Alexandersmap

    Month: June 2025

    • The Other Path

      “One of the biggest mistakes people make in their careers is to treat work primarily as a means to an end. Maybe this is what you have done throughout your career up to this point. If so, you have done what so many do on their fluid intelligence curves—have learned that’s a mistake and decided it’s time to stop. Whether that end is money, power, or prestige, the instrumentalization of work leads to unhappiness.” — Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength

      We’ve all got to pay the bills, line up health insurance, and be productive at something in our lives, but we ought to be careful about the path we choose to get there. Slogging through years in a career that we don’t like, working for people we’d just as soon not be associated with, for money, power or prestige is a recipe for an unhappy, unfulfilling life. We all think we see a light at the end of the tunnel when we’re in these types of pursuits, only to find the tunnel opens up to a sheer cliff. This is our only go at things, so why do things that don’t resonate deeply within?

      The other path is doing work for the joy of doing the work. It’s not a means to an end but the path itself that we find meaning in. We aren’t all lucky enough to find ourselves on that path for our entire career, but we ought to have it on our radar. Having switched career paths a few times in my life, I usually felt a sense of excitement akin to a first date: this could be the one. Alas, it was usually the one for now and would soon run it’s course. Life offers all kinds of stepping stones, and inevitably showing up every day, building a network and a reputation leads to growth opportunities.

      Every day is a winding road
      I get a little bit closer
      Every day is a faded sign
      I get a little bit closer to feeling fine
      — Sheryl Crow, Everyday Is A Winding Road

      At this stage in my career, I’m more inclined to do interesting work than worry about money, power or prestige. There’s something liberating in that realization. And it leads me towards more creative pursuits, where perhaps I should have been all along. How about you? Every day is a winding road, as the song goes. A great life begins with making that winding road interesting to travel, for we won’t pass this way again.

    • Giving Up the Good

      “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” — John D. Rockefeller

      We reach a point where we get comfortable with what we’ve got. What we’ve done to this point feels like enough. Maybe we’ve done our share and now it’s time to take a break. But comfortable is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, hiding inertia and stasis. We all know that stagnant water isn’t good for us. Do we forget that we’re 60-70% water ourselves? We must move to survive.

      But move where? To be a Jack of all trades is to master none. We ought to focus on something meaningful in our lives, if only to move closer towards mastery in that craft. So if the course we’ve set for ourselves doesn’t feel like the right path, change paths. We know change is disruptive to our routine, but since when is the routine the goal of a fully optimized life? A bit of discomfort is good for us, for that’s how we grow.

      By now regular readers know what’s coming with this blogger well before I come out and say it. There will be more change in my future this year, if only to challenge the borders of that comfort zone. The changes have already begun, and there’s so much more to do. If not now, then when? Great is somewhere up and to the right from here. Will we do what must be done to get there? The trick is to ditch good to have a go at great.

    • Doing Something Different

      “You can’t put limits on what you’ll do. You have to be open to new ideas and new ways of doing things if you want breakthroughs in your life. As you travel the path of mastery you’ll find yourself continually challenged to do new things. The Purposeful person follows the simple rule that ‘a different result requires doing something different.’ Make this your mantra and breakthroughs become possible.
      Too many people reach a level where their performance is ‘good enough’ and then stop working on getting better. People on the path to mastery avoid this by continually upping their goal, challenging themselves to break through their current ceiling, and staying the forever apprentice” — Gary Keller, The One Thing

      This will surprise a few people in my life, but I’ve paused my alcohol consumption for a couple of months as part of a change in my daily regimen. Admittedly, summer is an odd time to put a pause on drinking, when the spirits flow as free as the warm vibes, but then again, what better time than now for anything we want to try? So I’ve paused drinking for June and July, with a clear date in mind in August when I’ll likely be having a few celebratory beverages. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

      I’m a strong believer in not saying what you’re going to do, but simply demonstrating who you are by doing it. My last drink was four days ago, and despite ample opportunity to indulge since, I’ve stayed on track. We’ll see how I do when the sailing friends return, but by then I’ll have a little wind in my own sails. But why stop instead of moderate? Because I’m not pausing the alcohol consumption because I feel I have a problem with it, but to demonstrate to myself that I’m steering this ship.

      I’ve also changed a few other things that don’t get the attention that alcohol does. The reason is to pursue a desired health level that hasn’t been achieved through the average of my days in the last few years. We are what we repeatedly do, as our friend Aristotle reminds us, and thus excellence is a habit. What we do now is the foundation for who we’ll be then, and my foundation needed a bit of strengthening. Our lives are forever about the paying the price of admission: Pay me now or pay me later. Our good health must be payed in advanced.

