Alexandersmap

    Blog

    • On Leadership

      “The ultimate impact of the leader depends most significantly on the particular story that he or she relates or embodies, and the receptions to that story on the part of audiences (or collaborators or followers).” — Howard Gardner, Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership

      “Leaders and audiences traffic in many stories, but the most basic story has to do with issues of identity. And so it is the leader who succeeds in conveying a new version of a given group’s story who is likely to be effective.” — Howard Gardner, Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership

      What makes someone a great leader? Isn’t it the story we embrace about them, and in turn, identity with on some deep intrinsic level? When we choose to follow someone, what exactly are we following? They make us believe in something greater within ourselves that will best be realized by joining them.

      We each strive for something better. Life is a voyage of becoming, and that voyage is full of twists and turns, ups and downs. We write our life history one of these moments at a time. That story either draws people to us or repels them. Great leaders build a story that isn’t just about them but about the greater good that they (and always: us) will reach in the quest from here to there. Stories are indeed powerful.

      Leaders may be false prophets: creators of stories that aren’t theirs. Do as I say, not as I do. We see plenty of examples of that in the world. The fastest way to get people to believe their lies is for them to point at others and demonize them, that attention is drawn away from the false god. That’s not great leadership, but it is leading others.

      The best leaders lead by example. They exemplify their story and thus amplify it that others see a path forward in following their steps. We know who the greatest of these leaders are because their stories are woven into our collective story.

      So what of us? Are we not leaders ourselves? What is our story? What are the chapters to follow? When we write a compelling story we have an opportunity to inspire others, and create a ripple. The aim isn’t to lead but to live a great life story. As with everything, we must first choose ourselves, and follow our own dream. The rest writes itself, for leaders are chosen.

    • Let Us Play

      “Health lies in action, and so it graces youth. To be busy is the secret of grace, and half the secret of content. Let us ask the gods not for possessions, but for things to do; happiness is in making things rather than in consuming them. In Utopia, said Thoreau, each would build his own home; and then song would come back to the heart of man, as it comes to the bird when it builds its nest. If we cannot build our homes, we can at least walk and throw and run; and we should never be so old as merely to watch games instead of playing them. Let us play is as good as Let us pray, and the results are more assured.” — Will Durant, Fallen Leaves

      Health lies in action. We know the drill: sitting is the new smoking. We must get up and move, and not just move, but delight in moving. To play is to live. Life is full enough of tedious moments, don’t you think? Our exercise ought to be fun.

      For me walking is a more fun form of exercise than just about anything save paddling or rowing. Walking in places that inspire and awe is wondrous, and ought to be a regular part of our routine, but sometimes a simple walk around the block is enough to reset the soul and stir the blood. Sometimes we focus so much on the spectacular or the glory of the summit that we forget the benefits of the activity itself. We must move, and glory in the act itself.

      This past weekend I’d contemplated a hike. Knock off a couple of summits that were particularly evasive for me on the list for one reason or another. When you hear the call of the wild you ought to listen, but sometimes that call is a siren. It was treacherously cold in the mountains, the kind of cold that will ruin a perfectly good day for the prepared, or kill the unprepared. Not exactly the play I was craving: lists be damned. So instead of a 4000 footer I opted for sea level and a January beach walk. Also bitingly cold, but distinctly more accessible. It also offered an easy opportunity to simply bail out and get back into a warm car (or bar) if needed.

      My bride and our pup are both beach bunnies at heart. Off-season walks on the beach are their kind of play, and mine too. I can spend all day at the beach so long as I’m not lying still like something that washed up. Surf speaks to me almost as much as summits do, and I view a great walk on a long beach as delightful as any walk can be.

      We chose Hampton Beach, New Hampshire for our off-season walk. We wanted to take stock of the damage from the winter storms last week, and to have a long stretch of beach sand. That biting cold ensured few people would brave the exposure of the beach, so our only company were other dog walkers and a few determined metal detector miners looking for lost riches. We each chase the American dream in our own way, and everyone needs a hobby.

      We should never be so old as merely to watch games instead of playing them. The trick is to stay in the game. To play in the sand is just as fun as playing king of the mountain. Just move, and delight in the company of others. That’s a simple recipe for a great life.

