Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • 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.

    • Hurricane Preparations

      The mooring field empties. Only a couple of boats left now, most likely they’ll be gone soon too. Beginning to look like the off-season now. But no, still a few weeks of summer left.

      Summer draws out the furniture, and looking around I know it must be stored safely away today. There’s a calculation that happens in your mind when a storm is coming your way: how much time do we have to do what must be done? Questions around how much traffic will be snaking along to the two choke points off Cape Cod and should I stay or should I go? How high is high enough above the bay should the worst surge occur?

      None of these thoughts are spun up in panic. This isn’t a Category 5 rolling in here, it’s a slow moving Category 1 named Henri with just enough punch to be taken seriously. When you don’t respect nature she’ll eventually teach you a hard lesson. So the boats come out, the neighbors are checked on, the furniture brought in, and the risks assessed. There’s no panic, only calculus and tasks.

      A reverse 911 text alert chirped a warning yesterday. What will today bring? And tomorrow? Tracking west? Less impactful. Maybe. But only Henri knows for sure. The rest of us prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Resilience comes from preparation. And this too shall pass.

    • The Fight for an Open Mind

      “What prevents people from learning... is not the subject itself—the human mind has limitless capabilities—but rather certain learning disabilities that tend to fester and grow in our minds as we get older. These include a sense of smugness and superiority whenever we encounter something alien to our ways, as well as rigid ideas about what is real or true, often indoctrinated in us by schooling or family. If we feel like we know something, our minds close off to other possibilities. We see reflections of the truth we have already assumed. Such feelings of superiority are often unconscious and stem from a fear of what is different or unknown. We are rarely aware of this, and often imagine ourselves to be paragons of impartiality” – Robert Greene, Mastery

      My quest for an open, more aware mind bumps into smugness. I’ve run into this demon before. We so easily spot smugness in others but rarely detect it in ourselves. It appears as artificial confidence and a sense of superiority and are the tools of a closed mind. As such they ought to be snuffed out at all costs. But the mind buries them defensively, knowing your game, and you perceive yourself as open in your comfortable world until that world is challenged once again.

      I see it in myself by the things I’m offended by. A cache of grudges based on perceived slights, which usually betrays something about your relationship with that person, culture or perspective. This cache, like the one on your PC, occupies space that might otherwise be used for stretching the mind in new directions. And isn’t that the real goal? Opening the mind, becoming aware, delighting in the world around us – if these are truly the objective then we have no room for walls built of resentment, fear and superiority.

      “Around us, life bursts with miracles–a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops. If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles. Eyes that see thousands of colors, shapes, and forms; ears that hear a bee flying or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easily as the entire cosmos; a heart that beats in rhythm with the heartbeat of all beings. When we are tired and feel discouraged by life’s daily struggles, we may not notice these miracles, but they are always there.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

      What are we missing while we wrap our minds are distracted by our own narrative? What miracles are happening around us even as we dwell on the past? These are the stakes. We must hunt and kill our smugness to open the mind for awareness, empathy and a deeper understanding of the world around us. To see at last what we’ve been missing all along. And in pursuing it to finally understand ourselves.

    • Towards Exciting Things

      “That’s the whole secret: to do things that excite you.” – Ray Bradbury

      Truth be told, there are many things we do every day that aren’t exciting, yet we keep on doing them anyway. This is the attractive rut of doing the same thing: familiar and predictable and comfortable. But does it stir the soul?

      If we agree that life is short, shouldn’t we pursue that which excites us? I know, we’ve all gotta make a living, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t find the fun in both work and living. And if life is short, why waste years of it doing things that bore you to tears? Shake yourself out of the rut and dive into the deep work. The meaningful and enlightening. The exciting stuff.

      For most of us, exciting is reserved for vacations and weekends. I should think a healthy dose of exciting ought to be injected into each day. Too bold an ask? What are we here for if not to feel the thrill of stepping beyond your comfort zone? Too old? When are you going to get younger than now? If not now, when? If we’re going to slowly fade, why not use our brightest days moving towards exciting things?

      Really, this shouldn’t be that much of a secret.

    • Judging a Weekend

      How do you judge a weekend? By the afterglow? Or the fog? By the accumulated soreness? Or the spring in your step? If a weekend is celebrated upon arrival, how do we view it in the rearview mirror on Monday morning?

