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    • Productive Change

      “Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.” ― Warren Buffett

      Some of us are inclined towards change, and force ourselves to stick with things longer than we might otherwise to see them through. Sometimes (as with a great marriage) the journey is worth the ebb and flow of a life together. Other times, as with a job or a house or an acquaintance, you find that the return on investment isn’t working out. Change can be the most productive energy we can spend in such moments.

      It’s possible to stay in a house too long. Neighborhoods change as the neighbors do. The stairs and furniture we’ve easily navigated our whole lives can become impossible obstacles when we grow old and frail. My own neighborhood is full of the same people that were here when I built this house years ago, and I’m seeing it all play out as it did for my in-laws, where they all grew too old to navigate the familiar but did it for too long anyway.

      I recently left a job I’d been in for years when flat year-over-year growth turned into a down year. There was no exit interview, which indicates they feel they have it all figured out. So their chronic leaks will probably continue. My own energy can be put into a better vessel. It turns out my timing was good with a receptive market ready for my skillset. It was never the company brand I was bringing to the market, but my own.

      A sound vessel with a good crew can weather almost any storm. It remains sound through maintenance and awareness of the forces bringing change. The same can be said for the crew. Together they can travel through time and place, picking up tales of adventure along the way. But time conquers all, and eventually the vessel or the crew need to change. Houses can be homes for generations of owners. Companies can grow with a new crew. And people can find a better way though this world on a different vessel.

      Change for its own sake is frivolous and wasteful. Change must be strategic and ultimately productive. But the same can be said for sticking with something instead of changing. It does us no good to forever bail a ship that is clearly sinking. Our habits, systems and routines, alliances with others, organizations we join, companies we represent in the market, the places we live and the vehicles that carry us to them—are all vessels that are either carrying us somewhere or sinking into the abyss. The question we ought to be asking ourselves is, is our energy being put into the right place or is it time for a change?

    • Leaning Into Constraints

      “When everything is possible, nothing is possible. But when we lean into external and internal constraints by choice, the possibilities, ironically, open up to us.” — Chase Jarvis, Never Play It Safe

      “The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

      I have a trip coming up in the near future. There’s no winging it when it comes to which airport I’m driving to, which airline I’m boarding, when the doors close or which seat I’ve been assigned. Likewise, I’m pretty sure I’m on the same page with the pilot about which city we’re flying to. When I arrive I know I’ll have a room waiting for me, a few reservations already made and so on. Constraints can be helpful guardrails for an otherwise unconstrained weekend. Too many constraints can feel confining, too few chaotic. We feel when we’ve arrived at our comfortable medium.

      We function within constraints all the time, often without thinking about it. We are constrained by laws, time, borders, finances… and on and on. But the most persistent constraints are internal. We have an identity that is boxing us into who we are and what we do. We reinforce this with the friends we accumulate around us. Skate your lane, friend, and I’ll skate mine. Together we’ll skate to some distant point in our frozen future.

      Constraints can be limiting. When we get too comfortable we miss out on everything possible that resides outside our current comfort zone. On that upcoming trip I’ve left far more open space in between than scheduled time. There’s a lot to be said for those skip the line tours at the Vatican, for example, but you realize immediately that most of them just put you in a different line, and within a different box than you might have been in otherwise. The lesson is to buy the tickets, but leave room for chance too.

      The thing is, constraints can be highly effective at focusing our attention. There’s nothing like a deadline to keep us on track with a project. When we build the right kind of restraints into our lives, we focus on productive use of our limited time on earth (the ultimate constraint). Being rigid with some things allows us to create the identity we aspire to. Decide what to be and go be it. I write and publish every day, no matter where I am in the world (or within my own head). This blog is surely meaningless in eternity, but it means something to me in the moment.

      What color are we dying our soul? Our habits and routines, our very beliefs in who we are and why we’re here today, will determine the next step on our journey (up, down or sideways). Some useful constraints put us in our place, but they can also move us to a new place. A better place, full of possibility.

    • Shedding Leaves

      The trees say they’re tired, they’ve born too much fruit
      Charmed all the wayside, there’s no dispute
      Now shedding leaves, they don’t give a hoot
      La-di-da, di-da-di-dum, ’tis Autumn
      — The King Cole Trio/Henry Nemo, ’Tis Autumn

      Late October in New Hampshire brings meaning to that alternate name for autumn: fall. For everything is falling all the time now. The nuts and fruits have been harvested and picked over, the maple trees shed their leaves first, and then the stubborn oaks. It’s now too late for leaf peepers, but feel free to stick around for the fall cleanup (they never do).

      Shedding is natural, and prepares us for a future where carrying too much puts us in a vulnerable state. For trees, carrying their leaves too late in the season makes them vulnerable to early snow and ice and wind, with all the damage that being overloaded in a storm may bring. Nature knows that it’s essential to shed excess but store all the necessary energy reserves to survive the season.