      The bottom line is that I’m not satisfied with good enough, and so more is required of me. Because a different result requires doing something different, and when is there a better time than now to give it a go? Not drinking for a couple of months is the tip of the spear, with other lifestyle changes behind it. So pass the ice water, I’ve grown a bit parched. The path to personal excellence demands a lot of us, which is why so many never get around to it.

    • Improve, Correct and Change

      “Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out. Time is limited. Focus on that which you can improve, correct, or change. Ignore what you can’t control.” — John Wooden

      We have a way of cramming more things into our days in our culture of growth and achievement. This can lead to some exhausting days, over and over again, until we collapse at whatever finish line we perceive is the end. Maybe that’s a nightcap when we get home, or sinking into the couch binge-watching some version of apocalyptic programming, or heading to the bars on Friday night—or maybe Thursday night. Whatever flips off the switch for a few blessed moments. It’s a slipperly slope of finish line focus.

      There is no finish line until one day we’re finished. We must build a life of meaning and productive purpose that isn’t measured by when we get to stop. What kind of life is that? The better objective is to fill our days with the things that matter most while the unimportant drifts away without the opportunity to land on our shoulders. Easier said than done. But it often comes down to what we say yes or no to. Learning to ignore what we can’t control is the key to a successful, happy life.

      I write this as a reminder to myself. Because more than just focusing on what we can control, we must choose what is within our control that will make the most meaningful change in our lives. Prioritization is thus the key. Which reminds me of the old Stephen Covey lesson about doing first things first: we must fill our days with the big things first, and let all the rest fill in after. To do the opposite means that our big things never get done.

      All that said, I’ve committed to a couple of changes in my daily routine this summer. It means the writing begins a little later than it was before so that I may complete a workout and read some non-fiction before I write. At this point in the game, the habit of writing is set, but the workouts tend to drift into a quick walk with the pup before bedtime if I don’t prioritize it first. I can’t control how the day will go, but I can best influence the way I begin it.

      When we seek to improve, correct and change what is within our control, while putting first things first, we sprinkle purpose into our days. Each day thus becomes a stepping stone towards a higher standard of living. To get closer to arete (personal excellence) requires consistent, focused effort on the right things. Today and always.

    • The Hardest Stroke

      “The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom.” ― James Clear, Atomic Habits

      In rowing, 2000 meters for time is the standard identity test. Instead of asking, “What do you do for a living?” the question amongst rowers passion level is, “What was your time?” Meaning, how long did it take you to row 2000 meters. It’s a way of quickly gauging how one person’s personal best stacks up against another’s. And outside of a competitive athletic event it doesn’t mean a damned thing beyond ego stroking.

      Most of us move on from that level of intensity after college and perhaps a little club rowing. Some keep at it for life. For me, rowing is that habit I fall into and back out of again and again. One moment I’m building a streak of days and watching my splits come down to respectable levels, the next moment I look back and realize it’s been months since I sat on an erg.

      And once again I’m getting reacquainted with the erg. I began rowing again, beginning with my least favorite workout; 10,000 meters. Why begin with one’s least favorite? Isn’t that a recipe for failure? Sure, I could have done intervals, which break up the monotony and lend urgency to every stroke. I might have hopped on the bicycle and ridden one of my favorite loops while the weather was nice. Or I might have taken the pup for a long walk on the rail trail, but each of those are workouts that help me avoid the one I’d been dreading. We must face our demons, and mine is an extended stay on a rowing ergometer that doesn’t care a lick how long it’s been since I last used it.

      We are either reinforcing our desired habits or straying away from them. Long steady-state rows can get a bit tedious. They can also be pretty uncomfortable when you aren’t conditioned for them. The trick is to push through those feelings and finish anyway. The time doesn’t matter, but finishing what we told ourselves to start matters a great deal. We are building a life-long system of health and fitness, and it always begins with following through on that next promise we make to ourselves to do what we said we were going to do.

    • The Ecstasy

      “There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.
      This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad in a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight.”
      — Jack London, The Call of the Wild

      I witnessed the ecstasy on the face of a two year old mutt with mascara eyes turned shrewd hunter. My carefully-planted garden was no match for the hunter, nor was the fence—designed to keep rabbits out but not the chipmunks, and not the joyful leap of youthful hunter, straining after the food that was alive. And so I scolded her without success. I barred entry only to have her run to the other side. And finally I brought her in, if only as a reprieve until the fence could be raised.

      The ecstasy isn’t something we’re aware of nearly enough when we’re riding that high. When we’re in peak form it feels like it will always will be so, if we ponder such things at all. Nowadays I hunt for moments in the zone, where I may perform at my personal peak, striving for arete even as I understand how evasive that level of personal excellence will always be. The writing offers a taste of that hunter’s zeal, and sometimes work offers it too. And I realized, placing fence pieces atop the garden fence between paragraphs of a blog post, that the garden has offered its own version of complete forgetfulness. At least before it was shredded by youthful vigor.