      January at Hampton Beach. Lot’s of footprints in snow, few people.
      Winter means walking in brisk solitude

    • On the Wire

      “Youth is as confident and improvident as a god. It loves excitement and adventure more than food. It loves the superlative, the exaggerated, the limitless, because it has abounding energy and frets to liberate its strength. It loves new and dangerous things; a man is as young as the risks he takes.” — Will Durant, Fallen Leaves

      “Life is being on the wire, everything else is just waiting. — Karl Wallenda

      I was talking to a bright young man we have welcomed into our family. He feels trapped in his job, working to pay bills accumulated trying to make a go of it lumped on to that all-to-pervasive source of misery for young adults nowadays: college debt. The thing is, that feeling of being trapped is a common refrain. If it’s not paying down debt it’s some other commitment we’ve made. To step out of line is viewed as audacious for a reason; The world wants us to fall in line, not to leap. A line of credit is as rigid a line as we can fall into.

      One compliment we give to certain young people is to call them old souls. Mature beyond their age, they can hold their own in a conversation with an adult, are measured in their approach to living and have a strong idea of their identity. When you raise children to be responsible, empathetic and deliberate, this idea that they’re old souls is a compliment you hear often. Being an old soul doesn’t mean you’ve prematurely lost your youth, it means that you’re making the most of it as seen from the perspective of people who have been around the block a few times.

      Those people who have been around that block might suggest taking more risks while you have that youthful exuberance. Taking more risks doesn’t mean being reckless, though it may appear to be reckless to the timid souls who believe they know what’s best for us. Risking is a form of breaking free from the hold of expectations. Risking is putting ourselves out there on the proverbial wire that we may find out who we may become for having done so. We should go to great lengths to put ourselves in challenging and identity-stretching situations, not to risk our well-being, but to shatter our beliefs of what’s possible for us.

      We are indeed as young as the risks we take, differing as they do from the risks we contemplate taking but defer to another day. As Wallenda put it, that’s just waiting. We may want to be bold and adventurous in our lives, but the very idea of risking everything that makes life so comfortable and familiar warrants strong consideration before the leap… or does it? What’s the worst thing that will happen should be do this thing? Can we recover from that worst thing? If the answer is yes, then we ought to put ourselves out on that wire. A bold life can’t wait very long for a decision, for we know life is short and youth is but a state of mind soon tempered by commitments and lines.

      What are we waiting for anyway?

    • Some Impulse Rose

      Wanly upon the panes
      The rain slides as have slid since morn my colourless thoughts; and
      yet
      Here, while Day’s presence wanes,
      And over him the sepulchre-lid is slowly lowered and set,
      He wakens my regret.
      Regret—though nothing dear
      That I wot of, was toward in the wide world at his prime,
      Or bloomed elsewhere than here,
      To die with his decease, and leave a memory sweet, sublime,
      Or mark him out in Time . . .
      —Yet, maybe, in some soul,
      In some spot undiscerned on sea or land, some impulse rose,
      Or some intent upstole
      Of that enkindling ardency from whose maturer glows
      The world’s amendment flows;
      But which, benumbed at birth
      By momentary chance or wile, has missed its hope to be
      Embodied on the earth;
      And undervoicings of this loss to man’s futurity
      May wake regret in me.
      — Thomas Hardy, A Commonplace Day

      Some of us are naturally adventurous of spirit, impulsive and keen to dive into bold things. We live our lives in a state of active temperance that we may be useful to others. Now and then the impulsive spirit bursts out of us, like a sudden flame in a fire we thought was dying out. Anyone who knows this writer has seen a burst of boldness now and then. Sometimes expressed as a leap into cold water or a crazy dance at a party, or simply a bit of mischievousness in the midst of an otherwise dignified conversation.

      In the last week, I’ve squashed plans schemed in audacious moments. Plans to hike in temperatures well below zero, fly to another country for the weekend, and quit my job and buy a boat. None of these impulsive moments rose to spark a fire, but they burn inside nonetheless. Will they become regrets for having not done them, or relief for having come to my senses? Only time will tell. In general, we are slaves to reason more than impulse.

      The counterpoint to reason is impulsiveness. It’s straying from the expectations the world places on people like us and boldly stepping outside the norm. What is more prudent than doing what people expect of us? What is perceived as more irrational than turning those expectations upside down?