      The metaphor of shedding leaves in preparation for the harshness of winter feels appropriate. Lately I’ve shed a few habits, donated some under-utilized clothing, seen the friends sail south and shifted from one job to another. Life isn’t just change, it’s being prepared for the change so that we may surf the wave instead of being knocked down by it.

      Stick season is almost upon us. Are we ready for the changes to come? Resilience often comes down to how much we want to face the truth of the season. Each brings with it clues about what to do next. The only thing left to do is to take the action we know deep down we must do. La-di-da, di-da-di-dum. Life is change, of that there’s no dispute.

    • Delight Travels Well

      I want a life measured
      in first steps on foreign soils
      and deep breaths
      in brand new seas
      I want a life measured
      in Welcome Signs,
      each stamped
      with a different name,
      borders marked with metal and paint.
      Show me the streets
      that don’t know the music
      of my meandering feet,
      and I will play their song
      upon them.
      Perfume me please
      in the smells of far away,
      I will never wash my hair
      if it promises to stay.
      I want a life measured
      in the places I haven’t gone,
      short sleeps on long flights,
      strange voices teaching me
      new words to
      describe the dawn.
      — Tyler Knott Gregson, I Want a Life Measured

      Some people travel to feed some void within themselves that crossing borders and boarding planes promises to fill. Some people travel for a sense of accomplishment or one-upmanship that fills some other need they might have, keeping up with the Joneses or maybe even putting them in their place with bigger tales of adventure. Some simply love the thrill of discovery that can only come from climbing out of one’s own box and exploring something entirely new.

      The places we go transform us and linger in our minds for years to come like a quiet conversation with a romantic partner we knew once upon a time. We who travel are known to flirt with adventure, and adventure usually rolls her eyes at us having heard it all before. It’s just our turn on the dance floor, and tomorrow someone else’s. Does that mean we shouldn’t travel? Of course we should, but a little perspective and humility go a long way with the locals and those who follow along back home.

      Comparison is the death of joy, as my bride reminds me, and I’m at peace with the stage of life I’m in. We’ve arrived at a good place, she and I, a place where we don’t worry so much about the pace of filling our own bucket list and instead focus on living deliberately. When we travel we are thrilled by the experience, when we don’t we find beauty in the small corners of our existence we’ve been missing for want of attention. Discovery is an attitude, not a stamp in our passport. We may choose to delight in it all.

      How do we measure our lives? Just what are we keeping score of anyway? I’ve come to view the scorebook more narrowly, in the encounters and discoveries I’ve had today, whether near or far from home. When we make it our practice to find wonder in the smallest details of our days, we find that the world opens up for us more than ever. It turns out that delight travels well, and is at home wherever we are.

    • The Highest Possible Thing

      “It’s so silly in life not to pursue the highest possible thing you can imagine, even if you run the risk of losing it all. You can’t be an artist and be safe.” — Francis Ford Coppola

      To reach for something beyond our present capabilities is to risk something tangible, be it a hit to our reputation, our financial or physical wellbeing, or our precious time. It’s easier to just do what everyone wants of us, rather than to keep answering the same old questions about what we’re going to do with our lives. That question is so common that it auto-filled as I typed it.

      The thing is, we waste so much time just answering the damned question instead of simply pursuing the dream that most people never ship the work. Wait too long and that dream dies with us one day. Talk about losing it all…

      That voice of reason means well for us, but it thinks small. Nothing perfectly reasonable turns out to be great. Reasonable only leads to “fine”, as in, “How’s everything going for you, old friend?” Our confidant who once knew our secret dream back in the day asked. “Oh, it’s going fine.” We respond, and all that was lost but unsaid was revealed.

      When it comes time to put our highest aspirations ahead of the feeble excuses about time and commitments or the expectations of our tribe, we must train ourselves to forget reasonable. The biggest risk is wasting the present in the futile hope that tomorrow will be any different. There is no tomorrow, old friend: Take the bold route now.

    • Urgency Applies

      “The reason to finish is to start something new.” — Rick Rubin

      To finish what we started ought to be the goal for every project, but we know the truth isn’t so pretty. We bounce between projects, finishing some, but too often drag others along forever for want of attention. It’s all prioritization and focus, lest the forces conspiring against us wash over our lives and that project we were once so excited about gets flushed away like so many schemes and dreams. As with life itself, urgency applies to projects. Do it now.

      Starting something new is exciting. We dance with possibilities: discovering and enhancing and dancing with the light that shines through our eyes and lights up our work. Like a cold mountain stream, it’s invigorating and full of momentum. It’s only downstream, where things slow down and sometimes stagnate, where that project grows tedious. Momentum is everything, and we maintain it through focused attention. Deep channels flow relentlessly fast, shallow deltas slow and sometimes flow backwards with the whim of the tide.

