Alexandersmap

    Category: Habits

    • All or Nothing at All

      All or nothing at all
      If it’s love, there ain’t no in between
      Why begin then cry for something that might have been?
      No, I’d rather, rather have nothing at all
      — Frank Sinatra, All or Nothing at All

      We get busy, don’t we? We pour ourselves into our work, into our passions, and forget that there are other things that are important for us to do, to accomplish, to experience. Life is a series of tradeoffs and compromises, with a few things dominating our lives in the uncompromising way that identity shades the lenses through which we see the world.

      A month ago I finished a fairly intense burst of high-mileage walking, and then simply stopped. I’ve done this before, with rowing a million meters, with rowing itself, and with other passions that mattered a great deal to complete in the season that they were essential and then became yesterday’s news. It’s either a symptom of being focused on accomplishing what the day at hand demands (generous), or a mind that prefers to stick with one big thing at a time (more likely). It’s an all or nothing at all way of walking through the world.

      “You have feet, and if you don’t make use of them it’s a loss and a waste. Someone is telling you now so that in the future you cannot say: “No one told me that it was important to enjoy using my feet.” — Thích Nhất Hạnh, How to Walk (Mindfulness Essentials, #4)

      The thing is, that walking was serving me quite well, but I just sort of got busy with other things. And suddenly a month flies by and as Thích Nhất Hạnh observed, it becomes a loss and a waste for having not continued to ride the momentum of the moment. And so it must begin again, instead of having simply continued. The lesson is to always lean into the positive momentum in your life.

      We must live our lives as if this time was all we had, for soon it will be nothing at all. Distractions be damned, enjoy the things that fill our days with joy and our future with an abundance of health and energy. We must step to it already.

    • Inflexible Disciplines

      “I have always believed that exercise is not only a key to physical health but to peace of mind. Many times in the old days I unleashed my anger and frustration on a punching bag rather than taking it out on a comrade or even a policeman. Exercise dissipates tension, and tension is the enemy of serenity. I found that I worked better and thought more clearly when I was in good physical condition, and so training became one of the inflexible disciplines of my life. In prison, having an outlet for one’s frustrations was absolutely essential.” — Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

      Life spins along at a rapid clip. It’s easy when we’re busy to push some things to the side and realize one day that we haven’t done something essential for some inexplicably long time. Habits we’ve folded into our identity can slip away in a few weeks of inaction. If we are what we repeatedly do, we are also what we repeatedly don’t do. So we must zealously hold on to the things we want in our lives. I can’t help but think of Nelson Mandela as I write that. He had a rigid exercise routine throughout his life that began at 05:00 every day. This carried him through his worst days in prison through his best days as President of South Africa. Who am I to use excuses for not being more disciplined?

      This idea of inflexible discipline is the key. We all must have our line in the sand of what we will always do or not do. This is our core identity. For me it includes writing and publishing something every day, along with a key set of other habits I track daily. A fitness routine is woven into that essential habit list, but it comes and goes like the breeze. As with writing, it has to be a box that must be checked every day. And as with writing, it’s better to check that box early in the morning before life’s distractions stack up against us. Like Mandela and others in human history who represent a disciplined life of fulfillment and transcendence from the ordinary.

      Our actions determine who we are and will be. It seems that being inflexible with ourselves may be the difference between reaching a desired identity and forever punting it away. Decide what to be and go be it, as the Avett Brothers put it so well. Being it begins today and every day.

    • Talkin’ to Myself

      Talkin’ to myself and feelin’ old
      Sometimes I’d like to quit
      Nothin’ ever seems to fit
      Hangin’ around
      Nothin’ to do but frown
      Rainy days and Mondays always get me down
      — The Carpenters/Adam Williams, Rainy Days and Mondays

      Rainy days and Mondays never really drag me down. Sure, we’ve had way more rain than we should this season, while others aren’t getting nearly enough of it. I can fret about climate change but I don’t usually care that it’s raining or sunny on any given day. Likewise, I don’t worry all that much whether it’s a Monday or a Saturday, as each is a gift. The key is whether you feel in control of your days or whether you feel someone else is controlling them. We can’t control the passing of time or the weather, only our reaction to it. The jury is still out on whether we collectively have the fortitude to do anything about climate change.

