies and began life in the Kitsilano Community Hall on West 4th Avenue and Arbutus in 1963 with a production of The Hollow. The following year, the group raised sufficient cash to purchase the present Theatre on South West Marine Drive.

Metro Theatre does the most annual productions of all non-professional Companies in North America and probably most of the professional ones as well. The income of the theatre is derived from the box office, which means that they have to stay closely attuned to what the public actually wants to see for them to survive.

Over the years the Metro has provided an amazing training facility for young actors, stage managers, carpenters, electricians and set decorators. Many have gone on to successful careers in the performing arts. The practical, hands-on and urgent experience gained at the Metro smoothed their entrance to professional work. Ultimately, then, Metro has carved a special place within the City's fabric and, whether or not its role can ever be defined, that place exists in the hearts and minds of the people who frequent our theatre, the workers and the players.

I highly recommend Lend Me a Tenor; from the opening the laughs are continuous. The timing of the actors is perfect. At intermission make sure you stay and watch the 8 minute pantomime by the stage crew. 

All in all you will enjoy the evening. Metro Theatre is a humble theatre that after 50 years still delivers good value.

Thinking about estate planning

I am big believer in the old adage "If you build it they will come."

I was talking to my physiotherapist and she told me she was leaving the clinic to take another opportunity. I congratulated her and said that I believe that opportunities are always knocking at one's door.

The problem is that most of the time, we are not in a receptive state of mind to see them. I said to her that since she had seen the opportunity she was ready to move on and that was a positive situation. I will have another physiotherapist assigned to me and I look forward to that. Change is good.

After that conversation, for some reason I started thinking about estate planning and came across some ideas and information that I think would be useful for that process.  The first is an article in the Wall Street Journal here called the 25 documents you will need before you die. The second is the Estate Document organizer website  The following is from the website and the link to the site is here

Hello, welcome to the Estate Documents Organizer, a master-planned, 3-ring binder with A-Z tabs and easy-fill forms.  I created this system for myself and my family to save time and stress in the estate management process. This modernized documents organizer includes the newly recognized field of digital assets--your "online life." Both my family and our professional adviser's feel this is an invaluable tool. Emergency Preparedness and  peace of mind for the future are gifts I want to share with you.  

Portrait of Lotte

This is a very interesting and I think powerful film that shows us how fast life can slip by and also shows that people not things are important. 

The photographer Frans Hofmeester says this:

 I  filmed my daughter every week, from birth up until she turned 12 years old an then made this time lapse edit in FCP. To see the video go here:  http://vimeo.com/40448182

More thoughts on retirement planning

An article posted by CNBC.com—Bust of the Baby Boomer Economy: ‘Generation Spend’ Tightens Belt—proposes a gloomy economic future due to Boomer ageing.

Jessica Rao, the article’s author, argues “because of severe recession and stock market losses, Boomers have less to spend, and further, they’re entering a post-career life stage when they will reduce spending anyway.”

While this story may be accurate in aggregate—overall national economic growth may decline from loftier times 15 years ago, due to many factors including global competition.  But first, we have to worry about getting enough money to retire.

We are not rational, autonomous, micro calculators who exercise independent and unbiased judgment when it comes to our retirement plans. Most of us strive to maximise our self-interest, but for a variety of reasons we often fail to act in accordance with the expectations of rational economic and financial theory.

Some of us have self-control problems when it comes to saving;. Others of us simply over discount the future and overvalue the present; we could benefit from pre-commitment pension savings programs. Still others of us may be unduly influenced by our ability to make or not decisions and as a result, our attitudes and action diverge so very much; we want to save more for retirement, but we do not.  Also, some individuals only evaluate their investment portfolios by past performance and risk errors cloud their judgment. 

We are overconfident about the future and have trouble cutting our losses. There are some of us who do not know what the basic questions are,  we do not know how much to save, or how much risk to take. Before the government takes steps to change what we understand about retirement planning there should be plans in place to help those of us who are rational economic agents. We could benefit from commitment devices or from education.

The problem is that contemporary education practices assume that most of us are rational agents and planners, but the evidence suggests that large numbers of us simply are not. Mechanisms must be found, whether through how plans are developed or to delegation to a third party, where workers begin practising the right behaviours when they start to work. 