      The most common way to temper impulsiveness is to defer those adventures to another time. To bow to practicality and prudence and shelve that crazy idea for another day. Those days never come, we know, but they make us feel better in the moment. Until one day we’re watching the rain bounce against the window pane realizing that those days are behind us. Enter regret.

      The battle within us rages on. To stay the course and be the steady and reliable anchor or to weigh anchor and see where the current takes us? There are hazards in each extreme: a boat forever anchored eventually rots away and sinks, while a rudderless boat eventually is dashed on the rocks. Somewhere in the middle is a life of adventure anchored in calculated risk. Be bold, but not reckless. Just don’t wait for regret.

    • On Pace

      “Everything and everyone at their own pace. Flow with not against yourself.” ― Akiroq Brost

      There’s no doubt some days are busier than others, but barring the random crisis that falls from the sky, in general we create the conditions within which we live our days. So when our pace of life feels frenetic, in general that’s on us for choosing a lifestyle that is perpetually reactive and jammed. Most of us have the agency to change our state over time.

      In general, I write and publish blog posts early in the morning before the world has a say in how I spend my time. When the world comes a-knockin’ it becomes exponentially harder to write. So protecting that time with minimal sensory download from the world allows me to honor the quiet space my mind enters when writing. Once that door is cracked open, it’s all over.

      I’ve thought about changing to a long-form blog post, published weekly instead of daily. I haven’t done that mostly because clicking publish every day is one of the primary reasons I write every day. The moment I take that tangible check box away (publishing), the moment my sense of urgency to write fades. My identity as a blogger is very much associated with publishing.

      Pace is a mindset as much as a physical output. Our capacity and limitations determine our pace, but so too does our decision-making. We can run at top speed until the wheels come off or we can make a pit stop now and then. We know the wheels are coming off when we start to wobble a bit. And we know when the tank is running dry when our engine starts to cough. It goes without saying that we don’t want to run at that pace if we’re in it for the long haul.

      Ultimately, pace is determined by deciding what the finish line is and adjusting our day-to-day accordingly. We can sprint until we stumble and fall flat on our face, but what good is that if we’re only a mile into a marathon? Pace becomes as essential to finishing as starting in the first place. We decide what to be and can go be it, but only if we set a sustainable pace from here to there.

    • A Matter of Who

      Times and places
      Are all in who you share ’em with
      And it’s life, and the point is
      Enjoyin’ who you share it with
      Joy is who you share it with
      — Layup, Who You Share It With

      A friend texted a few loosely-aligned friends to ask if any of us would be interested in going to a Donald Trump appearance at a country club nearby. It’s known within this circle of friends that I’m the least likely to participate in something like this of the lot of us, but as a history buff there was still a small part of me that would consider it, just to see this character who has done so much to turn the world upside down. In the end I opted out for many more reasons than why I’d ever opt in. My vote cancelling out my friend’s a given, the friendship will survive the difference of opinion on who should be thought of as a leader, simply because we choose for it to survive.

      Whether we find happiness and purpose in any given place and time is often a matter of who we spend our time with. The people on the bus as we ride through life—our circle of friends, the people we work or go to school with, teammates—all determine just how much we enjoy the ride. We ought to get off the bus if it’s not particularly joyful to be on it, and find another one that brings us to the place we’d like to be.

      Thinking back on my friend, I remembered that some of the most joyful times I’ve had in the last twenty years were with him and some of the other characters on that text message. Doesn’t that count for something more than who we might vote for in an election? There are always matters of scarcity and abundance, ebb and flow, in our lives. The tragedy is when scarcity is a mindset, and we forget the abundance of reasons why we were drawn together in the first place.

      There’s a gap that develops with some friendships as we grow and experience different things in life. Without proximity and purpose, we drift away from most people at some level. Sometimes we drift back again, and sometimes we don’t. Things like politics and pandemics challenge friendships and we find that sometimes the relationship doesn’t pass the test. But sometimes we decide that the common ground offers far more joy than the gaps subtract.

    • The Rhythm of Routine

      “Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” ― Will Durant, The History of Philosophy

      We get into a rhythm of routine in our lives. When we travel frequently this becomes our rhythm. When we hike or sail or play pickle ball every free moment we’re in a rhythm of routine. And when we do nothing but stare at a computer monitor all day we’re most definitely in a rhythm of routine. We find a rhythm that works for us and we dance with it for as long as we feel the beat in our souls.

