Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • Rounding the Mark on 2023

      The forest is dead quiet in the early morning hours when you walk out into it. At least until the creatures assess you and, seeing no imminent threat, go back about their business. It’s akin to going to a cocktail party and either working the room as the life of the party or receding back a bit and seeing what’s actually happening in the room. You might believe you’re the life of the party in the one case, but you won’t know what’s actually going on around you. It pays to shut up and read the room now and then.

      Sitting quietly in my trusty Adirondack chair, the woods soon erupted into chatter, as various couples expressed distain or encouraged more urgent attention to the nest. A young squirrel chewed through maple branches and hauled them back to the nest, where another squirrel seemed to be dissatisfied with the progress. Nearby, a house wren destroyed the silence with loud chattering birdsong. It’s always the smallest birds that make the most noise. Some might say the same about people. Two ears, one mouth is the ratio I taught my children. Sometimes I even take my own advice.

      There have been precious few mornings like this, just sitting outside listening to the world wake up around me. We’ve arrived at the month of July, and in New Hampshire it doesn’t really feel that’s possible. Blame it on the rain, relentlessly taking control of the month of June in the region. We’d all like to gift the precipitation to places that desperately need it now. Canada, on your big day, please have as much as you’d like. Feast or famine: that’s the climate now. The lawns thrive, the tomatoes and basil are horrified.

      I use that Adirondack chair for more than just listening to wildlife. It’s the place to listen to what’s happening between the ears as well. Assessing where we are, what we’ve done, what was left undone. Sometimes you have to sit still long enough to recognize it wasn’t ever about listening to the squirrels and house wrens or the weather. Assessing moments with people, places seen for the first time or the thousandth time, projects completed, projects put aside for another day. Where did it all get me? How about you?

      We’ve rounded the mark on the year: six months down, six to go. When we look back on the first half of the year, now ended, how do we feel about it? Do we like the view? A good life is represented by stacking our days with memories and small wins, all measured as progress. Sometimes we aren’t progressing at all, but receding and trying to hold it all together as best we can. Sometimes everything slips away and we feel we’re left with nothing. That’s life too. We all know how this ends, but it doesn’t mean we have to let today slip away without a small win. Maybe tomorrow too. String enough wins together and half a year later maybe we actually have something to celebrate. I hope so. But either way, there’s this other half of the year to reckon with, beginning today.

    • Mingling with Do You Ever

      There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
      There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
      There is society, where none intrudes,
      By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
      I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
      From these our interviews, in which I steal
      From all I may be, or have been before,
      To mingle with the Universe, and feel
      What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.
      — Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

      Do you ever look at the surface of a pond or pool and wonder at the gumption of those who would breach the surface and enter another world? Dolphins and whales leap from the deep and experience our world for a brief moment. Humans dive into water and recall deep within the connection. There’s a calling in water that draws us there. Those who live there apparently seek time in our world as well. This is as it should be, for we are all of the water.

      Do you ever feel the presence of the trees when you walk deep in the woods? The ancients, not the brash young things fighting for a place in this world. Old growth trees know things we’ll never know in our brief lifetime. Rooted deeply into the past, reaching into the future, grounded by a sense of place, trees are the life force of the forest. When we cut down forests we rob ourselves and generations to follow of all of these things.

      Do you ever spend time above treeline, looking at clouds mingling with the lower peaks below you. Are we meant to be in such places where even the wild things steer clear? Walking in such places brings us closer to the universe, and to the heights we may aspire to in our quiet moments of bold reflection.

      We all want a sense of timelessness and a place with the infinite. We forget sometimes that we’re already a part of it. We can’t see the forest for the trees. We must break the surface of self-absorption and see what we’ve been missing deep within ourselves. Doing more of the “do you ever” things is a step in the right direction.

    • Becoming Rich With Memories

      “The business of life is the acquisition of memories. In the end that’s all there is.” — Mr. Carson of Downton Abbey

      “You retire on your memories. When you’re too frail to do much of anything else, you can still look back on the life you’ve lived and experience immense pride, joy, and the bittersweet feeling of nostalgia…. Making deliberate choices about how to spend your money and your time is the essence of making the most of your life energy.” — Bill Perkins, Die With Zero

      We all talk of how the time flies by, but perhaps we ought to focus on how many great memories we accumulate in that span. If we’re living well, experiences are acquired and flipped into memories with the turn of the calendar. We may not become financially wealthy, but surely we might accumulate a lifetime of memories worthy of our time. As the quote above points out, in the end, isn’t that all there is?

