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    • 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?

    • Following the Rhode Island to Bermuda Thread

      We stayed on St. David’s Island this week while we were in Bermuda. It wasn’t a conscious choice to stay there, but I’m pleased we did, for otherwise I don’t believe we would have gotten there on this particular trip. When I speak of conscious choices, I want to acknowledge that unconsciously I knew the connection between New England and Bermuda. In particular, between Rhode Island and St. David’s Island. Not simply the famous sailing race, but the historic slave trade. Bermuda was the destination for many of those “problematic” Native Americans who were being crowded out by waves of settlers changing the landscape of North America.

      One generation after the Pilgrims were saved in their first brutal winter in Plymouth, their saviors’ offspring were fighting for survival in what became known as King Philip’s War (1675-1676). King Philip was the English name for Metacomet, Chief of the Pokanoket, who’s seat was in Mount Hope, Rhode Island. The direct descendants of the Pokanoket are the Pocasset Wampanoag Tribe. When Metacomet was eventually tracked down and killed, ending the war, his wife Wootonekanuske and their son were sold into slavery in Bermuda, meeting the fate of many other Native Americans. Mother and son were separated on the island and lived out their lives as slaves. The son was said to have been on St. David’s Island.

      What seems completely separate is often connected in ways we don’t always understand. Our histories all blend together at some point, sometimes generations later. The story of humanity is tumultuous, tragic and beautiful all intertwined as a tapestry. One thread leads to the next, and we are one. We are forever learning, forgetting and relearning those connections. In a place called St. David’s Island, or in Bristol, Rhode Island, we find those threads and are reminded that our stories will forever be one and the same, even as our outcomes diverge.

      Smith Island, as seen from St. David’s Island, looks a lot like Bermuda in its earliest days might have looked. An active archeological dig is uncovering English settlement in this part of the island.
      The rugged point of St. David’s Island near Fort Hill Bay, with Nonsuch Island seen to the left

    • Unwritten

      I’m just back from another trip and found myself deep in the follow-up of a busy life put on pause while I was away. There’s follow-up that simply needs to happen, for we are forever pushing the flywheel in our lives to sustain whatever momentum we’ve created thus far. In this way, a trip simply ends with a few pictures on social media, a few stories and whatever memories we hold on to. Then on to the next.

      But I think about what remains unwritten from these trips. So many stories I’ve told myself I’d write but for a little more time and focus. They fall away like our days, drifting into what might have beens. For every yes in our lives there are so many no’s shouting in our ear. To live up to our potential we simply have to develop the skill of filtering out the no’s in favor of our compelling yes. Call me a work in progress on this front.

      Creative work isn’t the same as a career climb. It’s project-based work, not simply a series of 9 to 5 days strung out over a career. Projects don’t work normal business hours, and they don’t stop whispering in our ear when those things that don’t want to take no for an answer shout louder and louder for attention. But whispers have a way of being drowned out in the din if we’re not focused enough on them.

      To have any kind of success with our essential few, we must grow into the kind of person who sticks with a yes. We must come to terms with what we will do in our lives, and what will remain unwritten. Like a marriage, we must learn to listen more than we talk with our projects, that we may know where the muse is leading us. Surely, we ignore either at our peril. Still, do we wonder enough, is this project the right yes, or was it the one we just said no to?

    • Quo Fata Ferunt: How Fate Created Bermuda

      The normal way to cross the Atlantic east to west is to go south to the Canary Islands and catch the trade winds over to the Caribbean. But what should one do when the two end points are controlled by hostile forces? The answer for the British in 1609 was to sail the route north of the accepted route to avoid the Spanish altogether. And this led them to fate.

      The Sea Venture was the lead ship in a small flotilla resupplying Jamestown, Virginia. They ran into a major storm and the ships got separated. One ship sank with all souls lost, and the Sea Venture was foundering, taking on dangerous levels of seawater after the chalking between the ship’s timbers failed. And then by some miracle (that northern route), they spotted land. Admiral Sir George Saunders attempted to navigate the reefs to land and the ship wedged into it, saving all hands. They landed, built two ships and continued on to Jamestown. But having discovered it, the British would soon return to found Bermuda and establish another foothold in the New World.

      Quo fata ferunt (“Whither the fates carry us”) is thus an appropriate motto for Bermuda, and maybe for the rest of us too. We cannot control where fate might bring us, but we can accept it (amor fati) and make the most of the moment. Like Bermuda, we may be adapt and become resilient to whatever circumstances arise, and sometimes even thrive for having risen to the occasion.

      Coat of Arms of Bermuda (image: wikipedia)