Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • You Only Need to Know

      “Great minds have purpose, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.” – Washington Irving

      Washington Irving was right on the mark with this observation. Imagine if he’d lived to see people staring at their phones all day? There are so many distractions today, and never enough rising above them. So it seems anyway.

      But there are plenty of people living with purpose. People who are driven to succeed in the path they’ve chosen for themselves. The trick is to find that purpose and focus on it like your very life depended on it. For in so many ways, it does.

      You know it’s up to you, anything you can do
      And if you find a new way
      Well, you can do it today
      Well, you can make it all true
      And you can make it undo
      You see, ah-ah-ah, it’s easy, ah-ah-ah
      You only need to know
      – Cat Stevens, If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out

      You only need to know what you want to do, your purpose, and then, well, you can do it today. At least begin to do it today. And isn’t that the tricky part? To stop telling yourself stories about what you are and go write a new story. Rise above the wishes and distractions and misfortunes that life stirs in our little pot and see just how far you can take this purpose of yours.

      Injecting clever quotes and catchy tunes into your day is one thing, but finding purpose and following it are another. The point here is that there’s so much noise in our lives that we never really listen to hear what our calling is. If you aren’t listening, you aren’t focused. And you miss the purpose as life noisily passes you by.

      Listen. Focus. Find a new way (yes, you can do it today).

    • Taking Our Measure

      “The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor: he took my measure anew every time he saw me, whilst all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.”

      “When you go to heaven, Ann, you will be frightfully conscious of your wings for the first year or so. When you meet your relatives there, and they persist in treating you as if you were still a mortal, you will not be able to bear them. You will try to get into a circle which has never known you except as an angel.” – Jack Tanner in George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman

      These two quotes from Shaw’s fascinating play Man and Superman resonate with anyone who has tried to shed the preconceptions that those who knew us “then” have about what we’re capable of “now”. We all grow, yet there’s a lag time for those who might measure our fit based on the person we used to be. This is one reason people job hop or move far from home. If you leave your old identity behind, you free yourself to be whatever you want to be in the place where you land.

      Of course, one person we never leave behind is ourselves. If we aren’t aligned with a belief in our future potential we’ll never reach it. What is left of us then but incremental improvement? That’s not a leap forward at all, but a slow shuffle across our brief time.

      When we grow we no longer fit into that old character we used to be. We must adjust our own expectations of what is possible, take a deep breath and leap towards our greater potential. And if necessary find a circle that believes in our present potential instead of clinging to our limited past.

    • Work and Love

      “The wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass; And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving. Work is love made visible.” – Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

      Today is Labor Day in the United States, a day of rest for many (not all), and an opportunity to reflect on this thing called work. If you’re doing work you love, then Gibran’s words will resonate. If you’re doing work that grinds your soul to dust, you might think his words are ridiculous. But to live a fulfilling life, shouldn’t that which we labor in be loved?

      Piecing words together isn’t hard labor, but any writer knows that it’s work. Paradoxically, if writing every day is work, it must reverberate with love to be enjoyable for the reader. The jury is still out on this writer.

      In my working life I’ve done everything from sweeping up broken glass to managing salespeople in a Fortune 500 company. I took as much care removing every sliver of glass from the ground as I did managing the emotional response to a quarterly review. Work is love made visible, otherwise it’s self-immolation.

      So on this rare day of rest in our hustling culture, what do we celebrate? A break from the grind or a moment to recharge before leaping back into the joy of a meaningful career? Especially now, somewhere between a pandemic and normal, work should be celebrated for where it brings us in our lives, and for what we may give back to others.

      What can we be great at? Shouldn’t we put our heart and soul into that which transcends work? To rise above the daily grind to joyful, purposeful labor seems the only path to a full life.

    • Soggy Bottom Sunrise

      It was early,
      which has always been my hour
      to begin looking
      at the world
      – Mary Oliver, It Was Early

      No doubt I missed the stunning pink sky on display when I hauled the kayak down to the surf line. No doubt I might have found a better picture had I just gotten up and out there sooner. But why dwell on might-have-beens? Make the most of what’s in front of you.

