Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • To Be Open

      “Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

      I set out on an early morning walk fully prepared to listen to a podcast through noise-cancelling headphones for the bulk of the five miles I’d planned to traverse. Walking down the driveway, I heard the distinct song of a cardinal greeting the morning. Listening more carefully, I heard almost nothing else beyond the cardinal. With such clear guidance, I stuffed the earbuds in my pocket and opted to take in the world instead of block it out.

      A proper walk ought to be simplified. Without earbuds I could hear the approach of cars, industrious squirrels harvesting acorns high above, and feel the world around me in a way not possible when you’re focused on a podcast or your favorite playlist. There’s a place for multi-tasking with earbuds, but there are times when bringing your ears to the walk offers a greater overall experience.

      All of this seems obvious on a hike or a walk through a place we’re visiting for the first time. Could you imagine walking through Edinburgh or Amsterdam or across a stunning ridgeline for the very first time wearing earbuds? Neither can I. We tend to save the addition of media for the mundane. But what if we sought out something new in each step? This is only possible when we’re fully present.

      The thing is, it’s not just walking, is it? Within each moment we have the choice to block out the world or let it in. What we do in that moment influences our now and our accumulation of experiences. We don’t just learn how to live, we learn how to live optimally. To be open to the world allows us to receive more than we otherwise might have.

    • Upsetting the Apple Cart

      They say that habits are made to be broken. But who wants to break positive habits? Still, every now and then our routines are disrupted by forces out of our control. Sometimes people or events occur that upset the apple cart. Sometimes [gasp] even the very things that define our identity are disrupted.

      This summer has been a stack of disruptions that are taking their toll on my systems and routines. A home remodeling project, great and much-needed time with family and friends, and soon, a new puppy in the family all conspire to disrupt the very routines established to improve my health, fitness and intelligence. These are all worthwhile disruptions, so the trick isn’t to eliminate pattern disruptors, but to modify my habits to account for them. We can’t do everything, but we must continue to do the really important things.

      Our systems and routines help structure our days, allowing us to think about other things while the things we ought to be doing get done on autopilot. When that autopilot fails us, we must revert back to deliberate action. Doing things out of order is confusing, missing a day entirely is frustrating, but giving up on a positive habit should be out of the question. Start anew, with renewed vigor and focus. Most importantly, check the box and stabilize that apple cart again. For we still have much work to do in our days.

    • The Right Time

      I spent a lifetime
      Waiting for the right time
      Now that you’re near
      The time is here, at last
      It’s now or never
      Come hold me tight
      Kiss me my darling
      Be mine tonight
      — Elvis Presley, It’s Now or Never

      What is your five year plan? Do you have one? Or should we simply live in the moment? Is there purpose in the moment or only intent? Intent can cause all kinds of problems if it conflicts with purpose. Some say that five years is too long a period of time, entire cultures (looking at you, Japan) may think it too limited a scope. A long view is seeing the forest for the trees and setting the compass heading, while a short view is the immediacy of successfully executing this next step. It’s equally fair to say that we must know our general direction or we’ll walk in circles as it is to say it doesn’t matter where we were heading if we stumble and fall off the cliff.

      The lens of a lifetime is simply too broad a focus because there are only so many things we can focus on at any given time. Given this, it’s better to set auto-pilot whenever possible so we can get back to the business of now. 401(k) plans are helpful because you set it and forget it. We can say the same about healthy lifetime habits like exercise and flossing. Such tasks are best left to auto-pilot, but we can’t very well live our life on auto-pilot, for one day we’ll look around and find we’ve missed everything that mattered.

      Using the lens of time buckets becomes a way of understanding what our priorities ought to be in this particular phase of our lives. We only have so many years to do physical things, only so many years to be a parent, only so many primary earning years… it all adds up to a lifetime of only so many years. Within that lens of time buckets, our reason for being, raison d’etre, becomes more focused. Asking big questions about the entirety of our lives is impossible to answer, because we change so much over our lifetime. My raison d’etre at 20 was entirely different from my raison d’etre at 40. Looking ahead to someday 60 or 80 (if we’re so bold as to believe we’ll reach it), you see the reason changing dramatically over and over again. Sure, family and friendships will matter at any age, but a purposeful hike of the Appalachian Trail is rapidly shrinking down in relevance. It’s fair to say it’s now or never for such a life goal.

