Alexandersmap

    Month: February 2020

    • The Possible Nows

      The sky is pastel pink and blue, announcing that there will be a lovely sunrise today. I’m down in the valley in the woods of New Hampshire this morning. To properly capture this show would require a drive to the top of a hill two miles away. I sip my coffee and contemplate the mad dash for the perfect Instagram image, and turn back to my morning routine. I look for the moments and embrace them when they appear, but I usually choose not to chase them.

      By all accounts it’s been a great winter for the Aurora Borealis. I check its progress often, but concede I’m not getting to Iceland, Norway, Labrador or even Northern Maine anytime soon. I’m deeply immersed in work and renovating a bathroom, firmly setting myself in the foundation of family priorities. There is a time for everything, and I’ve chosen not to chase the Northern Lights; once demolition started the work was no longer a choice.

      As I’ve matured I’ve gotten a little better at negating the effects of temporal discounting in my actions. Meaning I’m not dropping everything important in my longer term future to visit friends island hopping in the Caribbean or family beachside in Florida. I count seven spots on my hands where I’ve donated blood to my bathroom renovation this week – believe me, I’d rather have deposited that money into flight tickets and a new bathing suit. But the bathroom offers a greater return on investment at the moment.

      Temporal discounting is more challenging in our daily habits. I have a goal to lose some weight by my birthday in April. But I still grab a handful of M & M’s in the bowl by the door on my way out. One habit offers immediate gratification, the other offers longer term benefit but involves sacrificing gratification in this moment. Temporal discounting is a tough bear to wrestle. The answer lies in removing the bowl of candy next to the door until you can stop seeing it as a desirable gratification in the moment.

      The flip side of temporal discounting logic is the recognition that I’m not getting any younger. There are plenty of examples of people in my life facing cancer or other instant state changes in how they’re able to navigate this life. There’s only now. And so perhaps driving to see the sunrise was the better choice, just as buying the flight tickets might be. Do it now, before it’s too late is a version of do it now because it feels good. It’s temporal discounting disguised as logic.

      And there’s the wrestling match between the possible nows. Do what feels good now or defer it indefinitely (or dismiss it forever) for the greater good. An angel on one shoulder, a devil on the other, both whispering their advice. I could be in Iceland staring up at the sky, swimming in warm tropical sea water this evening, or I could finish this bathroom floor and pack for a business trip tomorrow. I know the right choice, and I know the desirable choice. Don’t we all? Another George Bailey moment on this march through life. But in the end his story turned out okay, didn’t it?

    • More Art

      “If beautiful art does not express moral ideas, ideas which unite people, then it is not art, but only entertainment. People need to be entertained in order to distance themselves from disappointment in their lives. ” – Immanuel Kant

      A nod to Tolstoy for this quote…

      Sometimes you see the truth immediately in a piece of art, in a poem, in a paragraph or a scene. Something that transcends. Something that lifts, prods, pulls you. Art speaks, if we listen. I can remove the word “art” and insert “nature” or “spirituality” or maybe even “love” in that sentence and it resonates the same. Art is all of those things, and all those things in turn are art.

      I’ve learned to say no. No to television news. No (but thank you anyway) to Facebook. No to most entertainment, not because I don’t like to be entertained, but because I want to think. You can’t meditate on the world with a laugh track playing. No isn’t a rejection of the world, it’s an acceptance of more essential things.

      Does that make me boring? Perhaps to someone seeking only entertainment. Then again, I have a lot more to say than I once did. I’m moving towards art, towards uniting people, towards the essential truth in life. Perhaps I’ll find it, but I’m already better for seeking it.

    • Scattered Thoughts

      Today I’ve driven all over the state of Connecticut, and I’ll be honest, I look at the woods and see the ghosts of the Pequot who conceded this land to English settlers.  I also think of Benedict Arnold, a native son of Connecticut, betraying his own neighbors in battle after he defected.  These woods could talk, if given the chance.  Instead I rely on the whispers of those who came before, and it’s really hard to hear them over the hum of highway traffic and bulldozers clearing more land for commercial development.  There’s a lot I love about Connecticut, but the ever-expanding development isn’t one of those things.  Knowing the history of a place makes you angry when you see that place abused, and too much development feels abusive to me.  Does that make me a preservationist?  Probably.  Venus and the moon are dancing this evening, and the wind is howling in Connecticut, as if voicing it’s displeasure at being left out of the tango in the sky.  I stared at the two for a few minutes and left them to finish their dance as I checked into my hotel for the night.  It’s not lost on me that I complain about development while staying in hotels and driving on highways and visiting customers in office buildings. I don’t have a problem with development when it’s done well, it just seems to be mostly down and dirty profit-maximization development in most cases, and where’s the magic in that?  I love the quiet corners of Connecticut, and wish that there were more of them preserved for the future.