      There’s a lesson there for the bigger things swirling around you. Things bigger than sandy feet and a soggy bottom as you walk back into the world after greeting the new day as best you could. The world keeps doing its thing whether you show up or not. But isn’t it nice when you do show up?

    • Tides and Time

      “Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.” – Mary Oliver, To Begin With, the Sweet Grass

      We get so caught up in schedules and appointments and such, when all that really matters is conversation and honoring commitments and that most intangible thing of all: progress. Are we progressing in the direction we pointed ourselves in or not? What do you do with the answer to that question?

      Like many, I’m fascinated with people that step off the calendar and follow their own path. The through-hikers and ocean cruisers and the off-the-gridders who opt out of the stories we tell ourselves about time. The older I get the more I recognize the story of time isn’t always in sync with my own natural rhythm.

      So do you reconcile this in your life? Do you favor deadlines and schedules that dictate so much of our short stack of trips around the sun? Or do you prioritize living by your own rhythm? I should think the closer you are to the latter the more fulfilling your life might be.

    • Leaping Forward

      Inevitably around the early days of September I start thinking about the end of the year, of the beginning of a new year, and of the things I said I’d do that I haven’t done. Sure, sometimes I’ll linger on the things I did do, but I don’t find it all that productive to pat myself on the back for past accomplishments. There’s nothing wrong with being happy with where you are, but if that’s your frame of mind you generally aren’t in a hurry to turn it upside down for something else. Growth lies in discomfort, and you can’t be satisfied with where you are if you hope to do more in your time.

      To leap forward requires vacating the spot you currently reside in. New habits, new conversations, new attitudes about what is possible and what you’ll let yourself get away with. Leaps are exciting and a little intimidating. Sometimes really, really intimidating. So most people settle for baby steps instead. Less risky, maybe, or maybe it’s a way to trick yourself into thinking you’re making progress without the discomfort of having both feet in the air at the same time, not entirely certain where you might land.

      This isn’t a leap year, not if you use the calendar to tell you where you are in life anyway. But leaping is an attitude, not a story we all tell ourselves about what day it is. Every year can be a leap year if you want it to be. Leaping doesn’t require burning the boats, but it does require commitment. You can’t very well change your mind after you launch yourself. So decide the direction you want to go in and how far to leap (what you might want to become) and launch yourself that way with resolve.

      It’s a thrill when you wind up and go for it. Doesn’t this short life deserve that kind of thrill? Decide what to be and go be it. I hope to see you there.

    • Wait Times

      Arriving at a popular restaurant without a reservation informs. It tells you a bit about the restaurant, but also a bit about yourself. For those moments when you don’t have the instant gratification of bring seated right away, there are questions that come to mind during your time in restaurant purgatory:

      Just how popular is this place anyway?

      How long is the wait at that place down the street?

      And of course, Just how many minutes are acceptable? 20? 40? 60+?

      When you’ve heard the answer about wait time and you know roughly what you’re about to experience, the calculus begins:

      Is this the kind of place I want to spend that amount of time waiting?

      How far away from the restaurant can you wander without jeopardizing your spot in line?

      If going to a restaurant is an experience, then a bit of anticipation shouldn’t be a strike against the place. If anything, it enhances the experience. At least it should! What will make this experience memorable? It probably won’t be the wait time. But what if a restaurant made it memorable and fun? The ones that do tend to jump out at you as places to try again and again.

      That, I imagine, is one reason they have wait times in the first place.

    • The Thing We Ought to Be

      “The ideal life, the life of completion, haunts us all; we feel the thing we ought to be beating beneath the thing we are. We are haunted by an ideal life, and it is because we have within us the beginning and the possibility of it” – Phillips Brooks

      It sneaks up on you now and then, this feeling. It’s a nagging call for action, Thoreau described it as quiet desperation, a feeling that you’re living below your dreams and see no path to reach them. But he would also remind us that it’s okay to build these castles in the air, just build the foundations underneath them.