Education can play an ancillary role, explaining the rationale for the way the plans were developed and alternative courses of future action. In effect, there should be a shift from education driving behavioural change to initial behavioural change preceding education.

More thoughts on planning for retirement

Why do investors irrationally rely on past performance and fail to take expected returns as well as risk into account, as modern portfolio theory suggests they should? Two behavioral phenomena may offer some answers. The first reason may be that people tend to see patterns in small series of randomly drawn numbers, and when making decisions, people attempt to impose some order or structure on the information that they see. The second reason may be that many people when faced with difficult decisions tend to rely on readily available information. A simple reason that investors may rely on past performance could be because that information is cheaply available.

The following ideas may help us understand how we make the investment decision we make. First, when we are thinking about how much we will gain, many of us are often overconfident and filled with excessive optimism.

We tend to, in our minds, build forecasts of the future that are typically too rosy. Second, when we are considering how much we could lose, risk-aversion may lead some of us to over react to what we are actually losing in our investments or because of fear of a loss, we will take investment gains earlier than we should. And third, if our decisions are less than ideal due to both overconfidence and loss avoidance, the impact of these will be exacerbated by how we have framed the issue and we tend to have narrow frames around gaining or losing money.

One of the important findings of psychology is that peoples’ future forecasts are often characterized by widespread overconfidence and excessive optimism. Such overconfidence may partly be the result of an inability to understand accurately the role of random chance in determining the future. People are notoriously poor statisticians, and they find patterns and trends in data that could just as easily be explained by random chance.

Poor risk calculations certainly play a role in overconfidence: individuals who are “100% sure” of their responses to certain questions are usually wrong 20% of the time. Our perceived sense of control also plays a role: the stronger one’s sense of control, the more powerful one’s sense of confidence

If overconfidence helps explain behavior on the “upside” then the “downside” is dominated by aversion to loss realization. This may play  out in interesting ways. For instance, as people are inclined to take a gamble if confronted with the choice of realizing an incurred but not-yet-realized loss, versus taking the gamble in which they might break or lose more. If there is a reasonable prospect of breaking even and avoiding a loss, many people take the gamble and risk losing even more money

There is evidence that overconfidence and loss-aversion are intensified by too narrow a framing of risky decisions. Few of us would take a gamble involving a 50 percent chance of winning $1,500, versus a 50 percent chance of losing $1,000.  

Some studies suggest that losses are as much as twice as psychologically powerful as gains. Other studies indicate that losses are almost three times more powerful than gains. What this means is that most of us would not take the gamble until the gain was closer to $2,500. Yet experimental evidence indicates that if we are given the opportunity to accept this gamble many times, or when it is framed in terms of changes to their entire net worth we will take the gamble.

Perhaps it is more natural for us to think small when facing a one-time gamble, but because we think we may get it right over time then we think large and take the gamble.

The last phase of financial decision making for retirement happens during later middle-age and beyond, and it is the period when most people decide how they will spend down their accumulated assets. Because most of us do not know precisely how long we will live, we do not want to run the risk of exhausting our assets before dying.

We can do this by reducing what we consuming less per year during retirement, but of course this simply elevates the chances that a we might die with “too much” wealth left over. This is fine if we want to leave our wealth to our heirs, but a few years back I saw many bumper stickers that say “I am spending my children’s inheritance”, which I agree with for the most part, but today those bumper stickers are few and far between

 Interestingly a recent survey reported that only one-third of the respondents knew that if someone who attained the age of 65 they had a substantial chance of living beyond his/her life expectancy.

More thoughts on planning for retirement

I was talking to my accountant about planning for retirement and he mentioned that there is one thing that young people and my people age do not plan for. He mentioned that people including sonic boomers have roughly $3,000 to $6,000 in medical bills not covered by any plan. He also said that many of his clients who are living on just Old Age Security and the supplement are sitting on homes that are paid for, and if sold would help the person have a better quality of life. He said that when he mentions this his clients respond with this sentiment: I would love that but if I do, what would I leave my children?" 


So poor planning and misguided sentiment (in my mind) leave people living in poverty or near poverty. I am sure that people understand the need to save, I am not sure why they don't save. That is why I found the ideas expressed by Olivia and Stephan interesting, I hope you do as well.


