Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • Putting Nothing Aside

      “If you do nothing, nothing will happen.” — Joanna Nylund, Sisu: The Finnish Art of Courage

      Nothing simply delivers the results we deserve. The lesson is to do something more to earn more, so that something might be realized. Even better, we may choose to take meaningful, powerful action, so that meaningful, powerful things may be realized. Boldness may be our dance partner, but she doesn’t dance with just anyone. We must be bold ourselves.

      We wake up with a blank slate each day, and get to fill it in with world-building activity. We are building the world that we live in each day, aren’t we? It might be true that we don’t control a lot of things, but we forget in focusing on that to focus on the things with which we have agency. Forget what we cannot control! That leads to a whole lot of nothing. We must put nothing aside and get busy building.

    • The Length and Breadth of Life

      “Go out this morning. Love yourself, and that means rational and healthy self-interest. You are commanded to do that. That’s the length of life. Then follow that: Love your neighbor as you love yourself. You are commanded to do that. That’s the breadth of life.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

      Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. day in the United States. It’s also inauguration day for the new/old President. We may choose to celebrate what we wish to celebrate today, that’s our right. I’ll be a voice for hope, love and understanding today. May we all become better versions of ourselves than we’ve been thus far, for we still have so far to go.

      We ought to take care of ourselves better. Eat better, drink more water and less alcohol, move more, find ways to let stress float away instead of embedding itself inside us until it metastasizes. Living a healthy lifestyle is a choice that pays dividends, hopefully with a longer life, but surely with a more vibrant, energetic life now.

      All that newfound energy ought to be put to good use. We may find a community of positive, productive people who raise our expectations of what is possible. Opening ourselves to the world allows our minds the elbow room necessary to expand our perspective. We are the average of the five people we associate with the most, so why settle for a community that drags us down? There’s no reason why can’t reshuffle the deck and raise the bar.

      Asking what we’ve been conditioned for is often the first step to moving ourselves to a better condition. A longer life is not guaranteed but possible. A broader life is like changing our glasses out for a new prescription—life-changing perspective is often a matter of changing what we’re focus on. It can happen today. And really, what better day is there than today to bring positive change into our world?

    • Sisu

      “The exact meaning of sisu is difficult to define. There’s no one word in the English language with a literal parallel, and even in Finnish, sisu stands for a cluster of traits that includes stoic determination, hardiness, courage, bravery, willpower, tenacity and resilience. Sisu is an action-oriented mindset: it comes into play as you take on a challenge seemingly beyond your capacity. It is called upon when adversity and opposition force you to give up and only your courage allows you to hold on.” — Joanna Nylund, Sisu: The Finnish Art of Courage

      I’ve encountered this word, sisu, several times over the last few years. Each time I’ve told myself to write a blog post about it to explore it further, maybe in hopes of internalizing the traits that make up sisu into my own mindset. After all, I’ve been writing about stoicism for years with the same goal—surely some stoic traits have permeated the thick scull of this writer. But writing about sisu felt different because it’s not my word to write about. I’m not Finnish, and the traits that are sisu are something you display, not some clever term the marketing team can hijack.

      “An essential trait of sisu is the lack of a need to talk about it. Any kind of swagger or talking up your bravery has no place in sisu. It’s no good just saying you have sisu if you can’t show it – let your actions do the talking.” — Joanna Nylund, Sisu: The Finnish Art of Courage

      So we aren’t talking about bravado here. Living a life more aligned with sisu feels an internal calling. An aspiration to be bold in the face of all of this crap the world is throwing at us nowadays. This is no time to be soft. This is no time to be wringing our hands and giving up. These are our days to reach for personal excellence (refer to my other favorite word; arete). We can’t very well let ourselves down now, when there’s so much at stake in our lives.

      We know that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Maybe this is the right time to finally embrace the word and simply be more stoic, be more brave and tenacious and courageous. To stoke the fire within and push through the challenges ahead. Then again, hasn’t it always been that time? We must simply rise up to meet the moment, again and again. And knowing what we now know about the word, isn’t that sisu?