    • A Change of Mugs

      “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” — Dr. Seuss

      My time with a favorite mug ended this morning when it slipped from my hand and broke into pieces. In the big scheme of things, a broken mug isn’t such a terrible thing, but it felt like it in the moment. I cleaned up the broken bits and went to another mug, as one might expect one to do, but with a sense of loss for something familiar and trusted now no longer part of my life. And sure, it was just a mug.

      We go through life accumulating things, and losing things, and then replacing them with something new. A new appliance becomes an old appliance, a new car quickly depreciates into an old car, and so on through this life we build for ourselves. Loss happens as surely as gain does, and all we may do is smile at the memories made while we had something or someone in our lives.

      We are in our own life cycle, moving through days as if there will always be another one. When something happens to break that illusion, we may use the lesson to apply more focus and urgency to the day, or maybe use that awareness to simply savor the time we have in the now. We’ll never get this one back again, and we can’t let that realization break us. We may instead be grateful for this opportunity to be more alive while there’s time for such things.

    • Confessions of Character

      “People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

      If you ever want to have hope for the future, go to a local school’s scholarship awards night and listen to what the bright rising students are bringing to the world. While the rest of the world complains about how unfair life is to them, there are amazing people doing things well beyond the ordinary. Don’t tell me about “kids these days“: go do something that challenges that perspective.

      The thing about witnessing the exceptional rise up to meet their moment is that some of the light from that spotlight casts upon the audience as well. We are no longer quietly in the dark, locked into our view of the world and our place in it. We may choose to rise to meet our own moment, or to simply back away into the shadows. But in that calculus, remember that this is our moment of agency. No matter what the state of the world, do or do not has always been our decision to make.

      It’s always been this way—can we see it yet? Our character is revealed in everything we do, and in everything we don’t do. We are meant to do far more than we have thus far. We may take heed of those who lead us into a bright future and consider rising to meet the moment ourselves with vigor, delight and wonder. Surely the world could use our contribution.

    • Beyond the Bro’s

      “I don’t want you to wake up at sixty-five and realize, ‘I spend forty of my best years doing something that just funded my life.” ― Jon Acuff

      I sat through a company meeting where the leadership team discussed the benefits of this new-fangled Artificial Intelligence thing to serve as an editor for the basic writing skills of people writing proposals. It confirmed what I’d come to believe: I’m working for yet another bunch of bro’s trying to figure shit out as they go. Damn. So once again the next move is mine.

      We move through life with things on our mind. Each stage of our development tends to be focused on one thing or another. If we’re brought up a certain way, we tend to think of others first. If we’re brought up a different way, we take care of our own needs first. At some point, we look around and realize that the time we thought we had has flown by and we’d better get focused on whatever our own version of personal excellence is before that opportunity is gone forever.

      I started writing a blog to fill a gap in my life that wasn’t being filled working for bro’s trying to figure shit out as they went. Writing a blog to fill a gap isn’t unusual, but there are other reasons. Some folks blog for self-marketing or to create content for their business or maybe worst of all, to serve some awful scheme to have <gulp> influence. Goodness, that’s an illusion best shed quickly so that one may get down the real work in blogging—discovery.

      We write for the same reasons we travel and read and talk to strangers: to discover some truth that was previously hidden from us. And maybe to share it with others inclined to wait for us to catch up. We write to learn how to write better, and not simply to have some AI editor toss out a bland but acceptable proposal. To move through life with the aim of being bro-approved is a version of hell I don’t wish on anyone. We must get past that stage of life if we ever hope to transcend the same old shit. Try a little discovery on for size and see what’s possible beyond the bro’s.

    • A Day of Vigor

      A wise man will know what game to play to-day, and play it. We must not be governed by rigid rules, as by the almanac, but let the season rule us. The moods and thoughts of man are revolving just as steadily and incessantly as nature’s. Nothing must be postponed. Take time by the forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Take any other course, and life will be a succession of regrets. There is no world for the penitent and regretful.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      As this is published, we’ve reached the sixth month of a pretty crazy year. Tempus fugit: time flies. We’ve learned that many things are out of our control. So what? What have we done with that which we do control? We know the score when we look in the mirror. But this is no time for regret or doubt about the future, for today is the start of something new. Every day is supposed to be, isn’t it? We can only do our best with this one.

      I’ve used Thoreau’s quote three times now in the blog. Each time I’ve been a different person, having accomplished something substantive or facing different challenges that made me who I was in the moment. We are all different with each passing day in our lives. As Heraclitus once observed, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

      Life changes us, but we in turn may change the circumstances of our lives. We must get after our dream today or release it from our vision of the person we wish to become. Our work must begin today, and always thereafter. We aren’t meant to be feeble in our one chance. It isn’t going to get any easier, so instead we must grow tougher. Bolder. More vigorous. For doesn’t today deserve more vigor than we gave yesterday?