      “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” – Anais Nin

      The beauty of writing every day is in the magic you relive in the moments you’ve lived, and in pulling magic out of the air that you weren’t even aware of until you start typing.  I’m not sure why I waited so long to begin writing, but I know I can’t go back to not doing it.  Writing is transformative for the writer, as reading is for the reader.  I’m currently being transformed by reading Josh Waitzkin, Leo Tolstoy, Ryan Holiday, Jack Gilbert, Mary Oliver and Nathaniel Philbrick.  I’m in a routine where I’ll read a few pages of Waitzin, Tolstoy and Holiday in succession and a poem or two from Gilbert and Oliver early in the morning.  I read Philbrick in the evening in a traditional book because I appreciate the tactile experience of reading a book more in the evenings and don’t want to start my day wearing reading glasses, thank you.

      All this highway driving around Connecticut reminded me of an unpleasant moment five years ago as I was driving up I-95 through Connecticut.  A man had committed suicide by jumping in front of an 18-wheeler that had no chance of swerving out of his way.  I was close enough to the situation that they hadn’t covered up the body yet, and I still see the face of the man staring blankly in my direction as his broken body lay unnaturally twisted like a bag of laundry broke on the pavement.  I’ve never been to war, but I imagine my experience with this man shortly after his demise was close to what a soldier might experience.  One moment you’re talking to a person, the next they’re a corpse.  We’re all just bags of flesh and blood and bones.  What makes us alive is our spirit and an energy force of electrical and intangible energy.  That man on the highway chose to give back his energy to the universe, and his body became nothing more than broken matter on the pavement.  Aren’t we so much more than that?

      That intangible energy carries on long after we’re gone through the people we’ve touched in our lives, but what of future generations who never knew us?  Well, I never met Mark Twain or Henry David Thoreau or Mary Oliver, but I feel their intangible energy in the words that they write.  I never met Katherine Hepburn but I feel her energy when I drive through Old Saybrook, Connecticut.  And I never met Coleman Hawkins but I’m stopped in my tracks whenever I hear him preach through his saxophone playing Mood Indigo.  We’re more than a bag of bones and blood.  Our humanity comes from that intangible energy.  When we interact with others face-to-face or through their words on the page it creates sparks, changing us.  Don’t we owe it to the world to pay this energy forward?  To weave our own version of magic?

      So that’s the mission, isn’t it?  Make it your life goal to take that intangible energy, that life force, and transcend the flesh and blood we live in.  Offering more to the world requires learning more, seeking to understand more, observing more, and becoming more.  And in return we reverberate beyond the now.  That seems a better path to me.  Focus on the contribution, and don’t worry about stupid things like WordPress changing you to Block Editor all the time.  There’s so much more to do with the time you have.  Get to it already.

       

    • Reaching New Harbors

      “He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.  Most begin to veer and tack as soon as the wind changes from aft, and as within the tropics it does not blow from all points of the compass, there are some harbors which they can never reach…
      The poet is no tender slip of fairy stock, who requires peculiar institutions and edicts for his defence, but the toughest son of earth and Heaven, and by his greater strength and endurance his fainting companions will recognize God in him.  It is the worshippers of beauty, after all, who have done the real pioneer work of the world…
      To say that God has given a man many and great talents, frequently means that he has brought his heavens down within reach of his hands.”
      – Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

      I wonder at the sheer volume of words that Thoreau crams into works like A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.  This is not poetry, works like this, but Thoreau’s work is a journey of a different kind, full of observations that make your head spin in wonder if you take the time to digest his prose.  Thoreau is best read in stillness, like great poetry, when you have the time to dance with his words in your mind.  Take this analogy of poetry as sailing with the fewest points of the wind.  A great poet can work with the smallest little puff of prose and go to harbors the rest of us can’t reach:

      “I
      held my breath
      as we do
      sometimes
      to stop time
      when something wonderful
      has touched us”
      – Mary Oliver, Snow Geese

      As with watching a great sailor and learning from the way they set the sails as the read the tell tales and scan the horizon, reading great poetry instructs and inspires.  It’s pulling the heavens down within reach of our hands.  Thoreau finds his way to brilliance often in his work, he just takes a long time to get there.  Reading Thoreau requires sifting.  Reading Oliver you see that she’s already done the sifting for the reader; Whittled down to the essence, what’s left is something wonderful.

      When I write I tend towards Thoreau-level volume.  I’m working on setting the sail a bit closer to the wind.  To dance a little closer to the essential truth.  There are harbors I’d like to visit still.

    • Growth at the Point of Resistance

      “I have seen many people in diverse fields take some version of the process-first philosophy and transform it into an excuse for never putting themselves on the line or pretending not to care…
      As adults, we have to take responsibility for ourselves and nurture a healthy, liberated mind-set. We need to put ourselves out there, give it our all, and reap the lesson, win or lose…
      Growth comes at the point of resistance. We learn by pushing ourselves and finding what really lies at the outer reaches of our abilities.”
      – Josh Waitzkin, The Art of Learning

      I’ve been sitting on Waitzkin’s book for a long time, and finally started reading it when I’d chewed through other Kindle downloads.  When I read in poor lighting or when walking on the treadmill the iPad app and Kindle offer the most flexibility to get it done (I’m just not going to wear reading glasses on a treadmill, thank you). So Waitzkin’s book has lurked in the Cloud for a couple of years, pushed back by other, sexier books. And that’s a shame because it’s brilliant. But so it goes, we’re here now; front of the line. Here’s your cue Josh!

      “Disappointment is a part of the road to greatness.” – Josh Waitzkin

      There comes a point in your life, hopefully, when you re-commit to learning. Your ego is pushed aside a bit and you start telling yourself the truth – I don’t know this and I’d like to learn more about it. And you wade into the deep end, knowing you’ll have setback and will get overwhelmed and perhaps humiliated, but at the very least humbled. I’m humbled learning French. I’m humbled realizing a bathtub installation isn’t as easy as I’d hoped as I look at a tub longer than the advertised rough opening space. I’m humbled when a customer asks what version of Transport Layer Protocol we use. If life has reinforced anything for me, it’s that “I don’t know, let me find out” is the best answer.

      It’s easy to spot a bullshit artist. They seem to gravitate to the spotlight. And enough people fall in line behind them that they might run a company, a church or be President. They’ll say what you want to hear, boost your own ego and collect you time, money or vote. It’s a lot harder to recognize that maybe you don’t have the world all figured out and then have the initiative and humility to go figure out where the truth lies. Right now I’m a long way from fluent French, but closer than I was last year.  Right now I haven’t won a Nobel Prize in Literature, but I’m a better writer than I was last year at this time and light years ahead of a decade ago.

      I woke up this morning thinking about a bathtub drain. Mind you, this isn’t a typical first thought of the day for me, but I recognized in the clarity of early morning that I need to drop in the tub, I can’t just slide it in, and that changes everything. Damn. More work. But with the realization came the solution, and I know it will turn out okay. I reached a point of resistance with this tub, came up with one not-so-great solution that ultimately won’t work, and eventually found the answer somewhere between REM sleep and lying awake in the darkness.

      The great thing about being alive right now is having all the information you need a click away. The problem with being alive right now is the flood of bad information, distracting nonsense and conspiracy theories out there. A little focus goes a long way in all things. I’ll never be a master carpenter or professional plumber, but I’ll get this tub in with a little help here and there. I may always sound like French is a second language for me, but eventually I’ll figure out enough to find out where the bathroom is and hold a basic conversation.  I may not win the Nobel Prize in Literature, but I’m learning a lot about myself through the writing, and hey, someone has to win it, right?  Stretch goals are inherently stretch you, just don’t go too thin in that stretch.  Know your limitations, but by all means test them. You never know until you try.