      What you do with your downtime is your business. I don’t judge someone that lies on the beach all day, I just don’t want to do it myself. You’ll find me in the water swimming laps or testing my mettle against the waves. That staying still business is all fine and good, but for a restless spirit it’s torture. Yes, I have people in my life that shake their head when I won’t just sit still for awhile.

      I tend to view weekends by what was accomplished over the two days. What projects were completed? What summits summited? Who did we see and what places have we visited? This is scorecard living. Tally the moments, judge the days. But judging your days isn’t the same as judging someone else’s days. We all use our time in our own way. How we spend our days is how we spend our lifetimes.

      When you see someone on Monday morning, one of the first things you might say to them is “How was your weekend?” which on the surface is closely related to “How are you doing?” in that most people expect a response of “Fine” or even “Great”. And honestly, most people just leave it at that. But when you ask about someone’s weekend you’re inviting a response bigger than one word. How you answer it generally reflects how you’ve judged it.

      I hope it was more than fine.

    • Prepping the Night Before

      On the fence about whether to hike a pair of 4000 footers, I decided to just start getting my pack ready, just in case. When the backpack was ready, the boots and hiking clothes laid out, it became a foregone conclusion that I’d actually get up and go at 4:30 AM. But it all started with packing that backpack.

      There’s nothing revolutionary about putting your workout clothes out, or getting your bag packed for an early flight. The work you put in the night before sets the tone for the morning. You don’t forget important things, you aren’t scrambling to find things that you swore were right where you left them the last time you hiked. But mostly, you do what you said you were going to do. Waking up to the alarm with everything laid out eliminates excuses, and pokes you with some positive pressure: I got everything ready, the least I could do is get my ass out of bed and get to it.

      So when you’re on the fence, or when it really matters that you follow through, prep the night before. It’ll make all the difference the next morning. Just remember to set the alarm!

    • The Perfect Day

      When you hear someone say they had a perfect day, what does that mean to you? We have this stack of days, one to the next, before it ends someday. What makes a few of them perfect, while the rest fall slightly short?

      Let’s start with the obvious: Waking up this morning, the day is already off to a great start. If you celebrate that moment the rest of your day may ebb and flow, but starting from a better place you set the tone for what follows. Carpe diem begins with celebrating the gift of life. If you’re bored with life or indifferent to the potential of each moment you’ll never have a perfect day. Each will fall short in some way because your mind isn’t open to the joy of living.

      Perfect requires stacking the moments in a day with just enough beauty and sparkle to reflect back at you, leaving an afterglow in your last moments awake as your cheek feels the cool softness of your favorite pillow. Perfect ought to include certain elements mixed in an elixir: A dash of wonder, moments of connection, the realization of experience, breathless celebration and sensory perception. You drink up this elixir, feel it soak through your pores and course through your veins, and feel high on life.

      We all have moments of perfection in our lives, but to ask for a full day of it seems almost too much. More likely, we forget the down moments in a day. Pushing moments of discomfort or awkwardness or frustration down in our minds for the glow of the rest of the day. And sure, maybe there’s really no such thing as a perfect day at all, but we can surely reach for it.

      As I began my day, I wondered, how can I make this one perfect? I may not reach it, but knowing the recipe you can get pretty close. Does seeking perfection make it artificial, or deliberate? You only find what you look for. There is no perfection, but there is magic in each moment. Often hiding in plain sight.

      And so I seek connection with each of my fellow life passengers that I stumble across, and keep my eye out for new experiences as big as a new summit and as small as watching leaves stir from a hummingbird’s wings, and tickle my senses with a new song on the radio or the scent of garden tomatoes growing on a summer day. These moments of aliveness, stacked together, are where perfection lies. It’s not the day at all, but the moments stacked together. For what is life but that?

    • Is This Enough?

      “Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has enough.” – Walt Whitman

      The nagging begins in weak moments of fatigue or boredom or frustration: “More“, the voice says. “I want more” it persists. And the voice bleeds over to the blog now and then, with complaints about not being out there in the world, not finishing that book, not reaching that fitness goal…. whatever.

      The moment you woke up this morning you had enough. More than old Walt has, more than every person you can even think of born before 1900 and most of those born before 1921. A hundred short years and most everyone you can ever think of as being alive vanishes to the other side of life. So who are we, complaining about enough?

      Feel life wash over you, in each breath and heartbeat and blink of an eye. For it is enough. That life is outrageously unfair is well-documented. That we might make a difference if we worked just a bit harder is indeed possible. But never forget in those moments of fatigue and boredom and frustration that this business of being alive today is just audacious enough in itself to celebrate the moment.