Alexandersmap

    Category: Learning

    • Earning Deserving

      “To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want. The world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of undeserving people.” ― Charles Munger

      “Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.” — Jim Rohn

      We are all trying to reach someplace better than we began. Some of us began in a pretty decent position, some are well behind the 8 ball. It would be irresponsible to not acknowledge that starting position isn’t important in our lives. Head-starts do matter, but we ought to remember that where we start doesn’t guarantee where we finish. Most people in a free society have agency over their lives. Many simply choose to relinquish it.

      We all know examples of people who waste their potential. The mirror is particularly handy when we think of those what-might-have-beens. There’s an old saying about mirrors being much smaller than windshields for a reason: we must look forward not back to get where we want to go. Put another way, if we aren’t moving forward we’re in danger of being dragged backwards by the past.

      But forward is daunting. It’s changing the very things that make us who we are, and becoming someone else. The same is comfortable, while change seems like a lot of work. Crossing that chasm seems impossible at times. This is where that small mirror can help offer perspective. Think of the things that we once thought were impossibilities in our lives that are now core parts of our identity. The future doesn’t look so daunting when viewed from the lens of possibility.

      Sure, excellence is a habit. Who doesn’t want to reach their level of personal excellence? It turns out plenty of people would rather be comfortable than try to leap across chasms. More often than not, I’d rather be comfortable than working out or hiking up a mountain or doing the work that leads to uncommon results in my career. The struggle is real, and the only way forward is to take those incremental steps necessary to move onward and upward. When we keep checking boxes we close gaps between who we were and who we want to become. Deep down, we know that deserving is earned one step at a time. It turns out that all that really matters is what we do next.

    • Words That Will Last

      Now I’m a reader of the night sky
      And a singer of inordinate tunes
      That’s how I float across time, living way past my prime
      Like a long lost baby’s balloon
      So I hang on to the string, work that whole gravity thing
      But when my space ship goes pop, back to the earth I will drop
      Into the sea, or the limbs of a tree
      Or the wings of my love
      And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do
      Maybe invent me a story or two
      I’ve got coastal confessions to make
      How ’bout you, how ’bout you?
      They say that time is like a river
      And stories are the key to the past
      But now I’m stuck in-between here at my typing machine
      Trying to come up with some words that will last
      It’s so easy to see that we live history
      And if I just find the beat, I know I’ll land on my feet
      I always do, hadn’t got a clue
      Does it come from above?
      — Jimmy Buffett, Coastal Confessions

      On those occasions where I debate the merit of Jimmy Buffett to the catalog of great lyricists, I generally point to Coastal Confessions or A Pirate Looks at 40 as examples of a writer tapping into magic. As a person trying to tap into magic now and then myself, I appreciate a great poem disguised as song. We’re all trying to find words that will last a beat longer than the average sound bite, aren’t we?

      Lately I’m caught up in refining my habits and routines, that I might be more efficient and such. This betrays a desire to do work that matters with the urgency of a quarterback who’s seen that this game is all about clock management. We can be the most brilliant player on the field and it won’t matter a lick if we run out of time before we complete the drive. The thing is, even when we do everything perfectly, sometimes the kick goes wide right. The universe has its own say in how things play out. Memento mori, Carpe diem. Amor fati.

      This blog remains a line of breadcrumbs between where I started and where I am today. The path ahead is only hinted at. Breadcrumbs have a way of being swallowed up in time. I’m not naive enough to believe any of these words will last as they are published. In the end, it’s the ripple, not the splash that lingers. A splash is immediate, the ripple may touch people who were never aware there was a splash at all. The thing is, the world is full of people trying to make a bigger splash than everyone else. That leads to a confused sea state, with ripples coming from all directions. Best to set our own course and invite others along for the ride. I’ve set my own course for the coast of somewhere beautiful.

      Speaking of confused sea states, I’ve just lumped a few analogies into one short blog post. What else is new? Some of these themes have repeated over and over again. That’s inevitable with a couple of thousand blog posts, but it’s mostly just me reminding myself to keep going with it. The story is still being written, after all. We can’t control the result but we can manage the clock a bit, and discover that we love the game.

    • Truth and Stories

      “Truth is the only safe ground to stand on.” ― Elizabeth Cady Stanton

      Truth is not found in the media or popular opinion or in the best of intentions. It’s seen in the boxes checked (or unchecked) day-after-day, cold indicators of what we have done or not done with the promises we make to ourselves. Truth is the scale and the waistline and the recycling bin. We know the truth when we encounter it staring right back at us. Maybe that’s why so many prefer to focus on other people’s stories instead of their own truth.

      Stories are what we tell ourselves about the world and our place in it. Stories scare us into submission or make us feel better about unchecked boxes. Stories are watercolors of hopefulness or fear, the promise of better somedays, and reasons for why we didn’t act then. Stories are lovely things or scary things, and sometimes confused with truth, until truth knocks a story down to size. Some people live their whole lives in a story, never finding the truth. What a sad story indeed.

      Change may be built on the truth or a compelling story. We ought to know what is driving us, that we may arrive at a place better than the one we departed from. What are we tracking in our lives? Properly tracked, metrics tell the story of who we might become, while telling the truth about what we’ve done thus far. We are what we repeatedly do—that’s truth, but we may decide what to be and go be it—that’s a story. Both are necessary for us to reach another place in our lives.

