Alexandersmap

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    • Measured in Inches

      “Question yourself every day. Ask yourself: Who am I? What have I learned? What have I created? What forward progress have I made? Who have I helped? What am I doing to improve myself—today? To get better, faster, stronger, healthier, smarter?”
      ― Jocko Willink, Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual

      Nothing like a bit of Jocko to smack us back into focus now and then. But really, we ought to be accountable to ourselves every day without the assist. We are our own creation, like it or not, and who we are is based on how we react to the world when we wake up each day. Get up and get to work or stay under those comfy covers—the choice is ours.

      We’re two days from Halloween, and the sheer ubiquity of chocolate is testing my willpower. I’m a little too casual with the carbs lately too. As the weather gets cooler and the nights get longer, it’s easy to eat a bit more, sleep more, ride the couch with a snack and something to wash it down with. We are what we repeatedly do.

      Excellence, then, is a habit. It’s discipline and doing what we promised we’d do, again and again until we’ve done that thing. Sneaking Socrates quotes in is an old trick, and I know you’ve seen that one before. The point is, we can’t let up now when there’s so much more to be done. Shake it off and get to work already.

      “Nothing is going to change, unless someone does something soon.” — Dr. Seuss

      So do something. Now. Today anyway. Something that moves the chains towards the goal. Something that takes this inclination for comfort and ease and turns it into sweat equity. Discipline equals freedom from those pesky inclinations. Personal excellence, our old friend Arete, is not for the undisciplined excuse-makers. We inch towards our potential through self-accountability, rigid routines and hard work. Does that sound fun? No? That’s why it’s hard.

      The world already has plenty of people who don’t want to do much of anything. To have the audacity to dream of excellence requires more than big talk, we have to navigate the excuses that will inevitably get in the way with every step. But we know that, don’t we? So get to it already! Today is well underway, and tomorrow is too late. Progress is measured in inches, and so is comfort. The choice is ours.

    • Leaves and Plastic

      Nature’s first green is gold,
      Her hardest hue to hold.
      Her early leaf’s a flower;
      But only so an hour.
      Then leaf subsides to leaf.
      So Eden sank to grief,
      So dawn goes down to day.
      Nothing gold can stay.
      — Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay

      Each October day the carpet grows. Where once there was grass or pavement, now a fallen kaleidoscope blankets all. The neighbors, eager for pristine green and neatness, rush out with their leaf blowers and oversized mowers to whisk it all away. I will be the maverick in the neighborhood who will wait it out for the love of fallen leaves and pine straw.

      Why do we rush from one thing to the next, never seeing the season we’re in right now? Where do all of the plastic decorations go when their time is up? I believe that storage rental companies conspired with large box stores to create a fear of missing out on molded plastic skeletons and fake cobwebs. FOMO is alive and well in suburbia, just not in me. No matter: whatever Halloween plastic was tempting the masses, it’s too late, because the Christmas plastic is now on display for another week or two before the beachwear is back on the shelves. Blink and you’ll miss it, so buy today!

      Just what do we want our yards to say about us? My own says that my bride loves Halloween while her husband loves to linger with the season a beat longer than the average. In other words, minimal plastic with a touch of whimsy, and a lawn that the neighbors will scorn on a windy day. I like to share in that way. The trees were here before the neighborhood, and their leaves ought to have their moment before being blown away in a roar of machinery.

      Don’t get me wrong, I love a clever Halloween decoration as much as the next person, but everything in moderation people. Running up the credit card on plastic yard bling isn’t a recipe for a happy holiday. Those credit card bills will come due just in time for Black Friday. It’s all a vicious cycle designed to slowly kill the middle class.

      If all this feels like a rant against consumerism, well, I’m glad you’ve been following along. Late October is about that blanket of leaves frozen solid by the first hard frost, that smell of pine straw on a brisk walk in the woods, and the brilliant blue sky conceding to an explosion of stars as Orion hunts Taurus yet again. You can have the plastic—I’ll enjoy the leaves.

