Alexandersmap

    Category: Habits

    • A Little Mystery Each Day

      “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.” ― Albert Einstein

      At this point in the blog, dear reader, you may have realized that I am a collector of quotes. I believe it’s because I’m curious about what other people have to say about this journey through life. We are all somewhere along our timeline from here to there. That ought to mean something now, and it tends to mean something different at each phase of the journey. The takeaway is that it means something.

      When we are curious we are prompted to seek out interesting. Imagination sparked, we do still more interesting things, which leads to an expansive life of ever more interesting. Like attracts like, and in this way we surround ourselves with people who want more out of life than to drown it out in an endless doom scroll with something to wash it all down. To find delight in this world is simply choosing awareness over distraction.

      Curiosity didn’t kill the cat, it saved the cat from a life of boredom and indifference. What mystery is there for discovery? What will we manifest today though our curiosity and inclination to discover? Our search for meaning begins with having a look around and moving towards interesting. It’s certainly beyond where we’ve been thus far.

    • Undoing Undone

      “As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I’ve got left? Aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.” — David Bowie

      “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” — Pablo Picasso

      We are all getting older. I’m within 90 days of a milestone birthday myself, which begs the question, what am I going to do when I finally grow up? But why do we have to grow up anyway? I’m quoting rock stars and artists, which hints at my general attitude about growing up in the first place.

      The better question is, what might we become next? Forget about growing up! Focus instead on what we are going to do! Just who are we growing into? Finish what we’ve started and know that we’ve done our best in reaching it. And then? On to the next of course.

      What are we okay with leaving undone when we leave this world one day? What leaves us restless with each trip around the sun for not having done it yet? The process of becoming is extraordinary indeed, but so to is arriving at each milestone having done what we promised ourselves we’d do. Each day we dance with productivity and focus, undoing our list of undone and becoming who we might become. The only certainty is that we aren’t here forever—so get to it already.

    • The Glorious Thing

      “Your mind now, moldering like wedding-cake, heavy with useless experience, rich with suspicion, rumour, fantasy, crumbling to pieces under the knife-edge of mere fact. In the prime of your life.” — Adrienne Rich

      What a glorious quote. A poet struggling under the weight of identity, breaking away from the storybook life expected of her, stepping into a new narrative. We are transformed by thought and action, or we will remain forever imprisoned by expectations.

      No matter how much we replay it, our past is dead and gone. Our present is tenuous but malleable. Now is always the prime of our lives! To break free of now and create a bold new future is audacious. May we find that within ourselves and steer towards a course that makes our heart race with anticipation.

      It’s easy to feel frozen in place in the dead of winter. Every day is cold and dark. These last few days I’ve had flights and the plans related to them cancelled. Meetings fall away one-by-one, and empty spaces take their place on my calendar. These are merely facts of time and place and winter weather. The easy thing to do is nothing. The glorious thing to do is to seize the opportunity. Each day offers the freedom to crawl into old, familiar habits or leap into a new identity. Be bold today.

    • We Become the Sum

      “What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is related only to objects and not to individuals, or to life. That art is something which is specialized or which is done by experts who are artists. But couldn’t everyone’s life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not our life?” — Michel Foucault

      Walking the pup yesterday during a snowstorm, I considered turning back to slip on micro spikes. Fluffy snow over ice is never a good recipe for reliable footing. Instead I shortened my stride and the leash so the dog wouldn’t pull me down in her snowy exuberance. Some life lessons are learned from a sore backside.

      We know that we are works in progress, but sometimes get frustrated with the pace of that progress. It’s okay to paint over our mistakes now and then. It’s better to make them anyway, if only to learn which paths are not ours to take, if only to not have possibilities haunting us for not having tried them at all. As Nietzsche reminded us, that which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. In this way, we may consider each day a lesson in how to live.

      The pup and I have a loop that covers the same ground twice to get us to the desired distance. Double the distance and we’re doubling the frequency of times covering the same ground. Which is noticeable when it’s snowing out and we’re leaving foot and paw prints behind us. In this way, each loop revealed the previous ground we’d covered, but our steps never exactly repeated themselves. Our strides changed with the conditions, we were pulled towards some curiosity just a nose below the snow, a car passed by that changed our path or some such thing. As the snow accumulated, the oldest footprints faded more and more into the layers building up on top of them. Each loop was the same, yet completely different. So too are our days.