    • Writing: Wrestling With The Angel

      “The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.” – Mary Oliver

      You know those moments when you lie there knowing you’re going to be creaky and sore even before you get out of bed? That was me after a day of bathroom renovation work. Being tall, laying tile seems especially tough on the body. But hopefully worth it in the end. But this morning was the sore all over shuffle, and I quietly got myself hydrated and caffeinated as a nod to yesterday before focusing on today’s work. Monday. Lot to do this week. Lot to do today. But first the morning routine, more important than ever when you feel like a panini in a press.

      Writing every day has its rewards, but also it’s price. Time mostly, but also focus. There are mornings when I have a lot to do in the rest of my life and the last thing I want to do is write. But I write anyway to keep the streak alive and find once I’ve settled my mind to it the writing flows easily. So I sit here writing with the cat perched over my shoulder, tail whipping my head prodding me to pay attention, coffee cooling within reach, clock ticking in my head and so much to say. The writing flows despite the cat, despite the clock, despite the soreness. I’m giving power to the muse; I’ve committed to the ride.

      Blogging is a different form of writing than other writing, and I know I’m stalling on the project I have in my mind. I’ve developed the consistent effort of publishing every day, but there’s more to do. The muse laughs at me and says you’re not fully committed, just look at the schedule you’ve built for yourself around work and family and bathroom renovations! Come back to me when you’re serious about that writing project and then we’ll dance. And I nod my head, knowing the truth is out. The blogging continues, the project doesn’t, the other things in life tap on my shoulder saying time for us. And I write faster, knowing this dance is almost over for the day.

      Mary Oliver spotlighted the commitment needed to the craft:

      “He who does not crave that roofless place eternity should stay at home. Such a person is perfectly worthy, and useful, and even beautiful, but is not an artist…

      The working, concentrating artist is an adult who refuses interruption from himself, who remains absorbed and energized in and by the work—who is thus responsible to the work.

      The poem gets written. I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. Neither do I have guilt.” – Mary Oliver, Upstream, Selected Essays

      There it is; guilt. You either wrestle with the angel or you open the door to the rest of life to come in. It might seem like you’re all dancing together, but the muse likes to dance with you alone on the floor or not at all. I nod my regrets, say goodbye for now and welcome the Monday crowd. May we dance a bit longer next time?

    • Basketball and Icarus

      “Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew…
      I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph.”
      – Jack Gilbert, Failing and Flying

      Last night I watched the last regular season basketball game of my son’s career. With four teams bunched up in the standings with the same conference record at the start of the game, there was a lot to play for, the winner of this game would move on to the playoffs, the loser would go home.  A similar reality was playing out in gyms in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine.  This was the end of some players’ triumph.

      As a parent you think maybe your kid will make the travel basketball team.  If they have some skills you think they may make their High School team, and play AAU ball on a team with good coaching.  And in the back of your mind you calculate the odds of your kid playing in college.  For the record, the odds of a High School basketball player playing in an NCAA college basketball program – that’s Division I, II and III, is 3.4%.  So for the thousands of kids playing basketball and rising through the ranks, only a very small percentage actually play in college.  Crazy small odds when you think of it.

      For my son, basketball was an obvious choice.  He’s always been a head taller than everyone else, he’s always been athletic and he’s very “coachable”.  He’s never been the leading scorer on any team after Middle School, but has always been a leader on the court and a strong defensive presence.  I’m slightly biased, but the team seems better when he’s on the court most of the time.  He had one hurdle that limited him; he had a tendency to pass up shots and open lanes and pass the ball instead.  In a game that’s played more and more at the perimeter, centers are less prioritized than they once were on the offensive end.  But put him on the defensive end and watch him shine.  He’s in the top five in blocks in the conference playing a third of the minutes of the others on the list.

      He grew up playing ball in the Merrimack Valley in Massachusetts.  The Merrimack Valley is a mix of tough city kids and suburban kids.  When you play in the Merrimack Valley you quickly grow a thick skin or you fade away.  I’ve watched a lot of wild college games with hostile home crowds, but I’d put an Andover-Central Catholic or Lawrence-Lowell game up against most college games for level of intensity and the passion of the crowd.  Basketball players are either baked or burned in this environment, and college coaches know it.  Recruiters started talking to my son and many other players during fall league games at “The Barn” in North Andover during fall ball games, and would pop up at games throughout the rest of the season.  College recruiting is a game in itself, and you feel both honored and at times bewildered by the experience.  Where’s the best fit?  Will he actually play there or are they stacking players?