      What are memories but the realization of deliberate action? As much as I love a good spreadsheet, I know deep down that working in them isn’t creating memories that will last a week, let alone a lifetime. But I may just remember the conversation I have with someone important in my world a lot longer. I may recall the thrill of peering over a cliff at an angry ocean in Portugal and smile someday when I’m too old for such things. I expect I’ll still smile at the recollection of my kids realizing the amusement park ride they insisted on going on was going to be a lot scarier than they’d bargained on when they begged to go on it. This is the accumulated wealth of memories.

      Perkins’ book challenges us to stop accumulating savings and start spending our money while we’re healthy and fit enough to actually do the things we promise ourselves we’ll eventually do, someday, when we retire. As if we can do at 65 what we might do at 25 or 35. Do it now. There is no tomorrow, and if there is, we won’t be able to pull off some of the things we believe our bodies and minds will be capable of someday when.

      I’ve watched too many people in my life hear the news that they won’t make it to retirement. Cancer seems to be the most common thief of dreams, but maybe an accident or a heart attack steals everything you’ve ever planned for “someday when” away from you. Your life is now: accumulate the memories that will make you richer then. It’s the best return on investment we can have with today.

    • The Way of Rain

      You have been forced to enter empty time.
      The desire that drove you has relinquished.
      There is nothing else to do now but rest
      And patiently learn to receive the self
      You have forsaken for the race of days.

      At first your thinking will darken
      And sadness take over like listless weather.
      The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

      You have traveled too fast over false ground;
      Now your soul has come to take you back.

      Take refuge in your senses, open up
      To all the small miracles you rushed through.

      Become inclined to watch the way of rain
      When it falls slow and free.
      — John O’Donohue, For One Who is Exhausted, A Blessing

      I might go weeks without reading poetry. I may feel victorious in my efficiency and productive use of time. I can sometimes grind through my days in hopeful work, forgetting to walk outside to greet the day. These are days of emptying the bucket while filling the ledger with checked tasks. Empty buckets make a hollow sound. They demand to be filled.

      It’s not lost on me that I’m posting about taking time to rest at the beginning of another work week. When we go, go go! for weeks at a time, sometimes things like weekends disappear in a flash. We forget to see the small miracles we rush through in our mad pursuit of getting things done.

      Slow down. Step away. Find that which is calling you from outside yourself. The work will always be there, awaiting your return. Or maybe it was never your work at all. How can you know if you never take the time to listen?

      The days and the seasons roll on by, like waves to the beach. We only have so many days. Only so many seasons. We must learn to slow down and celebrate the one we’re in.

    • Being Frugal With Sand

      When the goal is to seize the day—Carpe diem— then being busy is the natural state. To do everything we wish to do in a lifetime requires our full attention. But the thing about attention is it is quickly stolen away by all of life’s distractions. Focus is thus essential to prioritizing the most important things. We know when we’re being pulled away from the meaningful and important, and when we’re deeply immersed in it. What we lean into makes all the difference in how we feel about those grains of sand moving through the hourglass.

      There’s no doubt that one kind of “being busy” can be viewed as a distraction from other things we ought to be tackling. But there’s also a kind of “being busy” that is living an active, meaningful life. One key indicator is the phrase itself: When we say we’re very busy, it’s usually the distracted kind of busy. When we’re deeply engaged in meaningful activity, we don’t think of ourselves as being busy so much as making the most of our time.

      Taking stock of the year as we close in on the halfway point, we might be amazed by all we’ve done with the time. I hope so, for isn’t that the point? To augment our days with joyful activity at the expense of all of the trivial pursuits that the universe throws at us has always been our underlying mission.

      It’s one thing to be aware, it’s another to be absorbed by the trivial. How many grains of sand would we trade for things that don’t matter in the end? We must be frugal, even as we must be active. Our lives depend on it.

    • The Present

      “And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

      “It occurred to him that there must be some state institute, a kind of time bank, where he would be able to change at least some part of his shabby seconds.” — Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notes of Malte Laurids Brigge,

      Time is not ours to keep—more a wave we surf to the beach. We dabble in time, thinking about improving our productivity and efficiency and doing more with less, but really, we’re trying to avoid wasting the time we have. Making the most of the present is the only worthy goal as we surf this wave.