      What do we make of ourselves when we know what we ought to be?

      How we reconcile this in our own lives is how we determine for ourselves whether we lived a successful life on our deathbed. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. When you pause in a quiet moment in the day and reflect on where you are and where you’re going, do you like the answer?

      The haunting is a call to action.

    • The Barista, the Barber & the Waitress

      My well was running dry. Mentally I was beating myself up over tasks and shattered illusions. Some days go exceptionally well, some days nothing goes well. The former are days when you double down and ride the wave. The latter, sometimes, require a reboot.

      There are two ways to reboot. One is through exercise and activity that draws you out of your own head long enough to see that the world is what it is and you’ve done your part. Walking often does the trick for me. The other way is through interaction with others. Call friends and family to catch up, or better yet, meet with them somewhere. Some days you just need your core group of professional relationships to pull you through.

      I began the morning with a latte. I’ve gotten out of the habit of stopping for a coffee and instead make it at home. As a result I’ve missed out on banter with my favorite barista. She asks me where I’m traveling to this time, used to my answers of faraway places. When there’s no line behind me we talk of gardening and what our kids are doing. For all the turnover in restaurants, she’s been a barista here for years, and I go out of my way for these brief conversations. The jolt of espresso secondary to the banter.

      Later in the day, I stopped for lunch at a local Chinese restaurant. Another place I’ve gone to for years, but haven’t gone to in months. The staff there commutes from Boston up to Southern New Hampshire every day, works their shift and returns home late in the night. Six days a week for years on end. The waitress knows my name, and I know hers. Not just the “American” name she introduces herself by, but her real name, which apparently is too complicated for some folks to bother with. She already knows what I’m having, just like the barista did, but confirms before placing the order with the kitchen.

      Due for a haircut, I went to the local barber on a quiet part of their day. He smiled and sat me right down, and we talked of football and the return of mask mandates. He confided that he doesn’t know if they’ll make it if there’s another shutdown, and I responded that it was unlikely this time. Enough of us are vaccinated, right? … right.

      Three people that I have a professional relationship with, each offers just enough of themselves to make my day and reset my outlook for the rest of it. Each deeply impacted by the pandemic, each vaccinated (all Pfizer, like me) and cautiously optimistic about the future. If I ever hit the lottery I’d walk in and give each of them a million dollars, because that’s what they make their customers feel like. Since I haven’t won the lottery, I pay them a million each in installments, one tip at a time. Knowing that it’s not enough for the boost they’ve given me.

    • Unattempted Adventures

      “When the first light dawned on the earth, and the birds awoke, and the brave river was heard rippling confidently seaward, and the nimble early rising wind rustled the oak leaves about our tent, all men, having reinforced their bodies and their souls with sleep, and cast aside doubt and fear, were invited to unattempted adventures.” – Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

      There’s finally, blessedly, a plan. Places to be, filled with uncertainty and doubt, in the very near future. With one eye on the variants and another on the weather, reservations and bookings complete. There’s new hope for a return to attempting the previously dreamed of. New adventure awaits.

      The moment Thoreau wrote of above took place when he was a young man, before his brother passed away from tetanus, before he wrote Walden or Civil Disobedience. Just a couple of young adventurers waking up along the Merrimack River in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts ready to take on their previously unattempted. It captures that moment of waking up excited and recharged and bursting to get out there and do what you’ve been scheming to do. It’s a more comma-intensive version of my favorite Thoreau quote of all:

      “Rise free from care before the dawn and seek adventures.”

      It should be no surprise to readers of this blog that I’m scheming again. Ready and willing to burst from this big empty nest of a tent and get out in the world again. Big adventures planned for September and October. Micro adventures to fill the gaps, beginning immediately. Room for a pivot here and there, to be sure, but if you don’t plan it and take the leap you’ll just put it off for another day that may never come.

      When you woke up this morning and took stock of the world around you, did it give you a bit of a thrill? If you aren’t buzzing with anticipation, what are you waiting for? Cast aside your doubt and fear and get to it already. Tackle those unattempted adventures.