    • Purposeful Motion

      “It was a strange foreshortening between sight and touch, she thought, between wish and fulfillment, between—the words clicked sharply in her mind after a startled stop—between spirit and body. First, the vision—then the physical shape to express it. First, the thought—then the purposeful motion down the straight line of a single track to a chosen goal. Could one have any meaning without the other? Wasn’t it evil to wish without moving—or to move without aim? Whose malevolence was it that crept through the world, struggling to break the two apart and set them against each other?” — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

      Purpose comes with clarity. Clarity comes with mental space to sift through the noise and find our calling. Once our why is clear to us, we must then act with purposeful motion towards that goal, or the game is up. So many days are wasted playing the wrong game. So it is that we must have clarity to maximize our days with purpose.

      We can be well aware of the news, but that doesn’t mean we have to consume the poison. We vote, we donate, we work to be the voice of reason in a maddening world, but at the end of the day, we’ve got things to do, and we must get to them. We must stay on track with our goals or we’ll never reach them. As my bride loves to say about the madness in the world, it’s not our circus, not our monkeys. Our circus is filled with exciting possibility waiting for our attention to be realized.

      I can see clearly now, the rain is gone
      I can see all obstacles in my way
      Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
      It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
      Sun-shiny day
      — Johnny Nash, I Can See Clearly Now

      This year will be filled with obstacles in our way that demand our focused attention to navigate. How we get past them is to be determined, but doesn’t it make sense to build a little momentum first, that we meet them at peak performance? It’s easy to look out at obstacles and simply give up. Easy, but not very fulfilling.

      The thing is, it’s never been about the obstacle, it’s about the goal beyond the obstacle. Write the book, build the business, reach the peak, build a lifetime partnership—we know our goals, we must stop focusing on obstacles and focus instead on the way beyond them. Life is an accumulation of accomplishments and milestones. On our deathbed will we only talk of obstacles, or of the things we realized in our time?

    • Singlemindedness

      “To follow without halt, one aim; there is the secret of success. And success? What is it? I do not find it in the applause of the theater. It lies rather in the satisfaction of accomplishment.” — Anna Pavlova

      Single-mindedness is a superpower. With it we focus on our top priority at the expense of all others. Without it, we are a jack of all trades. We may become good at many things, but as the expression goes, we master none. We simply cannot reach mastery without single-mindedness.

      The real question is, what should we say yes to that would make all else a no? Is it best to live an abundance of yeses or a highly restricted life of many no’s? Does mastery trump the pursuit of a life of many passions?

      Naturally the world couldn’t care a lick what we wish to focus on. There are many important things on our to-do list and an infinite number of distractions available to pull our attention away from the essential. We must wrestle with these questions as we progress through life, with each stage bringing a different perspective. But throughout our entirety, we must protect our focus as if our lives depend on it. Surely it does.

    • Bridge Building

      “Agency is a divine gift to you. You are free to choose what you will be and what you will do.” — Russell M. Nelson

      “Francisco, what’s the most depraved type of human being?”
      “The man without a purpose.”
      — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

      Agency is the essential difference between going through life a serf or carving out a life of self-actualization. It’s the combustion in our engine on this locomotive we call identity. Otherwise what are we but freight cars being towed by someone else’s dream?

      This year has already brought challenges beyond our control, just as every other year in our lives has. We should help those in need where we can, but we must remember not to focus on the chasms we cannot close. Doing so leads to feelings of hopelessness and indifference. These aren’t the tools of agency, they’re given to those who would take them to break their spirit and put out any fire burning inside, that they too may be towed along with all the rest.

      Those with high agency focus on what they can control and take measurable steps to build bridges to realize their dreams. This internal drive is within all of us, but it must be coaxed back out to be realized. Step away from the chasm of indifference the world suggests is our lot in life and move towards bridge building. If we are to do anything in this life, we must begin now. There is no other right time than this one.

    • Begin Already

      “Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.” — Brooks Atkinson

      My writing desk is filled with old receipts, business cards, lip balm and coupons from the holidays. Why do these collected scraps of the past accumulate on spaces we mean to use for more productive, forward-looking work? It’s time to clear all that stuff off and get back to the work that I created this space for. It’s time to write, to dive deeply into questions, to create something more than the scattered refuse of prior days.