      We’re just past two weeks into a new year as this is published. It’s a good chance to review progress thus far and ask ourselves, are we getting where we thought we’d go when we rounded the corner on last year? Does that rhythm of routine feel right or do we need to change the playlist? Are the weekends filling up with joyful pursuits, or are we stumbling through to Monday? Does the work feel right or are we looking towards Friday?

      We are reminded now and then that we need the right dance partner or we never quite feel the rhythm enough to dance with it. Sure, we can dance by ourselves, but what’s the fun in that? Any adventure in life is better together. With the right partner, we become accountable, and push each other just enough to go that much farther into the world. And surely, the right partner also keeps us from charging off the cliff when we get ahead of ourselves.

      Looking at my own daily habit tracker, I see a pattern very similar to last year’s habit track. Some things I defined as absolutely essential to the rhythm I want to be dancing in aren’t being checked frequently, if at all. Some are tracking nicely to firmly establish themselves as part of my identity. Nothing speaks more clearly than the truth staring back at you in black and white. We must measure our progress, that we may reconcile our beliefs with our behavior.

      Indeed we are what we repeatedly do. Does the rhythm of our routine feel right for us to reach personal excellence? The answer lies in progress—incremental or in big leaps forward. Are we getting there, or settling into a routine of excuses and complacency? We can reset ourselves at any time, really. Why not now?

    • More Than Having Visited

      When death comes
      like the hungry bear in autumn;
      when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

      to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
      when death comes
      like the measle-pox;

      when death comes
      like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

      I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
      what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

      And therefore I look upon everything
      as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
      and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
      and I consider eternity as another possibility,

      and I think of each life as a flower, as common
      as a field daisy, and as singular,

      and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
      tending, as all music does, toward silence,

      and each body a lion of courage, and something
      precious to the earth.

      When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
      I was a bride married to amazement.
      I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

      When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
      if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
      I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
      or full of argument.

      I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
      — Mary Oliver, When Death Comes

      I feel sometimes like I’ve read every Mary Oliver poem over and over again, then stumble upon one of those poems as if for the first time. Our experience in life comes down to what we’re paying attention to in the moment. Look one way and we see a shooting star. Look the other way a crouching tiger. Surely there are tigers in this world ready to pounce, but Lord give me the stars.

      The thing is, we all know how the world can be. None of us is living with our head in the sand, pretending everything is going to be okay. Sometimes things aren’t okay at all. Sometimes we’re faced with more than our share. In most cases the universe aligns behind us (for here we are), but we forget to honor the miracle in the noise of being alive.

      We may develop a reverence for living if we’re born in the right place at the right time, with the blessing of more stars than tigers. We may be keenly aware of the injustices in the world without building a fortress of our own against an imagined adversary. To live a full life we must be steadfastly open, that we may be bursting with wonder. Nothing closed up is ever truly filled.

      We are here for more than just a visit, friend. A life is really nothing more than one full day at a time, beginning with the one at hand. Even when some yesterdays leave us a bit disenchanted and empty, our todays are an occasion to gather up as much wonder as we can carry, that we may share our abundance with others. There’s enough magic to go around, should we bring attention to it.

    • Tipping the Scale Towards Progress

      “Each of you is in the process of building the structure of your lives, and the question is whether you have a proper, a solid and a sound blueprint… I want to suggest some of the things that should be in your life’s blueprint. Number one in your life’s blueprint, should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your own worth and your own somebodiness. Don’t allow anybody to make you fell that you are nobody. Always feel that you count. Always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance. Now that means that you should not be ashamed of your color… Don’t be ashamed of your color. Don’t be ashamed of your biological features. Somehow you must be able to say in your own life and really believe it, ‘I am black but beautiful’ and believe it in your heart.

      Secondly, in your life’s blueprint you must have as the basic principle the determination to achieve excellence in your various fields of endeavor. You’re going to be deciding as the days, as the years unfold what you will do in life, what your life’s work will be. And once you discover what it will be, set out to do it, and to do it well.

      And I say to you, my young friends that doors are opening to each of you. Doors of opportunities are opening to each of you that were not open to your mothers and to your fathers — and the great challenge facing you is to be ready to enter these doors as they open...