      I saw a friend the other day who parroted the dangers of “mass murderers swarming crossing the border and descending upon innocents across the country”. I didn’t have the energy to get in a debate with him, having learned during the last two elections in the United States that people are going to believe what they believe and you just can’t force an alternate story line upon a zealot. It made me sad to see another one gone though, reminding me of that closing moment in Invasion of the Body Snatchers when you realize someone you once believed in had switched over to the dark side. Sometimes you just want to scream. But like the weather, this is a reaction we can choose or opt out of. Instead I focused on what we had in common.

      The quality of our lives is always going to be about who is controlling our time and our belief system. When we accept that some things are out of our control, we learn to work with what we can. Amor fati. Our beliefs, on the other hand, can be developed independently of what those around us may believe. We may yet become who we want to be in this life, and we ought to have faith in others to find a way forward too.

      Lately my posts have been all over the place in both content and when they’re published. It’s a sign of a complicated life, perhaps, or maybe it’s just the time bucket I happen to reside in at the moment. Either way, it’s documented and best viewed through the lens of time. What I’m sure of is that I’ve often wanted to quit, but just keep writing anyway. That’s how life works too. Just keep showing up and doing the work and things usually work out in the end. Nothing to be down about at all, really. Just one soul in a wild world, talking to himself.

    • Open to the Unpredictable

      “The secret of adventure, then, is not to carefully seek it out but to travel in such a way that it finds you. To do this, you first need to overcome the protective habits of home and open yourself up to unpredictability. As you begin to practice this openness, you’ll quickly discover adventure in the simple reality of a world that defies your expectations. More often than not, you’ll discover that “adventure” is a decision after the fact—a way of deciphering an event or an experience that you can’t quite explain.” — Rolf Potts, Vagabonding

      Inevitably I awaken well before my alarm goes off, and I believe it to be because I rarely set an alarm anymore. It’s saved for early flights and precious little else. As such, my mind is wrapped around the process of travel instead of deep, restful sleep. Did I pack everything? How does traffic look today? What’s the weather at my destination and have I properly prepared for it? Such is the restlessness of a traveler’s mind.

      This idea of being properly prepared is a form of control. We don’t control all that much when we travel, other than our own actions. A series of random events can turn an itinerary upside down in the blink of an eye. And so we create contingencies and build extra time in to ensure we don’t miss the trains, planes and automobiles that bring us from here to there and back again.

      As we open ourselves up to encounters with the unexpected, we face the very things we can’t always be prepared for. Adapting to the challenges we face builds resilience and a higher level of worldliness than we had before. As we become more worldly we condition ourselves for the unexpected.

      Louis Pasteur said that “fortune favors the prepared mind”. When we feel ready for the unexpected we become more open to receiving it when it arrives. Openness is a developed skill as much as it is a mindset. So as I rose to meet the day, I took comfort in the preparation that would carry me through the host of unexpected that will surely greet me.

    • Wants and Needs

      “Your satisfaction is what you have, divided by what you want.”
      ― Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength

      “Satisfaction comes not from chasing bigger and bigger things, but paying attention to smaller and smaller things.”
      ― Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength

      “Don’t forget it: he has most who needs least. Don’t create needs for yourself.” — Josemaría Escrivá

      This business of creating needs is familiar. Just now I’m distracted by the perceived need to buy a book I’ve heard about, knowing I have a stack of unread books on the shelf. We want what we want in this lifetime, and either push the thought away to focus on what we have or we let it gnaw at us like a teething puppy gnaws at furniture. Which reminds me, I wanted a puppy recently, and reconcile myself to the lifestyle changes she’s imposed upon me ever since (she filled a tangible void in an empty nest, but she also fills poop bags with surprising efficiency).

      The thing is, to find peace in this marketing-induced manic world, we must find satisfaction in the little things in our lifetime. Life is more satisfying when you stop craving every shiny new thing that splashes across your preferred media feed. We can never keep up with the Joneses, and why would we want to anyway?

      During the pandemic I began watching YouTube sailing videos, and soon began craving the lifestyle myself. Wouldn’t it be nice to own a boat and just slide into some beautiful cove for sunset before allowing the gentle rocking of the waves lull you to blissful sleep? Wouldn’t it be nice to pull up anchor and sail anywhere in the free world? It sure seems like a dream. But I soon realized that it’s not my dream, not at this point in my life. Put another way, a boat is a really nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there. Give me a quiet garden and some body of water to plunge into now and then and I’m generally happy.