      Waiting for the right time seems counterintuitive when we become hyper aware of our own mortality. Memento mori naturally leads to carpe diem, doesn’t it? It turns out it mostly doesn’t. Most people just live their lives as best they can. We can’t do everything, but we can surely try to do the most important things within the context of the time bucket we’re currently residing in. The time is always here for something. Prioritizing the really essential things for this time lends focus and urgency to the moment, enabling us to seize the day.

    • Venture, and Be Bold

      “Don’t underestimate the risk of inaction. Staying the course instead of making bold moves feels safe, but consider what you stand to lose: the life you could have lived if you had mustered the courage to be bolder. You’re gaining a certain kind of security, but you are also losing experience points.” — Bill Perkins, Die With Zero

      The question came up just before I began writing this blog—So what are you doing today? It was asked by a friend dashing off to go scuba diving. I mumbled something about the number of miles I needed to walk to maintain my commitment to a charity I’m walking for. There are of course many ways to cover the miles, the trick is to make the way worthy of the things we’re opting out of.

      So what are we doing today? Is it something epic and memorable, or is it satisfying some commitment made? There’s surely value in commitment, for it grounds us in profoundly meaningful ways. We just can’t let it grind us to dust. We must choose our commitments wisely, and default to enriching our life with experiences that lend exponentially profound meaning to a lifetime. If the game of life is score by how well we live it, then we all ought to double down on enriching our days with fulfilling and memorable experiences. Whatever we decide to do with our days, we ought to make it bolder than we might have defaulted to otherwise.

      “Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise.” ― Horace

      It’s essential for us to ask ourselves, what makes a great life? We all keep score in our own way, for we all value some things more than others. Some value security, while some value spontaneity, others simply try to find balance. Life shouldn’t be about regret minimization on our deathbed, but a purposeful quest to reach for a higher plane. Each experience is accumulated and cherished for what it makes of us. Each day may yet be savored. So go on, venture wisely, but with a dash of boldness in this day.

    • This is Bliss

      “I believe that happiness is, it’s really a default state. It’s what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life. We are highly judgmental, survival, and replication machines. We are constantly walking around thinking I need this, I need that, trapped in the web of desires. Happiness is that state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and your mind stops running into the future or running into the past to regret something or to plan something. In that absence for a moment, you have internal silence. When you have internal silence, then you are content and you are happy.” — Naval Ravikant, Naval Ravikant: The Angel Philosopher (2017) [The Knowledge Project Ep. #171]

      I have people in my life who believe that I’m not happy deep down inside because I’m not out there chasing my professed dreams in the world. I contend that I’m just as happy taking a walk around the block as I am visiting some faraway place I’ve had on some bucket list. Happiness is a state we are either in or not in, based entirely on how we view the moment. My default, thankfully, is a state of happiness. That doesn’t mean I don’t stray into the desire for more—we all do that on occasion (and some of us dare to write about it). That desire for more disrupts our current state, upsetting the apple cart of happiness. Sometimes that’s necessary for growth, and sometimes it’s nothing but a distraction from the moment. Either way it’s a state change.

      I’ve been chasing a state change all of my life. Maybe you have as well. But nowadays I’m less into chasing and more into embracing the current state. Writing and creative output bring me to the moment very quickly. I walk and row more, which each lend themselves to being present for the next step or stroke, respectively. I’m equally present in the garden: when I’m dead-heading the geraniums or pulling weeds I’m very much in the moment. This is a state of presence the arrival in the internal silence Naval speaks of. This is bliss.

      The thing is, when we’re declaring our desire to travel or experience something outside of the moment we’re in, we’ve noticed something missing. In doing so, we’re missing the moment. If comparison is the thief of joy, then comparing our current state against some future or past state where we are somewhere else is a happiness remover. Sometimes we might need that kick in the ass: I’m moving more because I was unhappy being lazy and inactive. By being active again I’ve rediscovered a level of happiness that wasn’t there before. But if I start comparing my active body of today against that active body of peak fitness at 22, I may find my happiness knocked down a notch. All that really matters is the next step, the next stroke, and knowing this is the path for us now.

      Direction matters a great deal in reaching bliss, but it doesn’t infer we’ve reached our destination, only that we’re progressing there. We must remember that “there” is just a compass heading. Here is where living happens.