      And when you discover what you are going to be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. And just don’t just set out to do a good ‘negro’ job… Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn’t do it any better.”
      — Martin Luther King, Jr. “What Is Your Life’s Blueprint?” speech at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia on October 26, 1967

      When you watch any speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. you feel the urgency of the moment he was living in. There was simply no time to waste. He said it as a preface of this speech in Philadelphia, speaking to young students who were at the beginning of their own journey to becoming. I wonder how things turned out for those students? How many heard the call and rose up to personal excellence? How many of us, hearing it today, will aim higher in our own pursuit?

      The thing is, we know how MLK’s story ended, just six months after this speech. Yet he lives on, transcending life itself to reverberate and resonate with generations long after the generation of middle school kids who listened to him speak that day. Precisely because he’d reached higher, arrived at the pulpit and turned to guide those who would follow.

      The world has turned more cynical once again, pushing against the momentum of change. There is an ebb and flow to progress, like a pendulum swinging. One side gains momentum, the other side resists and pushes back. Populism is predictable in this way, and generally requires the right voices to stand out in the noise and be the tipping point. For every autocratic bully rallying the crowd one way, there’s a voice calling to push back towards progressivism and human dignity. One step forward, two steps back for some period of time, then two steps forward, one back soon thereafter. Humanity’s history writes itself one swing at a time.

      Knowing this, we must continue to rise—not just in personal excellence, but generational excellence. There’s too much at stake in the world to settle for the narrative of the miserable. The swing towards autocracy isn’t a given, it’s merely a push. We can surely push back for progress. The scales can be tipped when we rise to the moment.

    • Evolving the Spirit

      “The monotony of life contains a reservoir of ways to find relief, if we can only muster the courage and energy to dive in instead of opting out. If today you find yourself bored with your work—perhaps surfing around and reading some random essay on happiness—you may have just gotten a signal from the universe that it’s time for your spirit to evolve.” — Arthur C Brooks, “Kierkegaard’s Three Ways to Live More Fully”, The Atlantic

      Within the rhythm of living our lives, we may get stuck in a routine that strikes us as boring. Same menu for dinner, same commute, same seat at the same desk we’ve sat in front of for long enough that the thrill of new is long gone. What are we to do in such moments? Change everything? Paint the entire inside of the house again? Get another dog? Travel to faraway places that are fresh and new and distinctly different in every way from the norm? Perhaps. There’s a time for such changes in a lifetime. But there’s also a time for staying put and wrestling with the restlessness of routine by looking inward.

      There’s a secret in blogging every day different from, say, journaling. It’s a daily reconciliation of the writer with the blank page that must be transformed into something substantial. Like each day itself, we are faced with making something of it when we begin again each morning. What is interesting in the universe today? What have we encountered that is a distinct step away from from boring? What surprises and delights us? Scratch that itch and see where it takes us.

      I write this savoring the last of a magnificent cup of coffee. It’s the first of the day, and truly, I hate to see it end. Sure, a second cup is just around the corner should I need it, but it isn’t about having more and more, it’s about savoring what I have in the moment. Sometimes that’s more than enough to carry the day.

      If this sounds like a retreat from the pursuit of rich experience, let me assure you that’s it’s just the opposite. We can’t run from one thing to the next without diving deeply into the experience we’re having at the moment. That’s not immersing ourselves in living a rich life, that’s nothing but a buffet of casual indulgences. Empty calories that we may come to regret one day. ’tis better to choose our daily diet of experience with an eye towards a more nutrient-rich, enlightening way.

      As Brooks points out in the article linked above, Kierkegaard recommend immersion in pursuits of substance like reading, meaningful relationships and our life’s work. Lectio Divina, or divine reading, is not just reading something, but following the steps of lectio (reading), meditatio (meditation), contemplatio (contemplation), and oratio (prayer). We may naturally adapt this methodology to our lives beyond reading: That cup of coffee has been consumed, savored, reflected upon and expounded upon. Isn’t that a better life experience than absent-mindedly sipping it to empty and realizing afterwards that you forgot to savor it?

      Blogging isn’t just documenting everything that we stumble upon in this life, but taking those steps of participating in it, immersion, contemplation and finally, talking about it (oratio). This process may not feel efficient in a multi-tasking, harried world, but it’s surely a better way to live. When we break ourselves of the need for constantly new entertainment for the senses, we learn to live more and savor the moment at hand. We find that what we have isn’t at all boring, but something to dive deeper into.