Alexandersmap

    Category: Habits

    • Anchored Here and Now

      “All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      I find myself writing from a state of hyper-awareness of change. Scroll through old photo albums and decades worth of digital images representing the lives of those who have passed and we realize that change is the constant in our lives. That and the tight circle of fellow travelers we call family and friends, all working to make sense of this dynamic advancement into the future as we ourselves are. There we were, here we are, and there we go.

      The only thing to do in a changing world is to anchor into something solid. Anchors are often disguised as ritual and habit. Often it’s the very people and place that we take for granted as we move through time. That favorite café we get our liquid energy at. The bookstore we wander through when the day feels chaotic. The playlist we return to when we need a lift. A solid anchorage looks different for each of us, but serves the same purpose: keeping us grounded in something tangible when change is swirling all around us.

      If I may offer some unsolicited advice as we navigate a lifetime together, it’s to take more pictures with those fellow travelers we encounter in our todays. Tomorrow will find us wanting more reminders of what was. A photograph is an anchorage locked in amber, reminding us of how much those people staring back at us meant to us in the moment. Document names and places as a gift to those who will one day scroll through our lives in images, wondering just what those people are trying to tell them about our moment.

      We know we can’t stay anchored forever. Life advances, and so must we. We may adapt and grow into what’s next, with a firm sense of who we are and where we’ve been. With an eye on the adventures yet to come.

    • Outcomes

      What fills the void when we remove a habit? We hope to fill the space with better habits. Perhaps our workouts will become better and more consistent. Perhaps we’ll read more than we did before. Perhaps we’ll use that time to be more alive in the world. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

      Then again, maybe it wasn’t the habit that was the problem. Maybe it was rest of the time around the habit that was lacking. Maybe it was the feeling of obligations—that something had to be done no matter what. We have enough obligations in our lives. Can’t we just enjoy ourselves? Life isn’t that easy, friend.

      I write for the writing’s sake. I ought to do more of it, but for the day job and the feeling that it isn’t my path to travel. Like so many options that turn into “not for me”, not every whim and desire arrives at an outcome. And maybe that’s as it should be.

      Should I publish this and arrive at one outcome, or is writing it enough? Save as draft or publish? The answer is in the click. Isn’t it interesting how one small action may change an outcome forever? As with all outcomes, it helps to know where it is that we wish to arrive before we act. That fact shouldn’t distract us from realizing that action towards something meaningful was all that ever mattered anyway.

    • The Optimism of a Future Hello

      And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
      —The Beatles, The End

      I’ve always been a streak hitter. I find something that works for me, do it as best I can, and repeat it the next day. Habits are formed, identity is voted upon with action, expectations are set that what was will always be. The world might fall apart, but hey, we are still here, doing this, as we’ve always done. Like lilacs blooming in May, some things are predictable, and surely comforting.

      Writing an average of 400 words per blog post, I push out my thoughts, quote a poem or ramble on about stoic philosophy or the state of the garden. The site itself is a hot mess of bad formatting, but the words are mine. Sometimes I tell myself to fix this thing and make it shine, but really, I like it fine the way it is.

      And every day I tell myself this will be the last post and I’ll take a break. No grand announcement that this is the end, simply an Irish goodbye. To say something meaningful (if only to me) and exit stage left. And perhaps this will be the end, or a pause, or maybe I’ll just pick up right where I left off once again tomorrow. Nomads don’t say goodbye, they say, “until we meet again”. That expression is not an ending, it’s the optimism of a future hello. And doesn’t that feel better than “goodbye”?

    • Everything, Forever

      Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change
      To something new, to something strange;
      Nothing that is can pause or stay;
      The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
      The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
      The rain to mist and cloud again,
      To-morrow be to-day.
      — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kéramos

      I considered yesterday an ending of sorts, which infers that today would be a beginning. But it feels like more of the same. Life is change, but that change is so constant and incremental that it feels like every day is the just like the one before. Have a look around and we know the truth. Nothing is the same. Beginning with our perspective. We’ve simply moved to a newer place from which to assess our perch.

      Still, nothing is the same, nor will be again. We live and learn and grow, and tomorrow will be today, and then it will be no more but a memory of yesterday. The lesson? Our opportunity is always at hand. Don’t look so far ahead. We are where we are, and everything forever is right here awaiting our attention.

      All things must change. Beginning with us. Rise to meet it.

    • Do It

      “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” — Pablo Picasso

      We grow into ourselves by stretches and the occasional leap. Now some people leap all the time, and become known as either bold or reckless, depending on how they land. Most of us test the waters a bit, see if it makes sense to move in this new direction, and work our way there gradually. A few never leave the nest at all, choosing familiarity and comfort over reaching for their own potential.

      So what do we do with habits that work for us, when we know that to grow we must break patterns and try new things? Delay? Dabble? Dive right in? We’re each unique in our willingness to try new things by letting familiar old things go.

      I think the moment we ask ourselves if we ought to try something new, we ought to take the first step towards that new. And then the next. Venturing more and more into the unknown to discover something about it and ourselves that we felt was possible all along. As that character Yoda put it, “Do or do not. There is no try.” Learn as we go. Do it.

    • The Steady Ascent

      “The main reason to produce something every day is that you must throw away a lot of good work to reach the good stuff. To let it all go easily, you need to be convinced that there is ‘more where that came from’. You get that in steady production.”
      — Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice for Living

      Amusement parks may have Lightning Pass lanes, and tourist attractions may have a “Skip the Line” scheme (there’s always a line, it’s just a little shorter), but the work that we produce in a lifetime has no such option. Getting to the good stuff isn’t accomplished without putting in the time.