      Our canvas transforms with every stroke of the brush. Each offers lessons on where to go next. Each fades further into the background with the addition of yet another. But here lies depth and progress. The richness of life is found not just in the changes we make to our days, but in the rituals that anchor them. It all builds upon itself to form the work of art that is our life. In this way, we become the sum.

    • Emerging Possibilities

      How long did all those possibilities sleep
      during the years
      before this emerging
      — Michael Ondaatje, The Then

      There are hints of our future together all around us. We may see some version of ourselves emerge from the habits that we develop, or those that hold on to us (try as we might to break from them). We are what we repeatedly do, and so it is that we become what we surround ourselves with. There will always be a gap between who we are and what we want to be. Is that gap closing or becoming a chasm?

      We see in the world possibilities emerging that we never imagined. We may share mutual disgust and dismay. But I’m here to tell you that there are other possibilities hiding right in plain sight, possibilities that we can control, should we become aware of them. Life is what we make of it—it has always been this way and always will be. Fight the good fight, but for the love of God start within.

      What we tend to see is that which demands our attention, be it a heart attack or an autocrat or the waiter asking us what we want to drink. Immediacy demands focus. Do we remember the Eisenhower Matrix? Right next to that “urgent and important” quadrant lies the “not urgent but important” quadrant where the real work of becoming resides. Our future lies in seeing what might be, not forever reacting to what is thrown on our shoulders to somehow carry.

      Everything begins with awareness. When we are self-absorbed we don’t see the soulmate standing right in front of us. When we are distracted by the despair machine, we don’t see the pendulum swinging towards decency. When we are wrapped in the comfort of easy, we don’t see the path to personal excellence available when we become inclined towards harder. Possibilities are all around us, simply waiting for opportunities to emerge. Feed them the attention they need.

    • Stop Feeding the Monkey

      In the course of my pursuit of better, I have accumulated systems and routines that in themselves burden me with more things to carry, do and track. For example, I have five notebooks going right now, one strictly for work notes, one for tracking fitness, my Some Lines Per Day notebook to note just what I did on this lucky day of being alive, and a general notebook that sits on my desk for quick notes for any old thing. This of course is way too many notebooks, but I believe in a separation of church and state, and I believe that bleeding work into personal notebooks or vice versa would be a hot mess. And so I’m left with what I have.

      The thing is, it wasn’t always this way. I’ve tried Bullet Journals and Franklin Covey planners and all manner of electronic devices to mimic the simple analog efficiency of a notebook with purpose. Inevitably I drift away from all of them in favor of pen to paper. But I keep looking for the perfect solution to consolidate and simplify what should be a very simple act of tracking activity and thoughts.

      Just yesterday, I purchased yet another notebook. This one has grids on every page, which appeals to my spreadsheet mindset, but admittedly leaves something to be desired for the writer in me. It was an impulsive purchase, but something I sought out for a reason known only to my monkey mind (that restless spirit within that seeks to distract me from doing anything useful or productive).

      Notebooks are my thing, but the monkey mind consumes all kinds of things to keep us off track. Perhaps you’ve accumulated apps on your phone, or electronic devices that promise all manner of productivity and entertainment. How many streaming services are we up to now anyway? Usually two or three more than we’d like. How full is the closet? How many devices do we really need to cook dinner? How many tools do we need to maintain our home? We all have our version of “notebook” that keep us from the real work at hand.

      The thing is, we can bog ourselves down in systems and preparation, accumulate tools and techniques, acquire knowledge, degrees and certifications. But in the end, all that matters is the action we take towards a goal, and the work that we ship today. Everything else is background noise that drowns out the message. The answer is to simplify, focus and relentlessly cull the collection of things in life that keep feeding the monkey. At least that’s what I wrote down in my notebook. Which one, I can’t tell you.

