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    • A Garden Monk Sips Coffee

      A monk sips morning tea,
      it’s quiet,
      the chrysanthemum’s flowering.
      — Matsuo Bashō

      The mornings are chilly again, and unlike Bashō’s poem, full of the sounds of squirrels gathering food and bickering about who gets what. The water is warmer than the air, for the sun is reluctant to stick around so long nowadays. The seasons are flipping, just as surely as the hickory nuts are falling.

      I think about the fall cleanup and shudder. Is it the chill in the air or the thought of forced labor to come? We dream of autumn for all its beauty, for the crisp air and the scent of fallen leaves. We forget about the work. We pay penance for the pleasure.

      I promised myself I’d drink more tea this summer. I planned to use more of the mint spilling out of its terra cotta pot in an attempt to displace the basil in the neighboring pot. Yet the drink of choice is most often coffee. Does coffee nullify my monk inclinations, or does the ritual matter more? Ask the flowers—for they’ve quietly observed all summer.

      For all the changes, some things remain the same.

    • Action and Contemplation

      “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who are alive.” — Howard Thurman

      Most people remain too busy to worry about such things as coming alive. They’re too busy getting things done. Bills to pay, a calendar full of meetings, chores to do, calls to make… it’s all too much, really, to be thinking about things like doing something more than this.

      I wonder, who is more alive, a monk living in seclusion and contemplating the big questions or a business tycoon living their answer to a different set of questions? Are humans built for thinking or for action? Most people would point to the latter, for the modern world and our very resilience was built on action: overcoming enemies and disease and solving the riddles of science and technology to arrive right here at this extraordinary moment in time (!).

      But who do we seek out for answers? It’s the poets and philosophers and deep thinkers who seclude themselves from the madness and settle down with the questions everyone else is too busy to answer. The wisdom of the ages was derived from contemplation. So can’t we make a solid case for the monk?

      The world needs both, of course. Action and contemplation are each essential elements for the progress of humanity. Yet each can be a form of procrastination and avoidance. It’s fair to ask ourselves which path is right for us, but we can’t get so caught up in the question that we don’t go anywhere. The world is already full of people who never come alive. Ultimately, we must stop wrestling with questions and seek our own answer.

      So is it ready, aim, fire or ready, fire, aim? The order isn’t always as important as the balance between the two. Running around in circles is just as pointless as sitting there thinking about what you’re going to do without ever actually taking a step. Action and contemplation lead us to vibrancy together. We can’t know what makes us alive without each.

      As Thurman says, ask, but then do.

    • Brand Awareness

      “To me marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world. It’s a very noisy world. And we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us—no company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us… But even a great brand needs investments and caring if it’s going to retain its relevance and vitality, and the Apple brand has clearly suffered from neglect in this area in the last few years. And we need to bring it back. The way to do that is not to talk about speeds and feeds. It’s not to talk about bits and megahertz. It’s not to talk about how we’re better than Windows…
      The question we asked was, ‘Our customers want to know, who is Apple and what is it that we stand for? Where do we fit in this world?’ What we’re about isn’t making boxes for people to get their jobs done—although we do that well. We do that better than almost anybody, in some cases. But Apple is about something more than that. Apple, at the core, its core value, is that we believe people with passion can change the world for the better. That’s what we believe. And we have the opportunity to work with people like that. We’ve had the opportunity to work with people like you. With software developers, with customers who have done it in some big and in some small ways. And we believe that, in this world, people can change it for the better. And that those people who are crazy enough to believe that they can change the world for the better are the ones that actually do.” — Steve Jobs, speech at the release of the ‘Think Differently’ advertisement

      The speech is in low resolution. The transcript is inaccurate in some places (I’ve tried to correct it here). But Steve Jobs words shine through this grainy time machine like a beacon. When he plays the ad, viewed from the lens of time, you see that he was and would always be one of the crazy ones, one of the misfits, rebels and troublemakers. And we celebrate Jobs today for what he created, even as we recognize he was never perfect. But who is?

      Even a great brand need investments and caring if it’s going to retain its relevance and vitality… this is true whether we’re looking at our company, our country, and certainly, ourselves. Jobs points the way with the question, “where do we fit in this world?”. It’s a question we ought to wrestle with in our own lives, in quiet places when the day is ripe with possibility. For in the quiet moments we’re best prepared to answer such questions.

      And we ought to answer boldly. Our brand—our identity—isn’t something to trivialize. It ought to give us goosebumps just to think of it. And it must be more than words. For we are what we work consistently towards. We are the sum of our lifetime contribution. But really, we are the next five minutes.