      We can’t very well dwell on all that’s come and gone and expect to get to the places we still want to go to in our lives. Are we awaiting warmer days? Inspiration? Enough of limbo, it’s time to begin climbing again. Our future depends on us doing something productive with our time now, not thinking back on what we did then. Begin already!

    • The Right Time

      “A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting.” — Carlos Castaneda

      I spent a lifetime
      Waiting for the right time
      — Elvis Presley, Its Now or Never

      It’s been bitter cold the last few days. The kind of cold that stings bare skin. These are the days when building a roaring fire to warm ourselves was exactly what we envisioned when we were busy chopping and stacking firewood. Indeed, all that chopping and stacking led us here; so make use of that spark we jealousy hold onto and light the damned fire already!

      All that planning and goal setting to start the year is useful, but now we must get straight to the business of executing on that plan. Start the streak of productive days, or keep the streak alive if we’re fortunate to be on the right path already. The trap is to keep on planning for a bold life, instead of living it.

      There is no right time for anything, there’s only now. Do what must be done in the time we have. We all want to be the hero in our own epic journey—so what are we waiting for? It’s now or never, friend. There comes a time when chopping and stacking firewood is no longer the best use of our precious time.

    • ‘Tis Time for Action

      Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.” — Benjamin Disraeli

      Some of us are excellent planners. I pride myself on planning every detail of a trip, whether business or pleasure, to ensure I make the most of my time wherever I’m going to. There’s room built in for discovery, but the key building blocks of an impactful and successful trip are covered. The key to maximizing the return on that time and effort investment spent in planning is action. We must do the things we said we were going to do.

      We’ve turned the corner into a new year. All that planning must now be realized through action. The workouts, the calls we promised to make, the books we said we’d read and the waterfalls we said we’d go see are all lined up and waiting for us. We must keep our promises to ourselves and do something with the opportunity.

      Everyone wants to be happy, but what is happiness but a byproduct of action? What is a long term, happy marriage? Ask someone out on a date, find there’s a spark, build bridges out of common ground, and thirty years later find that we’ve built a hell of a life together. Happiness is the series of actions by each player in the relationship to keep it all together through all that life throws at us along the way.

      What is the opposite of happiness? Indifference. Which is manifested by inaction. Every day I play frisbee with the pup. The moment one of us becomes indifferent the game is over. One side is waiting for the other to be present again and momentum fizzles away. It’s not such a leap to see this applies to more than frisbee. When we go through the motions, skip steps, and drift away mentally or physically, the gap grows between the state we wanted and the reality of our life. We must invest ourselves daily in the work necessary to keep the game alive, whatever that game is for us.

      So here we are with all that planning just waiting to be executed on. We know the first step is going to be awkward, but still a bit thrilling. We know our inclination may one day—maybe tomorrow, maybe next week—lead to indifference. Just as indifference kills action, action kills indifference. Each day we show up builds momentum. So we must show up and honor all that planning with action.

    • All This Scribbling

      “But what does all this scribbling amount to? What is now scribbled in the heat of the moment one can contemplate with somewhat of satisfaction, but alas! to-morrow—aye, to-night—it is stale, flat, and unprofitable,—in fine, is not, only its shell remains, like some red parboiled lobster-shell which, kicked aside never so often, still stares at you in the path.
      What may a man do and not be ashamed of it? He may not do nothing surely, for straightway he is dubbed Dolittle—aye! christens himself first—and reasonably, for he was first to duck. But let him do something, is he the less a Dolittle? Is it actually something done, or not rather something undone?”
      — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      We aren’t the only ones who wonder at our writing. Thoreau telegraphed his own doubts in his journal, but kept writing nonetheless. And what of us? A friend asked me today if I would keep the blog going in the new year. Which raises the question of why. Why keep this going at all? Well, why not?

      Does our daily routine lead us somewhere or are we going in circles? It’s a new year and a new day. These are the times that stir the imagination. Where will we go with it? What might we do that we may be proud of?

      When it comes to the blog, and maybe some other writing of consequence, the journey is worthy of the time investment. It feels to me that all this scribbling leads somewhere very much worth going to. Onward then, into the great unknown that is the new year. Let’s see where it all takes us.