    • Facing the Storm

      There’s a metaphor that’s easy to find on the Internet if you Google it about the difference between cows and bison. When a storm is approaching, cows huddle together and run away from the storm. The problem with this is they end up running with the storm, thus prolonging their discomfort. A bison, on the other hand, runs into the storm, facing the discomfort of it head-on, and in doing so, the storm soon passes over them and shortens the duration of their discomfort. The lesson, of course, is to face the storm.

      One of the leaders of the company I work for told this story to a couple of us, and it fit his personality perfectly. When it comes to the tumultuous change needed to grow our company, not only is he facing it head-on and charging, he’s asking everyone around him to be a bison instead of a cow. In our moments of discomfort we must choose whether to face it or try to retreat from it.

      It’s likely most people don’t change because they don’t like the feeling of discomfort associated with beginning—of facing the storm. I’m currently walking around with an abundance of lactic acid and a reawakened creaky ankle, all from the combination of beginning to walk longer distances again and rowing much more than I had been. This state change has created discomfort that will eventually fade as my body adapts. We’ve all felt this, and we know where it leads if we stay on track. Most people retreat from discomfort instead of pushing through. Be the bison instead.

      It’s fair to ask ourselves just what it is that we’re charging into. Is this a storm we want to face? But we know deep down that change is coming either way. Pay me now or pay me later: this is true with everything we do in our lives, whether getting in shape, getting ahead in our career or managing our relationships. You can’t just hide from storms, you’ve got to face them head-on and get through them. To do otherwise is to prolong the discomfort. So get to it already.

    • Time Buckets

      “Draw a timeline of your life from now to the grave, then divide it into intervals of five or ten years. Each of those intervals—say, from age 30 to 40, or from 70 to 75—is a time bucket, which is just a random grouping of years. Then think about what key experiences—activities or events—you definitely want to have during your lifetime. We all have dreams in life, but I have found that it’s extremely helpful to actually write them all down in a list… Your list will be your own unique expression of who you are, because your life experiences are what make you who you are…
      Then, once you have your list of items, start to drop each of your hoped-for pursuits into the specific buckets, based on when you’d ideally have each experience…
      by dividing goals into time buckets, you are taking a much more proactive approach to your life. In effect, you’re looking ahead over several coming decades of your life and trying to plan out all the various activities, events, and experiences you’d like to have. Time buckets are proactive and let you plan your life; a bucket list, on the other hand, is a much more reactive effort in a sudden race against time.” — Bill Perkins, Die With Zero

      When I was helping to raise two very active children, I could barely keep up, let alone plan a sabbatical for three months to explore the fiords of Norway. If you learn anything as a parent, it’s that to be a good parent your own desires should take a back seat to the needs of your family’s. But that phase of life is a different time bucket that you’ll have before and after it. Everything has its season. The trick is to identify when those seasons are and feel the urgency to fill it with experiences that fit it best. I wouldn’t trade the time with my children when they were growing up for anything. Now that they’ve grown up, I might just look towards those fiords again.

      “If not now, when?” ought to be the our mantra, for there’s truth in it when we face it. Time buckets put it all in black and white. We see immediately what is possible and what will be a forever dream. If we don’t book the experiences we want in life, we’re likely to miss them altogether. History is full of people with regrets in those final moments.

      Many people go through life believing that they’ll do those big life experiences when they retire, but forget that our bodies may have other plans. We’re more fragile than we want to believe we are. And there’s no currency more valuable than health and fitness. Some things simply can’t be done when we lose this currency. If you want to hike the Appalachian Trail or follow the Tour de France course on your own bike, it’s unlikely you’ll be able or inclined to do these things when you’re 70 or 80. Even if you are, you’re body is better equipped for the experience when you’re 25 or 35. Time buckets force us to look at such things and determine where in our lives certain experiences best fit in, while reconciling what we’ll never do if we defer any longer.

      Putting life experiences into buckets has merit, but there has to be room for serendipity in our lives too, for life should never be fully lived based on a Day-Timer or spreadsheet. The point isn’t to schedule every aspect of our lives, but to identify the buckets of time when we’re most likely to have the time and resources to do the things we most want to do in this lifetime: Build it and they will come. Life is what what we plan for and make of our time. We’ll have misses along the way, but we ought to put ourselves in the best position to play the hits too.

