Aging Well with Marjorie promotes social wellbeing with ideas for healthy and fulfilling relationships, strong social networks, sharing skills with others, changing roles, and getting involved in neighbourhood and community life.
We humans are social creatures, and so we need to have a good quality of life filled with purpose and meaning. We need this no matter what life brings throughout the aging process. So how do we find p...
13 May, 2018I recently had the pleasure of sharing some work with my husband, although it could have easily created conflict. As part of building a house to see us into very old age, we had a wide-open, crude cha...
22 October, 2017How we interact with others reflects our “reciprocity style” – giver, taker, or matcher – and may determine our success in life. I think, too, that our favoured style may change over the years. I was ...
07 March, 2017Have you ever wondered why you do whatever it is you do each day? Filling time with actions that aren’t significant for us can leave us feeling hollow, but focusing our attention on what really matter...
07 February, 2017I sat down on New Year’s Day to do something I’d never done before – create my bucket list. I have lots of ideas about things I want to do, see, feel, and experience in life – perfect candidates for a...
03 January, 2017Why do some people seem to have so much success in life? They seem to be healthy and happy, they’re successful at school and work, and they tend to have good relationships with others. People like thi...
30 August, 2016If you’ve had some casual neighbourhood conversations, you may find yourself looking for deeper dialogues about things that really matter to you. Getting involved in local groups is a good way to star...
02 August, 2016Walking around your neighbourhood every day is the easiest way, I think, for getting to know your neighbours. It requires only a little extra bravery. ...
26 July, 2016The way I see it, we’re all muddling along doing the best we can, so it seems to me we could try to show a little more kindness to others – and ourselves....
07 June, 2016It’s all very well to say Canadians should be saving for retirement, but it’s increasingly unrealistic for many in today’s economy. The context Increasingly, employment is precarious for many, not jus...
18 April, 2016It’s all very well to provide good physical and mental care for very elderly seniors, but who’s paying attention to their social well-being? And what’s the role for active young seniors and their comm...
11 April, 2016Even though we humans are social beings and genetically programmed to give and receive help, many of us are reluctant to ask for it when we need it. Why is this, and how can we get good at asking for ...
04 April, 2016George E. Vaillant, M.D., in his book, “Spiritual Evolution”, has a most interesting take on religion and spirituality, positioning them in different parts of the brain, and emphasizing six positive e...
15 March, 2016I so enjoyed an afternoon of conversation recently. Four of us sat together at a small table at a community event and just talked and talked, for the pure pleasure of it. It didn’t matter that I was t...
22 February, 2016I had such fun recently, trying out recreational folk dance. It really is true that dancing is one of those rare activities that contributes to physical, mental, and social wellbeing all at the same t...
08 February, 2016It can be a hard going to find a job in your later years, but author Jeanette Woodward lays out practical strategies for “reinventing yourself for the 21st century”....
12 January, 2016Gifts seem to get all the attention at this time of year, but do you know the other four languages of love? More importantly, do you know which love languages your near and dear ones most need in orde...
23 December, 2015Do you have fun and pleasure in your life? Something you look forward to? Gets rid of stress? Gives you joy and focus? Gets your mind off your troubles? If you do, you probably have a hobby! A very bu...
02 December, 2015I was shocked, then puzzled, and finally saddened when a young man lied to me. I was networking at a business function and was asking him about the kind of retirement readiness offered by the large bu...
17 November, 2015When was the last time you explored all the things you like and appreciate about yourself? We humans are often too quick to focus on our faults, and this spills over into focusing on the faults of oth...
09 November, 2015The Etiquette of Illness by Susan P. Halpern is wonderfully warm and rich resource whether you want to reach out to someone who is ill, or whether you are ill yourself. Susan also suggests approaches ...
02 September, 2015What kind of personality do you have? How would you describe yourself? Psychology uses the Big Five Personality Traits as a way of summarizing individuals: conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticis...
19 August, 2015Full and complex social networks help to ease the loneliness of widowhood. Having more than one person in our lives to meet a variety of social needs builds in resilience, to better cope not only with...
12 August, 2015Transition to retirement is less traumatic if you plan ahead to have purpose and meaning in your life in later years. Even if you’re already retired, it’s not too late to make plans for your future. W...
05 August, 2015As I mentioned last week, personality factors do not vary across all levels of loneliness (Cacioppo et al., 2006). A lonely person is just as likely as a nonlonely person to exhibit – emotional ...
22 July, 2015There is a grossly unfair stigma attached to people who are lonely. They are mistakenly viewed as having a flaw in their personality, whereas they are simply genetically predisposed to loneliness. No ...
15 July, 2015Parents, especially mothers, tend to be blamed (or praised) for how children turn out, but James Hillman takes issue with this mind set. Of course they have a strong influence, but he claims it is a f...
23 June, 2015A 10-fold increase in depression in our society is caused by a culture of individualism. This is the view of psychologist Martin P. Seligman, and it makes sense to me. Our pleasures, our pains, our su...
04 May, 2015We can’t always rely on our willpower for every situation or temptation. You might have also noticed yourself having a lot of willpower over one stretch of time, and then almost no willpower over anot...
23 April, 2015When you have a job to finish, is it better to motivate yourself by looking back at the part you’ve already done, or look ahead at what’s left to do? If you want your willpower to kick in, it’s better...
20 April, 2015The brain needs tasks to be finished. If you have uncompleted tasks or any unmet goals in your life, they have a strong tendency to keep popping up in your mind. We can clear our minds by writing down...
16 April, 2015Have you ever noticed your willpower fading as the day wears on? Maybe you find it harder to get things done. You might lose patience and snap at loved ones, or find your thoughts spiraling out of con...
12 April, 2015I’m all for adding practices from various cultures into my life, so I’m sharing some Irish blessings with you for St. Patrick’s day. “May you never have trouble, All crowdin...
17 March, 2015Dogs have many things to teach us, if only we follow their example. Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride. Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstacy. W...
10 March, 2015If you want to have more positive feelings about caregiving, reduce your risk of becoming depressed and anxious, feel less frustrated or burdened, and feel better physically and emotionally, consider ...
06 March, 2015If you provide care for someone, you are not alone. In 2007, 2.7 million Canadians aged 45 and older – 1 in 5 – provided care or assistance to an older family member or friend. That works out to $24 t...
01 March, 2015I appreciated the wise thoughts in Letting Go and wanted to share them with you. For me, they make sense for family, friends, neighbours, colleagues, and yes, even acquaintances and strangers. ...
21 January, 2015Having considered a variety of features about location and where to live, your next step is to identify housing solutions. You ought to assume that you will eventually have physical and possibly cogni...
20 January, 2015Inertia is often the biggest barrier to creating suitable housing for ourselves for the long term. The time to act is now, because more and more of us are going to live a very long time. Acting now in...
12 January, 2015The older we get, the more our inner world seems to absorb our attention. This is a natural part of growing older, and life can become more satisfying if we incorporate our growing spirituality into e...
05 December, 2014We humans are social beings. Even the introverts among us benefit from regular contact with people we know. And therein lies the key to aging well – socially engaging with people we know. On top of ...
05 December, 2014Whether we’ve lived in a place five days or five decades, knowing our neighbours and the people who live there helps us feel more connected to people and place, and builds our social support net...
05 December, 2014