    • For Your Consideration

      If I could write words
      Like leaves on an autumn forest floor,
      What a bonfire my letters would make.

      If I could speak words of water,
      You would drown when I said
      “I love you.”
      — Spike Milligan, If I Could Write Words

      When I look at the number of words written and published in this blog this year, it equals the length of a long novel. Looking back over the last six years since I turned blogging from an every now and then thing to an every day thing, it translates into roughly eight novels of average length worth of words. And there are another couple of novels-worth of blog posts sitting in draft form. That, friends, is a lot of words given to the vacuum of the Internet. And here is one more for your consideration.

      All this talk of words has me wondering where they’ll lead to next. Words pull the writer along just as much as the reader—perhaps more so. Pile the words just so and you have a blog post or a poem or a novel. Which is worthy of our weight in words? We know it when we feel it. The act of creating things is a ritual of discovery.

      Just because we write a lot of words doesn’t mean that we have a lot to say. Our voice (if we’re lucky enough to be born in a free society) is our birthright, our audience is earned. We ought to experience a few things in this lifetime to pick up the pieces, glued together with our perspective, and presented to the reader to wander about with and occasionally knock down our walls. Burn it all down if you like—the words that were once mine are now those of someone I used to know.

      These words have turned into a blog post. If you’ve followed along this far, thank you. If the words and I should meet again tomorrow, I hope we will have our time together yet again. Until then?

    • As and Always

      As now can’t reveal the mystery of tomorrow
      But in passing will grow older every day
      Just as all that’s born is new
      You know what I say is true
      That I’ll be loving you always
      — Stevie Wonder, As

      I’m feeling older today with yesterday’s passing. Sore all over, mentally tired, wondering why I didn’t hire someone to put new shingles on the shed. I know the answer: Because I can do it myself. And so I pay the price and won’t complain.

      For me, As is Stevie Wonder at his creative peak. It’s been a long time since I listed favorite songs from any artist. I won’t be doing it today. I’ll simply recognize the sparkle in this gem. It was part of the soundtrack played on repeat yesterday that carried me through the challenging stages. Music lifts us in such moments.

      The thing about roofing that shed is I know if I do it right I will never do it again. In 20 or 30 years, I will not be climbing up a ladder with a handful of shingles. Like planting a tree, it’s a gift to a future I may not see. We should move through every day as if we are leaving a gift for our children’s grandchildren. For we will not always be here, but we may offer something to always.

    • Go Be Yourself

      “The amateur dreads becoming who she really is because she fears that this new person will be judged by others as “different.” The tribe will declare us “weird” or “queer” or “crazy.” The tribe will reject us. Here’s the truth: the tribe doesn’t give a shit. There is no tribe. That gang or posse that we imagine is sustaining us by the bonds we share is in fact a conglomeration of individuals who are just as fucked up as we are and just as terrified. Each individual is so caught up in his own bullshit that he doesn’t have two seconds to worry about yours or mine, or to reject or diminish us because of it. When we truly understand that the tribe doesn’t give a damn, we’re free. There is no tribe, and there never was. Our lives are entirely up to us.” — Steven Pressfield, Turning Pro

      The moment we realize that everyone is trying to figure out their own shit and not spending their one precious life wrapped up in our shit is when we finally break free and begin to live. So many go to their graves never reaching that glorious dawn. It was never about us to anyone but us. The same goes for them. It’s not selfish to focus on ourselves first, it’s survival. Put your own oxygen mask on first, then worry about the kids.

      This awareness doesn’t turn us into jaded, lost and supremely selfish souls—it’s a superpower. When we learn to help enough people get what they want and need, we earn what we want and need too. Learn to scale this and we’re on our way to exponential growth.

      So stop waiting for permission already! Go do that thing that burns within but is slowly suffocating for lack of space to breathe and grow. That’s why I write every single day, usually before my first cup of coffee is finished. It’s not because I believe that you, dear reader, are desperate to hear what I have to say, but simply to stoke the fire. When it warms a soul or two beyond my own, then I’ve added something positive to a cold and indifferent world. Want to draw attention? Go be yourself.

