By Ralph Schwartz
With 2013 a mere hours away, I want to wish all the readers of the Politics Blog a happy New Year and share a post unrelated to politics that I found interesting.
For me, in that vaguely defined stage of life known as middle age, the New Year as much as anything else brings a reminder of time passing, and the dreaded thought that I could start counting down the number of years I have left, if I wanted to. It’s sort of like a birthday in that regard.
For those who might share this less than festive line of thought, or for anyone else who might be interested, I point you to this by Debra Ollivier at the Huffington Post about a study on aging and happiness. Sounds like we might all be in for a happy ending.
Wishing all of you the best in the New Year. Thanks for your patience as I still continue to get my bearings as the newest contributor to the the Politics Blog. I will never fill Sam Taylor or Jared Paben’s shoes, but I hope you and I find our own kind of good fit.
From the last paragraph of the linked Huffington Post piece on aging and happiness (I cut to the chase for you):
“The older we get, the more we live in the moment and the less we care about social pressures that had a powerful sway over us in our youth. ‘As we age,’ (researcher Laura Carstensen) writes, ‘we sense the clock winding down and our attention shifts to savoring the time that is left, focusing … on depth of experience, closeness, a smaller set of goals, and a highly selected group of loved ones. This change in perspective seems to bring with it a new way of evaluating what is worth one’s time, attention, worry, or wrath.’ It also brings with it, clearly, a new way of looking at life.”
Happy New Year, Ralph!
Thank you, Ralph.
I wish for you, and John, and for my fellow fans of the Politics blog a peaceful and satisfying New Year.
Happy New Year, Ralph. You are cutting out your own space here at the blog, keep up the good work. There’s no need to compete with Sam “AK-47″ Taylor or Jared “Transportation Nerd” Paben, you will have your own rhythm and groove.
Well Ralph, all you need to do to fill anyone’s shoes is show up and say something interesting and already you are my favorite on the blog.
Some funny links there, Riley; them thar’s the consequences of moving to Ferndale, I spose.
@Sam and Riley….Really Sam? You look like Mr. Rogers goes Gung Ho. If I saw you entering a school, I think I would just laugh…before pulling out my permitted Tech NinE and sending you to that happy NRA “hunting” (yeah right) ground in the ethos. Thanks for the laugh Riley.
I miss those shoes.
@Sam
They were too small apparently….
It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d most certainly donate to this outstanding blog! I suppose for now i’ll settle for bookmarking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account.
I look forward to brand new updates and will talk about this site with my
Facebook group. Talk soon!