      We’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us…. no person is. Our brand ought to be remarkable and memorable for all the right reasons. We can’t control who pays attention, but we can control just how compelling our story is when the world stumbles upon us. Compelling begins with how we view our own contribution. Our identity—our brand—is ours to shape and mold, honed by life but envisioned and realized by the intangible force deep inside of us. We ought to craft something remarkable and memorable.

      For this moment is our own time machine, isn’t it? What will we remember of ourselves in this five minutes of boldness or timidity? We aren’t what we think we are, we are what we do! Just what is our brand?

    • Wednesdays Reveal Our Roots

      Wednesday is called hump day because once you clear it you’re over the hump of the week and it’s all downhill to the weekend. When you’ve worked in a job that makes you count down the hours until the weekend, you appreciate the jobs where you forget which day it is altogether. But doesn’t that make you wonder, if we’re all here for such a short time, why exactly would we spend so much time doing work that make us wish the time away?

      There’s work that puts food on the table and work that is transformative. If we’re really lucky they’re one and the same. Most transformation is earned over time and hard to see while we’re doing it. Hindsight makes that job we hated seem more worthwhile when we see where it led us in our career, skills that proved more useful than we originally thought, and especially, who we met in the trenches who helped us later on. For the network is everything in a career, and the sooner we develop deep roots the faster we’ll grow.

      We learn that most roots aren’t all that deep. Most are shallow connections that don’t nurture us, just as we aren’t nurturing them. LinkedIn connections are 90% shallow connections and 10% deep and meaningful. We collect thousands of connections in our careers—how many know the names of our spouse and children, or what we did to stay sane during the pandemic?

      Still, even shallow roots help keep us upright most of the time. When times are good anyway. We play the game when the sun is shining and hunker down when it rains. It takes stormy days in our career to find where our deepest roots lie. When there’s a recession or a layoff and careers are being uprooted all around us, it’s the deep roots that keep us standing. They can also help us replant ourselves when everything goes badly in that one dark storm.

      The very best thing about establishing deep roots is being there to help anchor others during their growth spurts or in their own time of need. There’s natural reciprocation in deep roots, and the bond strengthen both ways. It’s always better to take the initiative in helping others, for roots intuitively know where to find nourishment just as they know where the dead ends are. How we feel about Wednesdays might be one indicator of the health of our root system.

      When we establish such deep roots, we don’t think about things like hump day much at all, we think about contribution and collaboration, and we think about growth. Our lives, and certainly our careers, will fly by before we know it. What will it mean in the end? Generally, through good jobs and bad, shallow roots and deep, it comes down to what we put into it.

    • Choices and Changes

      “Every breath I take is a new me.” — Gautama Buddha

      “Life happens between an inhale and an exhale.” – from a random Dove chocolate wrapper

      Each of us changes. We aren’t who we were yesterday, nor will we be the same person tomorrow that will surely react and adapt to the influences of today. We must own our actions, but we must also recognize that the person who did the things we once did isn’t who we are now. Simple, right?

      Not when those around you treat you as the character you once were. How many co-workers put you in a bucket based on the role you had when you walked in the door the first time? How many reunions turn into stories of things you did way back when, with scant focus on who you are now? How many family events center on old nicknames and stories of the past?

      Here’s the twist: What if we too are treating people based on the characters they used to be instead of who they are now? Doesn’t it seem more appropriate to learn who they are in this moment? The trick to engagement with any other soul is seeking first to understand, and then to be understood (Covey). Every moment counts, and progress requires our immediate attention!

      We aren’t who we once were, but who we once were helped form our current identity. Personally, I’m grateful I’m not who I was at 18 or 30. Sure, there were some redeeming qualities in that character, but I prefer the new me, even if I don’t showcase the abs I had at 22 (too much chocolate?). The moment-to-moment choices we made between then and now brought us here. The moment-to-moment choices we make from now into our unknown future will surely determine who we’ll be then. So make good choices in this breath and the next.

      Like the chocolate wrapper reminds, life is happening one way or the other now. Just look at how much we’ve changed already. Imagine where the next breath might take us should we use it wisely.

    • Building Upon the Dream

      “Qué lindo es soñar despierto, he says. How lovely it is to dream while you are awake. Dream while you’re awake Andre. Anybody can dream while they’re asleep, but you need to dream all the time, and say your dreams out loud, and believe in them.” — Andre Agassi, quoting Gil Reyes, Open: An Autobiography

      I detected movement in the pool, a light ripple that telegraphed swimming. Walking over to see what was generating the ripple, I saw a mouse treading water while desperately trying to find a way out of the pool. Isn’t it funny that the very thing I might attempt to kill if it were in my home is something I immediately set about rescuing when I found it floundering in deep water? We can’t possibly kill something that so desperately wants to be alive, and go to great lengths to save it.