    • Proof of Identity

      “I think motivation is complete garbage. It’s never there when you need it. And that’s the paradox of it. [It’s] that we’re all sitting there waiting to be motivated and it’s not coming. Because basic wiring of the brain is that you will always default to what’s easy. And you always push against what’s hard. And if motivation were available on demand we’d all have a million dollars and six-pack abs. And so sitting around and waiting for motivation is the kiss of death. Because it’s in the action that you dissipate the emotion, and it’s in the action that you actually prove to yourself through the action, ’cause you see yourself operating differently, that you are a different person, that you are not defined by your emotions.” — Mel Robbins, from A Bit of Optimism Episode 157 interview

      Two days ago I took all the comfortable habits acquired during the holidays and I threw them in the dumpster. For me, New Year’s resolutions are an artificial timeline that hits too abruptly after the holidays. The decorations are still up, how can we possibly mentally declare we’re on to something new yet? But wait a week or a month, see where we are and where we want to get to and simply begin. Decide what to be and go be it.

      The trick is in that waiting. We must act at some point if we’re going to do anything in this life. I waited because of business travel that would have made everything I expected to do to realize my plan impossible. I began because I saw the runway ahead and knew I was clear for takeoff. The implications are clear; we must be committed to the decisions we make and back them up with action immediately to reinforce the new identity we aspire to reach.

      There is a person in my life who doesn’t like when I use the word must in this blog—as if I’m commanding them to do what I write. I would suggest that we each have agency over ourselves or we don’t, and my use of a word does not translate into a demand for someone else’s action. Simply a demand for my own. Initiative begins within. So what is that voice within telling us? Act on that.

      Where do we want to be tomorrow? Where do we want to be in three months or at the end of this calendar year? Begin with the end in mind, establish and commit to a plan and do the work necessary to execute on that plan. If that sounds too business-like a sentence, so be it. We are in the business of life-optimization, and we must (there’s that word again) not wait, we must act now!

      Realize that the year will fly by like all the rest (Tempus fugit). Realize that there will always be something or someone that will pull us away from what we aspire to be. Action is the only proof of identity. Just what will we realize this year? Go be it.

    • To Build Better Days

      Winter days are growing longer. Have you seen the lingering light? Sure, there will be many more cold days ahead, and many more frigid nights. But the earth is tilting back towards the north, offering a gift of brighter each day.

      Nature offers lessons, should we see them. Our hardest days will pass, should we be resilient. Our darkest days will turn brighter when we become aware of the light. And we ourselves—unkempt, distracted and full of accumulated empty calories, may reset and focus on steady improvement in the key areas of our life. Our path isn’t always ours to determine, but how we react to it is uniquely ours.

      Today is ripe with opportunity or it will surely dash our dreams, ’tis largely up to us to decide. When we feel the world is in a rut, when everything has brought us down into despair or depression, why linger there? The only viable choice is to begin climbing. Now is as good a time as any to reset and begin again. To build better days one choice at a time.

    • Habit-Forming

      “I am playing the long game. I am inculcating habit. I am deepening my practice and my commitment, day by day, day after day. I’m training myself and reinforcing myself every day.” — Stephen Pressfield

      All of this writing builds on the reading and living that led to it. Each day reminds us that we have a long way to go still. May our timeline meet our lofty goals.

      Habits develop simply, but they form our identity by becoming embedded within our being. I may say I’m an early riser or an avid reader or possibly a little better than the average as a writer, but I believe these things to be true because I do each every single day. What completes us? I believe it is that which we wrap around ourselves—our relationships, rituals, routines and yes, our beliefs.

      So we are either delusional or devoted to our craft of identity-building. We may feel that we’re on the right path but sense that our pace is all wrong. To ask where we’re going with all of this is essential, because the path lasts a lifetime and it grows shorter by the day. So just where is all this habit-forming taking us?

    • Our Few Things

      “Convenience culture seduces us into imagining that we might find room for everything important by eliminating only life’s tedious tasks. But it’s a lie. You have to choose a few things, sacrifice everything else, and deal with the inevitable sense of loss that results.”
      — Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

      We believe we have all the time in the world, and with that belief, take on more than we should. The most effective people are those who say no to most everything thrown at them, and yes to a precious few. We are thus as effective as we choose to be.

      This blog post began early, lingered in the back of my mind during a long, full day, and awaited me when I returned. By all accounts, I should have simply let it go today to focus on the crush of other things that want my attention today. But the thing is, writing is one of those precious few for me, and so deserves the measure of time I have available to give it. We must know what our non-negotiables are, along with the bit players who fill the gaps. We shouldn’t ever confuse our precious few with a gap filler.

      So what are we okay with seeing slip away today? If we can’t be exceptional at everything, what thing is truly an exception? Focus on the few lest we see them lost in the many.