What might explain this apparent inability to plan properly for retirement? People try to save for retirement, but they too often not able to execute intentions. In a sense, saving for retirement requires behavior similar to those undertaken in other behavior modification programs such as exercising, dieting, quitting smoking, or following through on New Year’s resolutions. In other words, a key obstacle to saving more is not necessarily lack of awareness, but rather the ability to take action on the knowledge.  Here are some reasons why this happens.

People understand their inability to act even when they have good intentions and often seek to protect themselves through the use of commitment devices, or mechanisms that help foster desirable changes in behavior.

“Pay yourself first” is one of a number of standard commitment device used by financial planners and others who want to encourage disciplined saving and budgeting. Other commitment devices include tax refunds and Christmas or other Clubs, where individuals engage in economic activity that on the face of it are not economically sound (e.g. loaning money to the government or to their local banks at below-market rates). What the individual gets in exchange is a disciplined approach for accumulating savings. Another commitment device that is used by the government is to impose high penalties and withdrawal restrictions on retirement plans. The idea is that once the money is allocated to these plans, a psychological and financial hurdle is imposed on the individual accessing the money, which will help to counteract lapses in personal willpower.

People can be easily influenced by decision framing. In traditional economic theory it is assumed that rational economic agents (individuals) would not be expected to vary their responses to a question based on how it is asked. We know this is not the case. The simple rephrasing of the saving question elicits a different response in plan participation rates. Researchers have shown that when workers whenA faced with the option that requires them to sign up for a savings plan then they do nothing. If the employer institutes an automatic enrollment plan (that you can opt out of at any time) with a saving rate specified by the employer or the union more people save at the rate specified by the employer. This behaviour is explained by the idea that when confronted with difficult decisions, individuals tend to adopt shortcuts that simplify the complex problems they face. One simple shortcut is to accept the available default option—i.e., rather than making an active choice, accept the choice made by others. For one large US firm, plan participation rates jumped from 37 percent to 86 percent for new hires after automatic enrollment was introduced.

Evidence reveals another anomaly about individuals and their saving behavior: the important impact that inertia or procrastination plays on decision-making.  Researchers have concluded that, many of us follow “the path of least resistance” in our decision-making. We make the easiest, rather than the best, decision. This passive approach to decision-making is indicative of individuals being somewhat imperfect rational economic agents in their retirement and savings decisions, especially when there is a great amount of choice.

Offering workers many investment choices can produce choice overload; faced with complex investment choices, some participants may elect to simplify the decision by following their default plan, i.e., don’t decide, don’t join the plan, or find out what friends at work are doing. Many of our saving decisions can be strongly influenced by peers.

Just as our saving choices can be affected by framing, so too can our investment decisions be influenced, sometimes strongly, by framing effects.

The brain is a Buddhist

Judith Horstman is writer  author of “The Scientific American Book of Love, Sex and the Brain,”   talks about change  and talks about love and sex  and she has hope for the Boomers.


Some of the things Horstman has learned have surprised her.  “The brain takes up 2 percent of the body, but uses 20 percent of the body’s energy,” she said. “Everything happens in the brain. Your body is a conduit, and the body and mind connect.”


Yes, it is true that the brain is the most important sexual organ.


“It all happens in the brain,” Horstman said. “Our bodies feel the sensations.”


And it’s changing all the time. “That’s why you can form habits and break them. That’s the good news and the bad news.


“I think the brain is Buddhist,” she said. “Buddhism says everything is change, and boy, your brain sure changes.”Horstman’s latest book, “The Scientific American Healthy Aging Brain,” will come out at the end of May.


“It has a lot of good news about how a normal brain ages, but also talks about some things that can go wrong and gives a great deal of the latest research about what we can do to preserve the brain as we age,” she said.


People in their 90s still have a keen interest in sex and have a desire for sex,” Horstman said. “How much of that they’re doing, we don’t know because it’s self-reported, but people are still interested.


“The capacity for love remains throughout your life. It may be people who have been disappointed in love give up in that arena, but they tend to have great love with their animal companions or a strong love of God. We’re born to love — oh, yes, absolutely.”