    • Old Riddles and New Creeds

      After one moment when I bowed my head
      And the whole world turned over and came upright,
      And I came out where the old road shone white.
      I walked the ways and heard what all men said,
      Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
      Being not unlovable but strange and light;
      Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
      But softly, as men smile about the dead

      The sages have a hundred maps to give
      That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
      They rattle reason out through many a sieve
      That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
      And all these things are less than dust to me
      Because my name is Lazarus and I live.
      — G.K. Chesterton, The Convert

      Chesterton famously converted to Christianity when he was 48. The fame came with his zealous endorsement of the Catholic faith in his writing. The poem above is one example of that, indicating his joy at being born again. He passed away at 62, which seems really young now, but a full life in 1934 when his whole world turned over and came upright.

      Now I’m not especially religious, but I fancy myself a spiritual being on a quest for experience, knowledge and enlightenment. This blog is a ship’s log of sorts, showing where my journey has taken me thus far. I’d like to think I’ve come a long way. I’d like to think there are many pages left to write. ’tis not for us to know such things, only to do what we can with today’s entry.

      I’ve come to value the sands of time more than gold, and the wisdom of voices who have crossed the threshold. The young seek shortcuts to influence and wealth, the old seek solace in a life of connection and comfort. I’m somewhere in between, learning what I will, sharing what I feel s’éclairer. This is our age of discovery, friend, for we are here, now and alive. Picking up what we can in our time even as it falls away.

    • Never Mind

      For every ailment under the sun
      There is a remedy, or there is none;
      If there be one, try to find it;
      If there be none, never mind it.
      — W.W. Bartley

      Life piles on some days. Some things demand our full attention. Mostly though, we choose what to burden ourselves with and what to release from our shoulders. Developing a mind focused on what we can control is the path to some measure of serenity in a chaotic world.

      “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” — Reinhold Niebuhr, The Serenity Prayer

      I’m not the first to associate the Bartley poem with the Niebuhr sermon—you can find it right on Wikipedia if you like. I share them both here because they dance well together, and who doesn’t love a beautiful dance? Both offer timeless wisdom, yet each originated within the last hundred years.

      It helps to find something that will remind us that we must pause and assess all that washes over us, if only for a beat, and choose how to react. Some things we must endure. Some things we can work to change. But there are some things that we should never mind at all, for they aren’t ours to carry.

    • If We Choose To

      Do you want to know the truth about yourself? Hold a forearm plank for as long as you can and your abdominal muscles will offer you all the truth you can handle. The truth is right in front of us when we dare to notice it. Getting fit is harder than staying fit, but staying fit is a matter of making harder choices over easier options.

      For what it’s worth, I’m far more fit than I was on my last birthday. I hope when I arrive at my next birthday to be far more fit than I currently am. Call it a birthday gift to myself. Fitness is itself worthy of pursuit, if only to improve the quality and perhaps duration of our time while we’re alive. When we’re fit we become more alert, with more energy, and we feel better about ourselves when the favorite jeans slide on easily. Doesn’t that just brighten up a day?

      There’s another key benefit to consistently choosing harder over easier. When we do what we say we’re going to do, we learn to trust ourselves. Our promises aren’t empty. It counts for a lot in a world increasingly jaded and skeptical when we can look in the mirror and trust the character looking back at us.

      It’s evident that consistent and challenging workouts will move us to a healthier body. We could apply this knowledge to other pursuits like reading, writing or learning about something that will open doors for us in our career. Imagine the shine on that kitchen floor if we’d simply take the harder path and mop it regularly.

      We ought to do hard things, because hard things move us to a meaningfully better place. Easy things feel comfortable but aren’t moving us in the direction we want to go in. Pay the piper now or surely we’ll pay later. We learn that personal excellence is forever evasive, but always within our power to strive towards. If we choose to, anyway.