      Lately conversations about time have come up a lot in the circles I run amuck in. Talk of people taking more time off, people who feel they’re time hasn’t been used wisely, people quickly running out of time (I’ve had more conversations about hospice recently than at any time in my life). Everybody is going through something in their lives. The surfing isn’t always great in this complex world.

      This writing habit is one of the best things I’ve invested my time in. Writing isn’t passing the time, and it isn’t a celebration of one’s greatest exploits. It’s putting a spotlight on the hourglass and seeing each grain of sand and savoring the seconds. This is living in the present: good, bad and all that lies in between. The secret is to add depth and breadth to each moment of it. And maybe write the chapter in such a way that it lives on beyond the present.

    • The Traveling Stoic Meets a Flight Delay

      “Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music – the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.” — Henry Miller

      There’s no better time to practice stoicism than during business travel using the uniquely out-of-your-own-control limbo of domestic flights. Short delays become long delays, longer delays become cancellations, soon you begin to feel that creeping realization that we’re all just pawns on a chessboard. Who dreamed up this hellscape anyway?

      Amor fati. This is the moment when a deep breath and stepping outside ourselves clarifies. After all, enjoying life, even the grind of travel going badly, begins with knowing it’s all a game. If the why isn’t compelling enough to stay in this particular game, change the game. This applies equally well to the long term as the short. Life is altogether too brief to linger longer than absolutely necessary in the inconsequential.

      Walking helps more than visiting the bar. Seeing how many steps you can get in pulling your carry-on throughout the limits the airport sets for you is a more productive game than sampling the drink menu. Seeing how other people react to the same challenges you’re presented with is interesting, but who wants to live constantly comparing yourself to others? It’s better to take a walk, removing yourself entirely from that part of the chessboard to see how the game is going elsewhere. This offers an immediate change of state, both in what you pay attention to and the changes a bit of exercise offers.

      The things you see in an airport terminal when you have the time to wander can be fascinating…. Or at least interesting enough to make you forget where you could have been otherwise. The thing is, we are here, now, in whatever circumstances life throws at us. So buckle up and enjoy the ride.

    • Only Action Satiates

      “Nothing comes merely by thinking about it.” — John Wanamaker

      When I was just starting out in my career I began collecting books that purported to show the way. We’re all trying to figure out the way, aren’t we? Bold titles like Unlimited Power, Maximum Achievement, The Magic of Thinking Big and Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive all promised the secrets to a bigger life. I still keep these books on a shelf as a reminder to myself that words in a book don’t carry you to your dreams, actually doing the work does.

      We live in a world that rewards decisive action. Fortune favors the bold, as the saying goes. But what we boldly act upon matters a great deal. Choose wisely. Plan the work and then work the plan… so much advice thrown at us in this lifetime.

      We know that purpose and productivity go hand-in-hand. Figuring out the former is essential to being effectively engaged in the latter. But all this thinking about it is detrimental to getting things done at all. We must begin. We must produce something and ship it, learn from that experience and begin again. Rinse and repeat. Having a bias towards action isn’t a call to run around in circles, it’s a call to stop planning to have a great life and get to it already. For there is no tomorrow.

      All this italicized word soup points to the script that runs in one’s head when you spend a career reading about how to be successful. There’s nothing wrong with a clever sound bite if it runs in your head as you do the work that leads to where you want to be. Most self-help books are formulaic, written by people trying to capture financial success for themselves by showing you the secrets only they seem to know. If you’ve read one you’ve read them all.

      Stop searching for the formula for success and develop and reinforce positive habits. Read great literature instead of formula books. Find a fitness routine that you can use for a lifetime. Be the person who brings people together instead of the person climbing over the dreams of others in a reach for the big prize. Write things down and track your progress, and learn to pivot when you see the course is wrong. And yes, take action every day towards the attainment of meaningful objectives at the expense of the trivial pursuits life dangles in front of you.

      Success isn’t a formula, it’s a meandering path of figuring things out one day at a time. We aren’t here to merely think about where we ought to go, we’re here to do something with our time. Success word soup isn’t very filling at all—only action satiates.

    • On Nature and Being… Courageous

      “The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage.”

      “If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. Also, you will have betrayed your community in failing to make your contribution.” — Rollo May, The Courage to Create

      We are humans because we stray beyond nature to decide what to be, and, if we’re truly bold and courageous, perhaps we may even go be it. Just as a tree or a cat are influenced by their environment, determining to a great extent what they become, we too are influenced by the circle we’re rooted in. Yet we have free will and the opportunity to step out of that circle. This is the very nature of being human.

