What will your life story say about you?
Life is a story that we write and while writing we rediscover our unique selves as well as the opportunity to newly discover the uniqueness and diversity in others.
In this short article Anita P. Jackson, a clinical counselor and emerita professor at Kent State University, explains how we can examine our own life stories to better not only ourselves but society as well.
How the Elderly Lose Their Rights
Guardians can sell the assets and control the lives of senior citizens without their consent—and reap a profit from it.
Here, according to this article from the New Yorker, are the facts:
In the United States, a million and a half adults are under the care of guardians, either family members or professionals, who control some two hundred and seventy-three billion dollars in assets, according to an auditor for the guardianship fraud program in Palm Beach County. Little is known about the outcome of these arrangements, because states do not keep complete figures on guardianship cases—statutes vary widely—and, in most jurisdictions, the court records are sealed. A Government Accountability report from 2010 said, “We could not locate a single Web site, federal agency, state or local entity, or any other organization that compiles comprehensive information on this issue.” A study published this year by the American Bar Association found that “an unknown number of adults languish under guardianship” when they no longer need it, or never did. The authors wrote that “guardianship is generally “permanent, leaving no way out—‘until death do us part.’ ”
In the United States, guardianship is governed by state, not federal, law.
This long and frightening article focuses on cases around Las Vegas, NV, but some of the information is generally applicable.
Are Job Ads Targeting Young Workers Breaking The Law?
When an employer sets out to recruit young people for a certain job, is it discriminating against older job seekers in a way that breaks the law? That question is at the center of several pending lawsuits that could help improve job opportunities for older Americans.
11 Novels with Older Characters You’re Sure to Love
Taylor Noel offers a list of “11 novels with older protagonists that you’re sure to love.”
‘A different way of living’: why writers are celebrating middle-age
But we search in vain if we turn to these books for answers, partly because these writers are more interested in asking questions, and partly because they are too singular, and too defiant, to tell us what to do. Greer ends by announcing that though younger people anxiously inquire, and researchers tie themselves in knots with definitions, “the middle-aged woman is about her own business, which is none of theirs”. Women come racing up from behind, asking how to negotiate the next phase. But we’re not going to learn much because, Greer says, the middle-aged woman is “climbing her own mountain, in search of her own horizon, after years of being absorbed in the struggles of others”. The ground is full of bumps, the air is thin and her bones ache. Nonetheless, the ascent is worth it, however baffling it may seem to others. Greer exhorts her middle-aged readers not to explain or apologise. “The climacteric marks the end of apologising. The chrysalis of conditioning has once and for all to break and the female woman finally to emerge.”
© 2018 by Mary Daniels Brown
Retreading for Retirement 