Author Stan Goldberg

06/13/14  I think everyone has a limited ability to function well. As we age, that threshold becomes lower. Imagine this ability is a 10” pie. The more pieces taken out, the less there is for you. What...

06/11/14  I’ve just spent a week in North Carolina and was floored by the openness of the people I met. A simple question I asked a baker became a warm animated conversation about making sourdough bread and...

06/10/14  I’ve finally accepted that my computer doesn’t hate me. Doesn’t try to make my life miserable. Doesn’t introduce new lines of code to trick me. Isn’t trying to embarrass me. I’m just...

06/09/14   As I age and read books on how I can recreate the body I had when I was 20 by just buying a jar of this newly developed elixer that isn’t sold in any regulated stores that I can receive free if...

06/08/14  I had the wonderful experience yesterday of performing the marriage service for the daughter of my friend of 45 years. My contribution to the structure of the service (they selected the writings and...

06/06/14  Did you ever have that uncomfortable feeling that maybe you aren’t as important to someone as they are to you? I recently I spent eight hours with an old friend who I hadn’t seen in four years....

06/18/14  After receiving my fourth telemarketing call (and yes I’m on the do not call list) I realized that my anger at being disturbed increased exponentially with each call. Why, I asked myself, would I...

06/05/14  I was at an event the other day and politely listened to two people talk about how their friend was ruining her life. “If I was her,” one said, “I wouldn’t have done it that way.” The...

06/04/14   I recently met a friend who I hadn’t seen for 10 years. Looking at him I thought, “My God, he’s gotten old!” Of course in my mind I’m still 50, slim, and athletic. But when a looked into...

06/03/14 Just like everyone, there are times when I feel I’m on the edge of depression. It could be a seemingly insurmountable writing problem, a physical issue, or looking at what’s going on in the world...

Many people pretend they bathe daily in the Fountain of Youth. While the delusion may be soothing for those who are aging, the gap between self-image and reality can have serious consequences as it did for me...

When I see commercials on how to recreate the body I had at 20-years-of-age by applying a magical cream that isn’t sold in any regulated stores and free to me for the next ninety minutes if I agree to...

We may be changing, but we’re not dead yet. I think people who are younger than us—like our adult children—are often confused about how to react to our diminishing abilities.

In 2009 I wrote, When the Ground Shakes, an article in which I described finding my mother coming out of a forested area holding a bunch of sticks and twigs. In response to my question of what she was doing,...

In 2010, I wrote Top 10 Insults for Old People, a tongue-in-cheek article about an insensitive young couple I watched making fun of an older man as he shuffled down the street. Four years later, in some ways,...

For more than 30 years I've been brought, kicking and screaming, to the sharp points of life. What I've learned is instead of running away, bring them closer and you'll enrich your life and ease your death

In 2011 I wrote Shoot Me Please: The Right to Die, where I described my reactions to a patient who asked me to help him die. I recently received a comment on the article by Jarad Hughes from the Compassion and...

  Grief is an emotion that is pervasive. It can arrive on a passing breeze, the sounds of a familiar song, the taste of a loved one’s favorite food, or in the middle of the night when a hand reaches...

Change is frightening, whether it's a person coming to terms with a terminal diagnosis or an evangelical minister learning his son is gay. Both are forced to let go of cherished beliefs for a world that has...

I was asked to join Thich Nhat Hanh, Jane Goodall, Norman Fischer, and other writers I have long admired in contributing to Shambhala Sun’s July 2013 special edition on the body. In my article, I relive...