      Sure, I hear the call of Artificial Intelligence (AI) filling the gap between apprenticeship and mastery. Maybe research and first drafts don’t have to be so tedious. But there are lessons in the grind, and the willing student reaches wisdom not found in AI efficiency.

      The Mona Lisa wasn’t painted in a couple of days. Leonardo da Vinci carried that portrait with him for the rest of his life, adding touches, refining the work, ignoring it and coming back to it. It was never really completed before he passed, it simply reached its final state of being. That state happens to be masterful; A pet project that became the most famous painting in the world.

      Writing every day is sometimes a grind, but it teaches and informs the writer. We may publish regularly or be forever polishing our master work. Unlike our friend da Vinci, we ought to ship our work regularly, that we may move on to something else. The good stuff is earned daily. The great stuff is just over the next rise, awaiting our ascent. If we keep climbing.

    • Evidence of Action

      Success is failure turned inside out –
      The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
      And you never can tell how close you are,
      It might be near when it seems afar;
      So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit –
      It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.
      — John Greenleaf Whittier, Don’t Quit

      There are weeks when everything is asked of us, and when we feel we are completely maxed out, we are asked for a little more still. As the old expression goes, when you want something done, ask a busy person. And so it is that life offers a state of busier. We must never aspire to busy. We should aspire to productive, and efficient, and thorough in our quest to get things done. Life is full of choices for how to live.

      Busy doesn’t really matter. All that matters is what we do with our time. To quit anything is to concede that the time spent led us to a dead end. A dead end isn’t the end, it’s simply a lesson that is ours to learn if we choose to. We go on for ourselves—to validate the passage we have embarked upon, to honor our future self with the work we do today, to write our verse, such that it is.

      There simply isn’t enough time to do it all. There will be more no’s than yeses in this lifetime. Yet we may do what needs to be done. We are creating evidence of action with everything we do. That which we publish, that which we produce, those that rely upon us to follow through on what we’ve promised? It’s all evidence of a full life. One at a time, whether we’re busy or not. What’s done is done, what’s not is not. So don’t quit just yet.

    • Call It Inspiration

      “The composer does not sit around and wait for an inspiration to walk up and introduce itself…Making music is actually little else than a matter of invention aided and abetted by emotion. In composing we combine what we know of music with what we feel.” — George Gershwin

      I once wrestled with time. Once I called it time management, and then productivity, and maybe a few other names along the way. The way itself is time, and within it, we produce something or we do not. It was never really time at all, it was how we use our lives. And how we use our lives is who we are, and who we will become, and how we will be remembered one day.

      That’s a lot of wrestling.

      Perhaps that effort is better applied towards discovery. I write every day to discover what will stroll into the room next. We go back and forth a bit, I takes notes as quickly as I can, and the muse exits once again. Who saw that coming? And thanks for the, uh, time.

      Yesterday I finished a delightful book I’d never have read but for the fact that I said yes to it at the exclusion of a lot of great options I said no to. And then I immediately started reading another. The more books we read, the less we’re staring at a screen. That seems like a great trade-off to me. What does that have to do with productivity? Everything. And nothing at all.

      All that we do in our lives is derived from the experiences we make for ourselves. Writing, reading, travel, work, coexisting with these characters in our lives… it all accumulates into something larger than where we began this journey. And growth is where it’s at, friend. We are alive, and life is forever growing into something more than we started as. Just keep heading towards the light, wherever it takes us. Call it inspiration if it helps.

    • Coffee Collaboration

      “As soon as coffee is in your stomach, there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move…similes arise, the paper is covered. Coffee is your ally and writing ceases to be a struggle.”
      — Honoré de Balzac, The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee

      May I take a moment to dwell on the mug of coffee recently departed from this world? Now, the typical time to dwell on coffee is while it is still with you, but mine seemingly evaporated before my eyes. One moment I’m having my first sip, the next? Empty cuppa. Our time is fleeting, isn’t it? Surely a reminder to slow down, stop rushing through life and savor what we have in the moment. Sure. This is coffee, and coffee demands we get going already.

      My morning ritual is two glasses of water while the coffee is brewing, then two cups of coffee while writing. I might get away with one cup of coffee if I were to tolerate room-temperature coffee (or, god forbid, microwaving coffee to reheat it). Alas, I don’t tolerate such things, I savor the first few sips, and guzzle the last few. ’tis not the writing that distracts from the drinking of coffee, ’tis the coffee that lubricates the ritual. One without the other would be possible, but not delightful. Don’t we need to dance with more delight in this life?

      The thing is, we each have our rituals that make our days shine a little brighter, make us more productive in our pursuits, and make us more aware and alive. Writing and coffee go together well, but so do reading and coffee, or catching up with a fellow life-traveler and coffee, or any number of things. Coffee isn’t selective in the habit you pair it with, it goes with the flow. And doesn’t that make it the perfect partner to collaborate with?

    • The Exact Shape

      Why Bother?

      Because right now, there is someone

      out there with

      a wound in the exact shape

      of your words.

      — Sean Thomas Dougherty

      Writing every day has a way of locking us into routine. This is a blessing and a curse, I think, for it produces something tangible while also making us more rigid in our thinking. Discipline has a price, like every other pursuit does. We are always saying no to something for every yes.

      I wish I’d written the poem that kicks off today’s blog, but then again, for all the poetry I read, I rarely attempt to write it myself. I’ve settled into a way of writing where wondrous brevity isn’t as natural. I stray more towards Thoreau’s process of choking the reader with words. I must remind myself to… breathe.

      Space and time are as essential in communication as the words themselves.

      Which makes me wonder…

      If publishing every day

      is the answer.

      Or if the words need

      a little more room

      to grow.

      Exactly what shape

      should these words

      take?