      It’s fair to ask ourselves where we stand, and what we stand for. What do we find acceptable in our lives? What do we settle for? Just where are our stories taking us? When we encounter the truth in these questions, we may change the chapters to come in our lives. For tomorrow is a story to be written, the only truth is today. Which begs another question: what will we do with it?

    • 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.

    • 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?

    • 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.

    • The Reach

      “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

      The thing about reaching is that it’s inherently less comfortable than staying in place. We stretch ourselves in the reach. We experience unusual things, sometimes unimaginable things, when stepping out of the familiar. Sometimes we find this unsettling, but sometimes we encounter delight and wonder. The reach is almost always worth it for who we become.

      Yes, we must seek new experiences, that we may fully live. Life will fly right on by whether we embrace the challenge of living boldly or shrink into whatever timid role we began the day in. Life may be thrilling when we make it so, just as surely as it may be trivial and boring when we stay in our shell. By all means, we must break out of it and try a new one on for size.

      The reach shouldn’t feel impossible. It should simply be a reach. And when we reach that point, reach again. In this way we expand our lives and become something more… and more. Mistakes will be made, lessons will be learned, and we will grow.

      Abundance in a lifetime isn’t a stack of gold or shiny things, it’s the experiences we have and the people we surround ourselves with. To reach is to actively engage with the world and to grow into whomever we may become—closer to our potential, closer to excellence.

    • Life Happens

      “When something bad happens you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let is destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.” ― Dr. Seuss

      Talking to an acquaintance recently, he relayed a series of tragedies that had befallen his family. One day everything was relatively normal, the next bad news was dropping all around them. Having been there a few times in my own life, empathy and supportiveness are drawn upon readily. We can take all the measures to be more resilient, but no matter the measure, life happens.

      “Be still, my heart; thou hast known worse than this.” ― Homer, The Odyssey

      The more we live, the more we live through—the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. Each informs, and when we pay attention, we learn lessons that will mitigate the impact of the next. Life isn’t easy and it’s definitely not fair, but it’s still worth the ride. Often our most beautiful moments are on the other side of darkness. Yet so many people among us focus only on the darkness, hate and misery in the world. They never get to the other side where beautiful lies, instead sinking deeper and deeper into the well. What kind of life is that?

      “The darkest hour is just before the dawn.” — Thomas Fuller

      Remembering that this too shall pass, with a purpose transcending our darkest days, is one way out. Sometimes it’s simply finding others who have been there before us, that we may see the light. Strength comes from stressors, whether we welcome them or not is beside the point. The best way to climb out of the abyss is to find climbing buddies. We may all lift each other up to a brighter place. If not now, then someday.

    • The Evening Walk

      “A dog can never tell you what she knows from the
      smells of the world, but you know, watching her,
      that you know
      almost nothing.”
      — Mary Oliver, Her Grave

      Walking the pup the last few nights, I’m reminded of what hides in plain sight from us. Rabbits standing still, waiting out the passersby. Other dog walkers, faces glowing in rapt attention to the phone while their dog cries for attention, if not from her leash mate, then perhaps from us. A phone ruins night vision immediately, but that’s not the only sense ruined. Awareness is a fragile thing, stolen away in an instant.

      Some things still scare the pup, even as she approaches nine months. She’s a teenager now, as dog years go, and most things don’t scare her on the surface. When she grows timid I pay extra attention, wondering what in the night draws her in so. A good flashlight usually reveals nothing but shadows. The pup knows better.

      The walks were what I missed most about having a dog. Dogs force a break from the comfort of the home, and pull us outside to engage with the world. Where we learn to be more aware. To confront our own senses and what we miss when we’re not fully present. Like poetry, sometimes the smallest thing means everything in this lifetime.

    • Some Years

      Forever alive, forever forward,
      Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble, dissatisfied,
      Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men,
      They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go,
      But I know that they go toward the best—toward something great.
      — Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road

      Some years feel monumental for the changes that wash over us. Some years feel like nothing happened worth writing home about. For the former, lessons in living life anew. For the latter, a tap on the shoulder that maybe now is the time to shake things up a bit and step outside of the familiar. We only have so many some years to work with.

      Heading into a new year, what are we to make of it? It can’t be more of the same for us, for everything changes all the time. Even what feels familiar and constant is changing, just at a slower rate than the world around that thing. I look around at the house I’ve lived in for what feels like forever and everything but the framing and windows has changed over and over again. Change is indeed a constant, reliable dynamic that we either must surf or be swept away by. We’ve all shown ourselves to be able surfers thus far.

      What makes a life great? Isn’t it the experiences we have with the people we surround ourselves with? Everything in life is an interaction between the inner self and the universe that surrounds us. To have lived well in this shell of a body is to have engaged actively with the world and to draw something from it, that we may grow for as long as we can.

      All years come and go. We advance with the years, forever alive, forever forward. Some years stand out as more memorable than others. Like a puzzle, the full picture doesn’t emerge until we put in the time. As the picture of the year that was is completed, we realize that there’s a larger puzzle still in the works. All our days make a picture—the sum of our lives. We must keep advancing towards something great, even if we can’t quite see it in ourselves. We must decide what to be and go be it.