Depression May Be Precursor to Dementia

A friend of mine was talking to me about dementia and his fear that one of his parents was suffering from this and we talked about what he could do to help, all I could do was listen because I knew he was aware of the resources available to him and his family. Listening to others and hearing their story and pain sometimes helps them. I had to resist very strongly the guy approach which is to offer solutions and solve the problem, what my friend needed at the time was someone just to listen.
A while after that conversation I came upon an interesting article that appeared in PsychCentral about the issues of depression and dementia. The article was written by Janice Wood Associate News Editor and reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on November 11, 2011

Depression is one of the most common mental disorders in the elderly, but little is known about the underlying biology of its development in older adults.

The researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) used a brain scan to assess the levels of amyloid plaques and tau tangles in older adults with major depressive disorder, also known as clinical depression.

Previous research has suggested that plaque and tangle deposits in the brain — hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease and many dementias — are associated not only with memory loss but also with mild symptoms of depression and anxiety in middle-aged and older individuals.

The team wanted to see what the brain-scanning technique would find in older people with depression.

The researchers created a chemical marker called FDDNP that binds to both plaque and tangle deposits, which can then be viewed through a positron emission tomography (PET) brain scan, providing a “window into the brain.” Using this method, researchers are able to pinpoint where in the brain these abnormal protein deposits are accumulating.

The scientists compared the FDDNP brain scans of 20 older adults between the ages of 60 to 82 who had been diagnosed with depression with the scans of 19 healthy people of similar age, education and gender.

They found that in patients with depression, FDDNP binding was significantly higher throughout the brain and in critical brain regions. The critical brain regions included the posterior cingulate and lateral temporal areas, which are involved in decision-making, complex reasoning, memory and emotions.

“This is the first study using FDDNP to assess the abnormal protein levels in brains of older adults with severe depression,” said the study’s senior author, Dr. Gary Small, UCLA’s Parlow-Solomon Professor on Aging and a professor of psychiatry.

“The findings suggest that the higher protein load in critical brain regions may contribute to the development of severe depression in late life.”

Researchers also found that similar protein deposit patterns in the lateral temporal and posterior cingulate areas in patients were associated with different clinical symptoms. Some patients demonstrated indicators of depression only, while others also displayed symptoms of mild cognitive impairment.

Dr. Small noted that previous research has shown that depression may be a risk factor for or a precursor to memory loss, such as mild cognitive impairment, which can later lead to dementia.

“We may find that depression in the elderly may be an initial manifestation of progressive neurodegenerative disease,” said the study’s first author, Dr. Anand Kumar, the Lizzie Gilman Professor and department head of psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“Brain scans using FDDNP allow us to take a closer look at the different types of protein deposits and track them to see how clinical symptoms develop.”

According to Kumar and Small, more followup over time is needed to evaluate the significance of the outcomes of the study’s patient subgroups. Such research will help further assess if depression later in life might be a precursor to mild cognitive impairment and dementia.

The researchers also noted that FDDNP used with PET may also be helpful in identifying new treatments and in tracking the effectiveness of current antidepressant therapy and medications designed to help reduce abnormal protein buildup in the brain.

The team is planning larger studies involving investigators that will address the impact of the genetic marker APOE-4, which is a risk factor for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

The study was published in the November issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Source: Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, UCLA

Setting the world on fire

Last year I went down to the US for a conference on aThursday night and arrived at the border around 3:45, and spend the next hour and 15 minutes waiting to cross the line. The problem was not in the lineup the problem was that my car or I set off a radioactive warning devious. I thought it was strange, and when I arrived in the line there were about 20 people all with the same issues. I think the computer calibration of the sensors was out of whack but the guards were very busy filling out the forms and asking everyone the same the questions.

After an hour one of the guards realized that all of us were there for the same reason. I heard him mention this to another guard, but neither had the authority to do anything except continue to process the people.

I lost count of the number of times the guards scanned the crowd with the Geiger counter and then walked out to the cars and scanned the cars. Computer glitches happen, many of the younger crowd were angry at the delay.

 I kept thinking I am missing driving through Seattle in rush hour traffic. I also enjoyed the idea that I was suspected of setting the world on fire again even if the reason was a computer glitch.