      The best advice we ever heard was to choose the college first and the program second.  If your child doesn’t love the school, they won’t want to stay there.  If they don’t love the program they can still stay at the school and get a degree.  When you get a school they love with a program they like, playing with teammates they love, that’s the best scenario. And that’s where we found ourselves over the last four years.  It carried our son through major injuries and a change in playing philosophy in the program that emphasized shooters on the perimeter over big guys in the paint.  He loved his school, loved his teammates, and respected the program and stuck with it.  No regrets.  His last two points on his home court were an emphatic put-back dunk, his first dunk after two years of building his ankle strength back up.  His last dunk was on this basket two years earlier when a player came down on him as he grabbed a defensive rebound. He wouldn’t play again for a long time, and wouldn’t dunk again until this, his last home game. It came with exactly one minute left on the clock, and it was the perfect cap on those last two years of struggle.  It’s a grainy screen shot from the game video, but I love it because it shows him in flight, near the end of his own journey in this game.

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      For any basketball player to be playing college basketball at any level is a triumph.  A very small number will move on to the NBA or to coaching, but this is the end for almost every one of them.  It’s the culmination of years of playing and learning, injuries and setbacks, making teams and not making other teams, growing as people and learning important life skills like time management and mutual respect and unselfishness and risk-taking.  As with every game, it gets harder as you grow with it, but you do grow with it.  And as a parent I’ve grown with it too.

      And so we found ourselves in a gym in Maine on Senior night for the team we were playing against.  They were ahead of us in the standings walking in, but both teams knew that the winner wrote their ticket in, the loser had to hope others lost for them to move forward.  As it happened those other teams won their games while our teams played each other, setting up the win or go home scenario.  Parents watched scores on their phones, knowing more than the players did.  But the players knew the stakes.  I found myself drawn to a guard from the other team as the clock ticked down and our team holding a tenuous lead in the game.  Tears were in his eyes, and he’d pull his jersey up to wipe them away.  His coach, seeing his emotion, shouted at him to be ready for the ball should he get one more shot to win it.  That chance disappeared as time ran out on the game and the regular season.  One team moving on to the playoffs, one team at the end of their triumph. But surely a triumph for all of them, being here, playing this game at this level.

    • Chaos Hates Simplicity

      The humidifier hasn’t been filled for days and the house plants looked just as thirsty so I finally corrected the water situation today. A dry house isn’t good for people either, but inevitable in winter if you don’t keep up with it. And that’s the thing, I’m not keeping up. Things I might have done routinely in the course of a day are getting put off. I noticed the dishes stacking up next to the sink. Clutter is stacking up in other places too. And it slid sideways the moment I started demolition in the bathroom and laundry room. The washer and dryer are sitting in my son’s room. The cat boxes are in my daughter’s room. Cleaning supplies and shelving sit in the master bedroom. Tools and tile are stacked in the hallway waiting their turn. I feel like a hoarder wading through the house. I need a haircut. Chaos has found us.

      My theory on chaos is that it lurks right behind you, waiting for an opportunity to pounce into your life. Once it arrives it resists leaving. Chaos is a stubborn thing indeed. If the goal in Yin and Yang is to dance along the edge of chaos and order, then my home and its residents are stumbling into chaos. One of the cats, finding the litter boxes moved to another room, chose to make a deposit at his old bank location. The house, and their world, is upside down. No, this won’t do at all.

      The remedy is simple. Make a list in my bullet journal and start drawing an X through each one as I complete the task. Ah, but I’ve slipped on the journal too. The only place that I’ve seen order is in work, which has proven a welcome distraction from the chaos of construction. I’m under some time pressure to get things done with the kids home for a few days during spring break in March. Business trips coming up fast. A new dryer getting delivered and installed soon too. Tick, tick, tick… stop! Now is when you pause, write down everything that needs to get done, and knock things off one at a time. Get things out of the head and on paper. Make order from chaos. Too analog? There’s beauty in simplicity. Chaos hates simplicity. I hate chaos.