    • The Optimal Time

      “My number one rule is: Maximize your life experiences. So spend your money while you’re alive—whether it’s on yourself, your loved ones, or charity. And beyond that, find the optimal times to spend money.” — Bill Perkins, Die With Zero

      The dilemma of how much money is enough is the epitome of a first world problem. It’s a fabrication of the society we happen to be in, designed to have us maximize our earning time that we might contribute as much of ourselves as possible before our effectiveness declines. Alternatively, we might choose to make the most of every day rather than making the most possible money in our careers. This is the opposite of nihilism, this is living with purpose and intent at the time in our lives when we are healthiest and most able to be active participants in exploring our potential.

      There are two questions at work here: The where and when of spending time versus money. If a paycheck is the tradeoff for hours of our life, then what is that hour worth to us? We must set ourselves up to have just enough to get by until our very end, whenever that happens to be, without becoming a burden on our families. Perkins’ position is that most people overestimate how much they need in the end, at the expense of living in the middle. Will that time at the office have been worth it when we arrive on our deathbed? Just what are we trading in the process? Put another way, is this the optimal time to optimize time instead of money?

      We each want to contribute something to the world. We must balance this with what the world gives back to us. If we don’t ask for our fair share of time, the time will simply find someone else who wants it more. The optimal time to live is now. Everything else is compromise and sacrifice. Be sure the trade is worthy of your life. We all know, deep down, what matters most. Now is the time to optimize how we’re living.

    • On Sirens and Place

      “Where you are is who you are. The further inside you the place moves, the more your identity is intertwined with it. Never casual, the choice of place is the choice of something you crave.”
      ― Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun

      I talk of travel but deliberately spend money on plumbing fixtures that cost as much as a plane ticket to faraway places. You can feel the quality in a good plumbing fixture, you can feel the permanence of it if fate allows it a good home. A good faucet will outlive all of us. Surely it will last longer than a trip to Paris or Tuscany. Does a faucet sing a siren song the way that travel does? Surely not, but never forget that Odysseus was simply trying to get home to Ithaca. Sirens pull us away from home, never to return. Still, we hear the call.

      Surely, this place that we call home will outlast our desire to stay in it. Yet the garden remains, with bee balm rising to meet the sun year after year. The hummingbirds return to meet it, and the butterflies and bees. Bee balm (Monarda) is a bit like me, with a wandering soul. Its roots spread out, testing the limits of the garden, and each year the flowers bloom in a different place than the year before. Kindred spirit, I let them roam, content to see where they rise each year. In a walled garden there’s only so much room to run. Still, the hummingbirds always return, knowing they’ll be there somewhere nearby. And so will I.

      Returning seems the thing. When you have a sense of place you’ll move heaven and earth to get back to it again. But to return means to leave now and then. Knowing deep down that place remains.

    • The Net Benefit of Intervals

      I’ve always favored steady state work. Slow and easy may not win the race, but it keeps you in it for the long haul. The drawback is that your body and mind get used to this pace, creating a sense of apathy and inertia. Sometimes you simply don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere very quickly.

      Intervals are a great way to change things up. In rowing, this might mean doing ten 500 meter pieces with a minute off in between, rather than rowing 5000 meters in a steady state set. You end up doing more overall with the same distance as your mind and body commit to working harder for a shorter distance, knowing it will be over soon enough and you’ll have a bit of rest. I can shave two full minutes off the same distance in this way, while getting my heart rate up to places I couldn’t sustain for a longer distance. I’ve begun to mix in more and more interval training to see how my body (and mind) react. I’m far from the peak fitness days of college rowing, but workouts like this bring me a lot closer to those glory days. More importantly, they set me up for greater success with my fitness goals looking forward.

      The principle of intervals works equally well in our work. Rather than slog through a steady state of distracted work, I’ll put on my noise cancelling headphones, play the same Mark Knopfler instrumental song on repeat and power through a specific task until it’s done. This works equally well for writing as it does for finishing an expense report or developing a pivot table for trend analysis. It’s just you and the work, with a defined end point that’s close enough that you know you can get there without checking the phone ten times to see what’s happening in the world. As with the rowing, when you finish a day full of these intervals of focused work, you find that you’ve done far more than the norm.

      Our lives may feel like steady state as we plod along, one day to the next, doing the best we can in a distracting world. Breaking things down to intervals—this day, this hour, these next five minutes, creates the focus and urgency to get things done. Even if we aren’t enjoying this particular interval, we know it will be over soon enough. And just look what we might accomplish when we add it all together.