    • The Stuff We Write

      Boldly I dip it in the well,
      My writing flows, and all
      I try succeeds. Of course, the spatter
      Of this tormented night
      Is quite illegible. No matter:
      Who reads the stuff I write?
      — Friedrich Nietzche, “Ecce homo”, The Gay Science

      For all the perceived sternness of Nietzche, there’s a funny, charming character hiding within. It was said that he was an introvert and lonely. When compared to whom? The world is full of introverts. That many of them are creative, deep thinkers is no surprise. The trick is to find an audience worthy of the work. Right. Try to tell an introvert that they must reach beyond themselves to find an audience and watch how quickly they backpedal away from you. Yet Nietzche did it. What of us?

      We’re all introverts in some way or another. We all may be extroverted when we let our guard down and step into the role. It’s something you get used to over time. Introverts are great in conversation because they listen to what is being said to them instead of simply waiting for us to shut up so that they can speak again. There’s nothing more grating than a conversation with someone who won’t simply listen and absorb what we’re trying to say before responding. Two ears, one mouth is the rule: we must listen more than speak.

      Now clearly, I have a lot to say myself. I mean, I write this blog every day, often repeating myself in my zeal to live a worthy life. But writing doesn’t happen in a vacuum, we must digest to produce. Ah, produce what? Garbage in, garbage out? To simply put content out for clicks may raise our number of views, but is it moving us closer to who we aspire to become? Is it helping others find a path towards their own personal excellence? Just why are we burning our precious time creating content anyway?

      “Be so good they can’t ignore you” — Steve Martin

      Knowing why we do anything offers clarity of purpose. The stuff we write may not solve the world’s problems, but it offers a hint at who we were in the moment, for anyone that cares to find out. That includes the writer, of course. Who were we today? How does this step connect to all that will follow? Does it lead to an ascent or a spiral? Time will tell. It matters, if only to us, but maybe also to a reader this one time. Still here, figuring it all out, together. If what we produce is good enough, it will resonate. Steve Martin is another introvert who broke through.

      The root of the world’s problems is that we’re not inclined to listen and understand each other as much as we ought to. When we’re all screaming at and over each other we aren’t listening or finding creative answers to those compounding problems. The world needs more creative introverts stepping out from the shadows and finding ways to connect us all together. What binds us? Step outside of that shell and share some of that. The only place to grow is outside of who we already are.

    • Applied Focus

      “Is it interesting or important?” — Mike Vrabel, New England Patriots Head Coach

      After a couple of days away from home, the cat is especially expressive, meowing relentlessly for attention. Attention given, she is quiet for a few seconds, then begins again. There’s no creative space for writing with a cat meowing for your full attention. But that doesn’t matter, does it? This is the time to write, and so the writing happens anyway.

      The world doesn’t care if we want to focus.

      Is it interesting that the Louvre was just robbed in 7 minutes? Yes, because the robbers changed the game by shortening the time between detection and response, which will impact security globally. When you think about things like security for a living, that fact is more than interesting, but important. It’s too soon for all the answers, but finding more effective ways to detect, delay and respond to future threats is what security professionals will focus on next, even as others search for the robbers from this event. It’s a tragic development for art lovers either way, both for the loss and for the potential restrictions to access it may create in an attempt to mitigate the impact of future threats.

      Interesting will distract us all day if we let it.

      Applying focus is how we take charge of our days. After giving attention, and food to the cat, she’s still inclined to meow into my creative space. Noise-cancelling headphones playing Mark Knopfler’s Wild Theme on repeat will allow me to finish this blog post, and then pay attention to the cat again. What’s important to her is not necessarily important to me in this moment. The dog, bless her, gives me precious presence but also space to think.

      We become what we focus on the most.

      How do we win the day? One small win at a time. The pets deserve some attention first thing in the morning, but after that, our priorities deserve a little attention too. What are the important tasks that must be focused on to make today successful? What can we do to enhance our ability to accomplish these tasks? Interesting steals from important every day. It’s up to us to focus on the right thing, right now.

      So focus on the important at the expense of interesting.