      This sauce I’m stirring is a blend of David Allen, Greg McKeown, Admiral William H. McRaven and Ryder Carrol. They all point to simplicity kicking the ass of chaos. Get things out of your head and on a list, prioritize and knock things off one at a time. Making order out of chaos, one step at a time. Eventually the list shrinks and you no longer have appliances in your son’s bedroom. But it does require some sweat equity too. Now seems a good time to wrap this up and grab a paint brush. I’ve got X’s to make, and chaos to evict.

    • French Lessons

      I’m currently learning French using Duolingo. I’ve dabbled in the language before, but dabbled is the key word: never fully committing to learning French… until now. Novice level? Oui. I’m 49 days into a streak of Duolingo French lessons, trying to spend a minimum of 20 minutes on it every day. Sure, I won’t be on the French lecture circuit anytime soon, but those 20 minutes add up over time (100 minutes or 16+ hours) and I can see progress. Repetition penetrates the dullest of minds, and slowly I see it making a difference. As with reading I catch the bug and wanted to jump into Spanish, Portuguese and German too, but I’m holding them all at bay and focusing on incremental improvement in French. You master nothing when you’re distracted by everything.

      Learning as an adult requires an open mind, patience with yourself, discipline and a good sense of humor. It’s become another part of my daily habit routine, admittedly not at the level of immersion but good enough to move forward in a busy stack of days. Duolingo is a better version of a game on your phone; some days I’m clicking right along getting everything right, some days it’s a struggle, but every day I learn something new. Perhaps I’ll book a trip to Quebec City or Paris as both incentive and reward for sticking with it if I start to slow my pace, but for now 20 minutes a day seems to be moving me along the path to fluency à la vitesse d’un escargot.

      I read the book Atomic Habits just over a year ago, and it’s remained hugely influential for me. Habit formation is either conscious or unconscious, but we all have them. I’ve removed some bad habits, unfortunately kept a few I need to separate myself from, and added some great habits that offer tremendous upside to my life. I’d count my Duolingo sessions as a great habit addition, just as reading more and writing every day have been. Novice level for sure, but I’m keeping the streak alive and we’ll see how it goes. French, un pas après l’autre….

      “L’attention est le début de la dévotion (Attention is the beginning of devotion.)” – Mary Oliver

    • It Has Potential

      Looking out the window on a brisk morning on Cape Cod. Streaks of dark clouds mix with blue sky. Faint orange hints at the possibilities of the sunrise. It doesn’t look like a 10 right now, but it’s not a bust either. This sunrise has potential.

      Isn’t that the feeling we look for in every morning? We woke up, hey that’s a 10 right there! Aches, pains, ailments and troubles subtract from the score. Broken promises, setbacks, slips of the tongue, angry drivers and blatant disregard for others subtract more. But right now, what might go wrong in the day doesn’t matter a lick. This day has potential.

      “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”—Henry David Thoreau

      It’s a lot easier to start with a 10 and work to keep it there than to wake up with a 4 with a pit in your stomach dreading the day, trying like mad to build something of it. Each day has potential, and so do we, if we’ll make something of the opportunity. So I weave together habits of reading and writing and a bit of movement and great coffee and try to keep the 10 going as long as possible. Sometimes just making it through the day is all you can hope for, and this isn’t a call for blind optimism. But it is a call for gratitude, for starting the day on a positive note and working to keep the streak alive instead of endlessly pushing uphill like Sisyphus.

      My coat is too thin to linger out in the wind chill so I cheat and look out the window at the brightening sky. The sun crested the hills and I walked across the crunchy, frosted lawn and down to the water. The sky is a light blue streaked in faint pink. Pretty, but not a 10. But I’m grateful for the opportunity to see it, and to reflect on the potential this day brings. No day is perfect, but every day can be great, or at least pretty good, and that adds up to a great life.

      “The key to a great life is simply having a bunch of great days. So you can think about it one day at a time.” – Peter Adeney

      “They say: “Think big! Have a compelling vision!” I say: Think small. Do something super cool by the end of the day!” – Peter Drucker

      There you go, start with a 10, do something super cool by the end of the day to keep it a 10 (or as close as you can get it) and string together as many great days as possible. Seems a worthy challenge, and the best opportunity to make something of this potential.