Alexandersmap

    Month: October 2026

    • That Dreadful Routine

      “One travels to run away from routine, that dreadful routine that kills all imagination and all our capacity for enthusiasm.”— Ella Maillart

      Two years ago I chose to step away from business travel. I occasionally feel a pang of loss when a trade show in a city I love to visit comes up and I’m not there, but on the whole, I’ve enjoyed the tradeoff of dining with my bride every night and walking the dog with the stars and not-so-distant howl of coyotes for company.

      This week I met with several people who still live the life I walked away from two years ago. It’s reminded me of the old routine, and I find I don’t miss it much at all. Those early morning trips to the airport to make a flight to make a meeting in some faraway place gets old after a couple of decades of doing it.

      The fullness of our lives is in direct proportion to the creativity of our routines. The more we habituate adventure into our days, the more adventurous our lives. Likewise, the more we travel or venture out to meet other people, the more integral a part of the world we will be. We are what we repeatedly do, after all.

      Still, the travel bug never went away, it was simply channeled into travel with people I care about in places I wanted to go. The routine changed to meet new priorities. The routine will change again, no doubt, as I look to the future. We all ought to scrutinize our routines now and then to determine if it’s become a little, well, routine. And then decide what to be and go be it.

    • October Initium

      My life a spreading ring
      of quiet, like the trout’s brief
      in-breath
      at the surface of a river,
      like the slow
      outward movement of a raindrop
      spreading on a still lake.
      — David Whyte, Death Waits

      Initium is the Latin word from which initiate is derived. It simply means a beginning. Today is the first day of October, which seems an appropriate day to begin something beyond a new month. We don’t have to wait for New Year’s Day for such things as life change, we simply need to decide to begin.

      What is a great life but the steady expansion of personal experience? We are collectors of days, filled with that which enriches us. To leave a day empty feels wasteful. Do something with the gift, or squander it. We rise each day facing the same choice.

      Initiative is only the beginning. We must act upon it. On this first day of October, seize what flees. Carpe diem.