      We don’t always get to choose whether we can step out of our circle. Beliefs and courage alone only determine how we react to our environment, not what the outcome is. Persistence and luck have a say in the matter too. Viktor Frankl survived as much because he was lucky as because he courageously chose how to react to the stimulus he was presented with. The universe has a say in everything, but we have an opportunity to improve our odds by rising to meet the best version of ourselves under the circumstances.

      “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
      ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

      Thankfully, most of us will never face the horrors Frankl faced. Instead we face our own demons, relentlessly chipping away at our foundation, eroding confidence and commitment. This betraying of ourselves is the greatest crime of our lifetime, holding us in circles of our own making. Being bold in the pursuit of who we are isn’t an act of defiance, it’s a lifeline.

      The thing is, we all hear the call of what to be, even if we don’t always know what that looks like. If there’s one thing I’d tell anyone looking for answers, it’s that a “successful” person doesn’t have all the answers either, they only have momentum. We’re all just figuring things out as we go. We might have a direction, we might even have a plan, but nothing is realized without action and momentum. The lesson? Keep pushing the flywheel. Just make sure it’s the flywheel we want to be pushing, because momentum works for us and against us.

      Courage is the urgency of identity, acted upon. There’s nothing more tragic than a person questioning their identity and purpose and holding themselves back from a bold leap. We have an imperative to live as best we can, and contribute our verse. We must summon the courage to step into who we might become, however small a step that might be, and then step further still.

    • Observations From a 20K Day

      Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, and I’d planned to do just that. There shall be no hiking or waterfall chasing for you, I told myself. But when you believe that we aren’t built to be sedentary beings, eventually those rigid thoughts of who we ought to be evolve into action. I wrapped my mind around 20,000 steps as a goal for the day, no matter what. What is the first rule with any goal? Putting ourselves in the best position to achieve that goal.

      The path to a 20K day really began a few years back, when I decided I was going to buy a push mower and walk the lawn instead of driving around on it. Would it be nice to sit on a cushy seat with a cup holder? Of course! But my work has me sitting entirely too much already. Mowing, trimming and leaf blowing the yard easily knocks off 4000 steps in roughly an hour. Is that the equivalent of hiking a 4000 foot mountain? Of course not, but it’s a starting point for an active lifestyle, and a head-start towards my activity goal for the day.

      I’ve hit 20K just doing yard work, but a change of scenery was in order. On a beautiful Sunday afternoon there were many choices available, but I opted for the local rail trail. As with beaches, I favor the rail trail when few people venture onto it, during snow or light rain, in the early morning or dead of winter. The rail trail in the middle of the day during peak season is an entirely different experience.

      A rail trail is popular because you’re safely removed from automobile traffic, but there are other hazards to consider. As on a highway, one must skate one’s lane and be predictable to avoid collisions. Hoards of cyclists, joggers and walkers descend on the trail, making it near impossible to be on a spot where there isn’t someone in your line of sight. e-bike Andretti’s zip past at breakneck speed, and clumps of independent teenagers on bicycles ride towards you shoulder-to-shoulder leaving you the choice of standing your ground or stepping aside (there’s magic in the moment they realize that you’ve—responsibly—put the choice back on them).

      In the off-season on this rail trail, I would immerse myself in the nature around me. There’s surely a lot more to witness when sharing the path with hundreds of people on a long walk. Inevitably, you begin to people watch. Humans are quirky. Fashion on the path runs from traditional breathable fabrics to bold statements of individuality. Of all the travelers, the e-bikers seemed to be the most outlandish, fully kitted with fishing poles or picnic baskets, small dogs poking out of backpacks, and fat tires announcing they’re about to pass you from 100 meters away. It was an impressive display, and reminded me of the parade of custom golf carts seen at 55 plus developments and campgrounds around the country. But I was here for walking, not powered transportation. There’s relative simplicity on a rail trail: you walk one direction for as long as you want, then you turn around and walk back.

      The thing about goal-setting is that we know the obstacles before we begin, but we don’t always account for them in our bold declaration that we’re going to do this thing. The only things that get in the way of completing a good goal are available time, resources (like health) and willpower. Hitting fitness goals usually comes down to simply beginning and not stopping until we’ve met our objective. On a day of rest I decided to hit 20K, not exactly a bold number but high enough that it required my time and attention. It also served as a reminder that I’m not ready to retire to an e-bike and backpack dog just yet. There’s still so much to do.