      Yet the wanderlust remains. The call of places unseen stirs something deep inside. Is this want a need? The question we always must ask is, what will I say no to in order to say yes to this? Another question to ask is whether this is the time for this yes in my life or is it best deferred to another time bucket in this life? Combined these questions resolve a lot of impulsive decisions and bring peace to a restless soul.

      That puppy who was gnawing on furniture not too long ago has become a sweet, energetic companion. My bride and I know the tradeoffs of having such responsibilities in our life once again, but we also know that it’s what we needed, not just what we wanted in some moment of impulsiveness. Let others chase those shiny new toys, those biggers and betters, we’re doing just fine with what we have.

    • Expressing Priorities

      “Action expresses priorities.” – Mahatma Gandhi

      We each default to our foundational identity. It’s just who we are, demonstrated in action and prioritization again and again. This is either beneficial to our current and future self or detrimental. To change requires deliberate focus on habit formation and environmental changes like not buying cookies for the pantry or beer for the refrigerator. Sometimes it requires removing ourselves entirely from situations where the circle of friends and family around us are influencing behavior we just don’t want to be engaged in. I once decided I wasn’t going to drink for a month but went out to dinner with friends who goaded me into having a beer with them. It’s just a beer! So much for that resolution.

      This summer I walked an extra 250 miles for a charity. It was time-consuming and frankly inconvenient, but I’d signed up and was in a situation where I’d be letting down others if I didn’t complete the stated goal. I finished with a few extra miles to spare and have only walked once in the seven days since. It wasn’t a part of my identity to walk, it was a part of my identity to honor my commitments to others. I thrived in rowing because I was in a boat full of teammates I didn’t want to let down. Similarly, I work hard in other aspects of my life because I want to honor my commitment to contribution. Knowing this about myself, I can shift tactics to ensure that I remain active and productive.

      When we express priorities through action we’re making a statement about who we are and who we want to be. We are what we repeatedly do, and we telegraph who we are to others through our behavior, not our stated intentions. Action speaks louder than words, as they say. So we must express priorities clearly.

    • Doing If You Want To‘s

      “If you want to be a poet, write poetry. Every day. Show us your work.
      If you want to do improv, start a troupe. Don’t wait to get picked.
      If you want to help animals, don’t wait for vet school. Volunteer at an animal shelter right now.
      If you want to write a screenplay, write a screenplay.
      If you want to do marketing, find a good cause and spread the idea. Don’t ask first.
      If you’d like to be more strategic or human or caring at your job, don’t wait for the boss to ask.
      Once we leave out the “and” (as in, I want to do this and be well paid, invited, approved of and always successful) then it’s way easier to.”
      — Seth Godin, Are you doing what you said you wanted to do?

      Well, if you want to sing out, sing out
      And if you want to be free, be free
      ‘Cause there’s a million things to be
      You know that there are
      — Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam), If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out

      We complicate things with the stories we tell ourselves. We envision what a writer ought to look like, or an actor or leader or whatever we aspire to be. Instead of just slipping on the role for size and doing it. Just do it, as Nike famously coopted as their slogan. How many do just that? Don’t let it slip away, do some version of it now and grow into the rest.

      I write this blog fancying myself a writer. I wear plenty of other hats as well, so I try to write before the world wakes up and tells me I’m supposed to be something else now. Most of the time I give the world what it wants of me, but for a little time every day I simply write. If the posts are late in the day or seem a bit compressed and scattered, it’s usually a sign that I was running late, compressed and scattered myself. But I still put it out there as a humble statement that yes, I do in fact write.

      There’s a million things to be, you know that there are, but there’s usually a very short list of things you simply have to be to feel you’re on the right path. Doing those if you want to’s is the only way to feel like the world isn’t passing you by. Most of the universe barely recognizes that Seth Godin or Yusuf Islam put out similar statements, let alone me, but each of us knows that we showed up and shipped the work. We each grow into our identity with the things we do now. Sometimes that’s enough.

    • The Freedom of Inaction

      “Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

      “The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

      The 28th of August is Goethe’s birthday, so I thought it fitting to reflect on two quotes that, on the face of it, seem to contradict each other. Quotes have a way of expressing what you want them to, without the depth and nuance of the longer work they’re drawn from. We live in a soundbites culture, after all, and the lede is all some people want to read. We know Goethe went far deeper, and owe it to ourselves to jump into the deep end ourselves, don’t we?