      But what of our dreams?

      Qué lindo es soñar despierto… How nice it is to daydream. For in dreams we find ourselves. And begin to believe you might just reach them. Which is exactly what Thoreau pointed out to us:

      “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Dreaming is the necessary first step, but too many forget to build upon the dream. The foundation is the required next step in the process of getting there. We’ve all neglected this next step a few times in our own lives—for the dreaming is easy, while the building is hard. But build we must to get where we dream of going.

      Have you seen The Secret Life of Walter Mitty? It’s a frustrating, tedious movie when Walter is daydreaming all the time. It becomes compelling when he finally acts. The message is clear: We must wake up from our daydream and act upon it to reach excellence.

      We can’t let our dreams flounder and drown. Act! While there’s still time! For we can’t tread forever.

    • To Grow and Know

      “With each encounter with truth one draws nearer to reaching communion with it.” — Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

      What resonates? Doesn’t it change moment-to-moment as we ourselves change? As the world offers lessons, from subtle and brutal? Just what is our truth, our first principle?

      We try to arrive by sorting. We must process the world as it comes to us, and indeed, encounter the things that challenge our worldview. Assumptions and beliefs fall aside for the willing truth seeker. We must find and embrace each encounter for all that it offers us. Like the body adapting to exercise, the stronger mind is capable of handling even more challenges. Each challenge in turn makes us stronger (if we don’t let them destroy us).

      The truth is, we are alone on this journey. Surely friends and family offer support, mentors guidance, and those who came before us breadcrumbs to follow (or ignore), but this is our vision quest. We follow the winding path and see the changes in ourselves as we climb.

      She has seen me changing
      It ain’t easy rearranging
      And it gets harder as you get older
      Farther away as you get closer
      And I don’t know the answer
      Does it even matter?
      I’m wonderin’ how
      — Crosby, Stills & Nash, See the Changes

      We ought to leave our own breadcrumbs. For the conversation to continue with those we love, and those we’ll never meet, we must draw from ourselves and leave it for the world to accept or ignore. It’s not ours to choose, but when we suck the marrow out of life and gleen the wisdom of the ages our voice becomes more compelling.

      We won’t ever fully arrive at the truth. We might accomplish some noteworthy things, reach conclusions that resonate, grow closer than we ever thought possible to certain people while remaining dissatisfied and chagrined at the ones that got away… but we never will fully arrive. Still, we ought to be satisfied in the end that we gave it a go to grow and know. And to celebrate the journey wherever it leads us.

    • August Signals

      Black-eyed Susan’s once again dominate, staking a claim on more of the garden every year if you let them. I mostly let them. They remind me of conversations with a favorite gardener who’s moved on, which means they’ll forever receive favorable treatment in my garden.

      Crickets receive no such favorable treatment, but we peacefully coexist nonetheless. They play the soundtrack of August. Most of the year we hardly give crickets a thought, until they begin playing their persistent song from mid-summer to mid-autumn. Thousands of musicians announcing “We’re here, if only so very briefly.” Is there anything more stoic than a cricket?

      The gardener senses the seasons. No calendar is required. The days grow shorter even as the heat continues. For these are the dog days of August, marked by black-eyed Susan’s dancing to the persistent tune of an orchestra of crickets.

    • Every Day Has Something

      Everything that was broken has
      forgotten its brokenness. I live
      now in a sky-house, through every
      window the sun. Also your presence.
      Our touching, our stories. Earthy
      and holy both. How can this be, but
      it is. Every day has something in
      it whose name is Forever.
      — Mary Oliver, Everything That Was Broken

      Nobody said life was supposed to be a happily ever after greatest hits package of days to remember. Yet even the most tedious, frustratingly mundane days offers a gift of timelessness. We only have this one, no matter how it goes, and ought to celebrate the smallest sparkle of light just as we celebrate the highlight reel moments that come along, however so infrequently.

      The artists, poets and some not-always-so-poetic blog writers share one thing in common; an appreciation for the moment at hand. For every day has something to offer, should we go looking for it. Every moment offers a gift of possibility. What will forever look like today?

    • Making Room

      Things!
      Burn them, burn them! Make a beautiful
      fire! More room in your heart for love,
      for the trees! For the birds who own
      nothing—the reason they can fly.
      — Mary Oliver, Storage

      We talk of downsizing. Simplifying. Getting rid of stuff that doesn’t matter in favor of that which matters very much: Elbow room for the body and soul.

      Leaving the anchor behind and setting course for adventure! Clearing the runway and lightening the load! Surely there’s liberation in releasing the weight of years of accumulation: stuff, beliefs and biases, people trying to hold you to what you once were.

      What do we cling to that is holding us back from soaring?