      That new project ought to be a reward for having finished the previous project, not yet another distraction from it. Surely urgency applies to the things we wish to accomplish in this lifetime. We must finish what we’ve started, that we may begin again with the fresh perspective and skills developed from the last brought to the next.

    • The Only One

      “We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we have only one.” — Confucius

      Blame it on autumn, or maybe the series of life events I’m currently passing through, but it feels like life is starting over again. Every moment we’re fully alive offers that opportunity of course, but stack enough stuff on the scale and the balance tips enough. Enough for what? For whatever is next in this one wild and precious life, as Mary Oliver so vividly put it.

      This is it, last time I checked, so let’s make the most of our time together. Double down on adventure, take calculated risks more frequently, do the “one day” bucket list things in this time bucket while we have the vitality to experience all it might offer. Defer deferral for a [real] change.

      So stop wasting time already! This is all we have left. Practice active savoring in this one and only dance through life. We can be co-conspirators while the rest of the world marches on thinking there will always be a tomorrow. Let’s not waste a second on such illusions. Seize what flees.

    • All the Nerve

      Oh, when you were young
      Did you question all the answers?
      Did you envy all the dancers
      Who had all the nerve?
      Look round you now
      You must go for what you wanted
      Look at all my friends who did and got what they deserved
      — Crosby, Stills & Nash, Wasted On the Way

      Early this morning far from home I turned the corner and my headlights spotlighted two coyotes who quickly scurried off into the woods. I had no business being right there at that moment, but for a series of events that brought me to that encounter. Just a guy putting himself in the way of beauty (thanks to Cheryl Strayed’s mom for the suggestion).

      We know the people who have all the nerve. They’re usually the ones who have few regrets in the end. To be bold is to break out of the boxes we framed around ourselves. We ought to make box-breaking a regular part of our routine. Really, it’s the only way. How else can we grow?

      Rising to meet the day

    • The Roll of the Peculiar

      “There’s a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.” — Ursula K. Le Guin

      We finally begin to hit our stride when we ignore the expectations of the well-intentioned and follow our own path. For some of us it comes well after our formal education and those earnest early career moves. Momentum isn’t leaping off the cliff, it’s picking up pieces of our identity and adding them on, one after the other, like a snowball rolling down a mountain of fresh, sticky snow. Soon there’s no stopping us.

      The thing is, that momentum applies as much to the wrong slopes as it does the right one. Once we start rolling and picking up habits, stopping becomes very challenging indeed, let alone nudging ourselves over to another slope. We don’t always know which slope is our slope, but we often know which one is not for us. And we know we can’t wait forever to decide: we must eventually roll.

      Some snowballs appear as oddballs. So what? Does the world need yet another compliant commuter making their way to a job they hate? Who want to go through life wedged into a box like that? Find a place where it’s okay to roll the way you want to roll. That which makes us peculiar also makes us unique, and there’s always an audience for someone unique. What is more virtuous than a life spent growing into the purpose we were meant for?

    • Going From, Toward

      “A traveller! I love his title. A traveller is to be reverenced as such. His profession is the best symbol of our life. Going from —— toward ——; it is the history of every one of us. It takes but little distance to make the hills and even the meadows look blue to-day. That principle which gives the air an azure color is more abundant.”― Henry David Thoreau, The Journal, 1837-1861

      Any hiker is familiar with Thoreau’s description, so too any sailor. Those who venture out into the world are bound to find it. It takes but little distance to make where we’ve been take on a bluish hue. The same can be said for where we’re going, if we look far enough ahead anyway. Life is only abundantly clear when we live in the present. ’tis this day that we must seize.

      Just as Thoreau documented his life through his journal entries and the books he wrote, so we may document our own journey from, toward. These breadcrumbs show where we are as much as where we’ve been. The act of writing every day, then publishing a bit of it, has changed each of us that travel this path. The lingering question isn’t when we’ll stop writing, but why it took us so long to begin? So much of our pre-writing lives will remain entombed within us when we pass one day—isn’t that a pity? The world doesn’t need to know all the details, but there are some tasty breadcrumbs growing stale back there on the trail.

      It’s essential to ask ourselves where we’ve come from to bring us here. So too to look at where we’re going. The act of writing about such things is contemplative and enlightening, states the world ought to linger in more than it currently does. I often get caught up in the excitement of tomorrow, and were it not for the daily ritual of writing I might miss now altogether. Life isn’t meant to be shaded in blue, but lived forthwith—with all the immediacy and urgency that word conveys. What would we write about tomorrow that reflects where we’ve been today? Steer towards that.