      On the one hand, we know it to be true that momentum is sustained by continuous action (Stephen Covey would have said pushing the flywheel), yet on the other know that rest is as essential to our long term wellbeing as action is(Covey’s sharpening the saw). They don’t contradict, they aggregate. As with everything else in life, balance is the key.

      As I close out the final miles of a walking challenge I made for myself this summer, I see the cumulative benefit of it in better fitness even as I feel the soreness from some long walks to close out the goal. We know when we ought to rest more, and ignore it at our peril. This is true in everything. Taking some time off from work last week, I anticipated long walks balanced by long stints on the beach diving into the stack of books I’d been collecting for the occasion. That beach time largely evaporated as I conceded time to projects that simply had to get done. The feeling of watching the week slip away with most of that stack of books unread was akin to feeling like you missed your flight as it departed the gate.

      The thing is, there’s freedom in inaction. Deliberate down time without distraction forces us to sort things out in both body and spirit, and clear the way for the next phase of action to follow. That compulsion to do more instead of embracing essential rest eventually catches up to us. I return from time off feeling there was unfinished business, unlike a few weeks ago when sailing, where plugging in or doing projects simply weren’t options. So it seems the key for relaxation is to eliminate any means to rid ourselves of the freedom of inaction. This shouldn’t be physically removing ourselves from task mania, but instead mentally doing so. Just say no to the task master inside.

      Happy Birthday Johann. I’ll try to relax a bit today in your honor. But there’s work to do before that. You know: no pause in progress and development, and all that.

    • Breaking It Down

      “It’s your road and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.” — Rumi

      When you break down distances into bite-sized chunks, they don’t seem all that bad. To walk 250 miles over the course of roughly two months I needed to average 35 miles per week, or 5 miles per day. Put another way, That’s roughly 10,000 steps above and beyond the normal 10,000 steps we’re told we need to average in a day. The entire point of the challenge wasn’t to be average, but to stretch my comfort zone.

      Objective well on the way to being achieved, but to what end? What is the “why?” in any new habit we develop? It’s the “what is the why not?” that prompts resistance to accomplishing an otherwise worthy goal. Carrots and sticks, internalized. So what drives us anyway?

      Any habit begins with a compelling why. That why is derived from a commitment to something larger than ourselves and a vision of who we want to be. We cast votes for our identity, as James Clear puts it. I’m walking those steps for a good cause (a worthy charity) and a belief that I’m a person who follows through on my commitments.

      The question is, will the habit stick after the commitment is honored? After all, it’s happened before, once rowing a million meters for a worthy cause and taking time off afterwards that quickly chilled any momentum in the habit. Knowing that, I look at this period of increased activity differently. The trick is to keep doing the habit, even if it’s a greatly reduced workload. Breaking it down is a good starting point. Just keep doing it, but in smaller bites.

    • The Beauty in Useful

      “Why is art beautiful? Because it is useless. Why is life ugly? Because it is all aims and purposes and intentions…. The beauty of ruins? The fact that they were no longer of any use. The sweetness of the past? Being able to remember it, because to remember the past is to make it the present again, and the past is not and cannot be the present — the absurd, my love, the absurd.” — Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

      “My father said to me, ‘Be useful.’ Useful not only to yourself, but useful to your neighborhood, your country, the world. It entails everything.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger, from Men’s Health

      If art is beautiful because it’s useless, does that same criteria apply to a lifetime? What make life beautiful anyway? Is it spontaneity and happenstance or structure and purpose? Doesn’t a lifetime require a bit of both?

      When we systematize our lives we are adding routines that sustain us and increase our effectiveness. Routines don’t have to mean our lives are routine. If a purposeful and intentional life is an ugly life to Pessoa, I would argue it shines a light on our lives, making them more beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, after all. A painter may find rigid conformity to accepted rules ugly and confining, while an architect or structural engineer finds great beauty in the very same rule.

      We are, each of us, mere memories in the making. What will make our lives beautiful is largely up to us, and it may inspire others. Usefulness is a ripple across time and space. It magnifies our presence into something tangible. Whether we swim in a small pond or a vast ocean, we make a ripple. Done well, a lifetime can be quite beautiful indeed. And isn’t our lifetime our most essential work of art?