Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • Marching Boldly Down the Path of Better

      There’s a battle happening in the background within each of us. A battle of habits if you will, each with a stake in your game, each working to override the other and dominate the conversation. And the stakes are high.

      We all have bad habits. Habits of consumption that lead us astray. Snacking too much. Relying on relationships for positive feedback instead of diving deep into our own soul. Bing watching and media scrolling and gossiping about so-and-so. Habits of consumption that leave us overweight and bloated on garbage.

      Good god, the garbage! Garbage of empty calories that soften and marinate us, transforming lithe into listlessness. Garbage of bitter political or conspiracy theories or social commentary that calcifies brain cells and transforms good people into trolls. Garbage of money chasing and comparing your stuff to the stuff others have. If you are what you eat what the hell are we doing to ourselves?

      Thankfully, we also have good habits. Habits of productivity that move us a step forward in our lives, marching boldly down the path of better. Eating in moderation and pulling the right dietary levers. Exercise and sweat equity and earning that next thing you put in your mouth.

      Habits that lead us towards something bigger than ourselves. Community building and nest egg accumulating and corporate ladder climbing. Habits of exploration and understanding. Habits of creation; of projects and writing and events and enterprise. Putting it and yourself out there in and for the world. For exploration is seeking more, and creation is contribution.

      So what do you lean into? What dominates the conversation in your own life? Those habits of consumption are loud talkers and want to take over your life. Habits of productivity work on you in subtle ways, pointing towards a better tomorrow with work today. That deferral sometimes makes all the difference, swaying us to the dark side of just this once.

      The trick is knowing which path you’re on. Where are you going anyway? Immediate gratification is just a little nibble or scroll away. But away from what? We’re all moving towards something, which naturally means we’re also moving away from something. What will it be for you and me? Let’s make it meaningful. March boldly down the path of better and see where it takes you.

    • Powering Through That Sleep-Deprived Day

      The older you get the more you appreciate getting a good night’s sleep. I’ve seen first-hand the effects of chronic insomnia and sleeplessness. I count my blessings that I usually sleep quite well and rarely set the alarm, letting my body wake up when it naturally would. This isn’t a blog post about getting sleep, this is a post about how to get through the day after those nights when you just didn’t get enough sleep to function properly the next day. We all have our idea of what functioning properly means, but for our purposes it means being able to do common things like string a sentence together or figure out where the coffee grinder is.

      I mentioned I rarely set the alarm. Well, I did this morning, getting up at 3 AM to drive my daughter to the airport for a flight across the country. I placed my head on the pillow after 11 PM, so you don’t need advanced calculus to figure out this worked out to less than 4 hours of sleep. So clearly I broke protocol with my sleep cycle, and you know what? It showed.

      The first sign that my brain needed some more rest was not knowing how fast I was driving because my eyes locked on the average speed of the car instead of the speedometer. Instead of processing the information quickly and efficiently I fumbled with controls on the steering wheel trying to change the display instead of looking to the right on the dashboard. Great start! Chalk it up to REM, Interrupted.

      Sleep deprivation creates moments like these. I used to be cavalier about sleep, often burning the candle at both ends and relying on caffeine to power ahead through the day. Nowadays I use days like this as blessedly infrequent reminders that I don’t want to do this all the time anymore. As we tick past noon I’ve been awake for 9 hours and feeling the fatigue starting to creep in. Powering ahead when you’re sleep-deprived sometimes requires the entire playbook.

      So how do you make it through a day when you know you’ll be exhausted? Here are some tried-and-true go-to’s for those moments when caffeine offers diminishing returns:

      Hydrate! It’s too easy to let your body slip into dehydration when you’re chugging coffee. Hydration makes you sharper and more energetic, so balance glasses of cold water between cups of java.

      Move! Dynamic stretching and a quick walk gets the blood flowing and the adrenaline pumping. You don’t have to run a marathon to feel energized, just 5-10 minutes of active movement can make all the difference.

      Sleep! That’s right, when all else fails, a power nap goes a long, long way to getting you through the day. I use the Jocko Willink trick of a 10 to 15 minute power nap. He recommends elevating your feet so you get blood flow to the brain, and to sleep no more than 15 minutes for maximum rejuvenation with minimum grogginess. It’s a rare day when I need a nap but when I do Jocko’s method works wonders. If it can help a Navy Seal get through their day, it can certainly help us mortals.

      So go on, power through that day! But remember to get some meaningful sleep that night. We can’t be vibrant when our senses are dulled, and a string of bad sleep nights nullifies even the best wake-up tricks.

    • What’s Next?

      What do you do with the day after a holiday? You clean up, maybe you feel the need to clean yourself up a bit, and then you move on. It’s a reset, if you will, with the lingering glow of celebration slowly fading into memory.

      Americans are waking up to the day after Independence Day. Yards are filled with debris from exploded ordinance, recycling bins are chock full and the wildlife that surrounds the house slowly recovers from the shock of humanity fully expressing themselves. And oh boy, do we express ourselves.

      Americans tend to be hard drivers in the game of life. Work hard, play hard is the favorite expression. You’re either into the madness and frenzy of the moment or you’re not. Those who are not are using the long weekend to get away from the noise and hike or sequester themselves in some quiet cottage somewhere away from it all.

      The day after Independence Day we look up and see that half the year has slipped away and we’ve moved from the earliest days of summer to the height of summer. The days are getting warmer but shorter all at the same time. You aren’t moving towards the sun now, you’re slipping away from it.

      For all the talk of New Year’s Eve and resolutions, the day after Independence Day is the day when I look around at how my year is going, and how my life is going after the frenzied first half and decide how and what I’m going to change in this second half. It’s the midway point of the year, with so much already accomplished or so much potential untapped. But it’s not either/or, is it? More likely a bit of both.

      The day after is the day when you shake off the cobwebs and finally stop for a moment. There’s still so much you can do in the year. Still so much you have to do. The growing season is well underway, but there’s plenty of time before the harvest to do some meaningful work. So it’s a fair time to ask yourself, in the quiet of the morning after the madness, what’s next?

      If July 4th celebrates the Declaration of Independence, what will we declare for ourselves as we look to the future? Shouldn’t we make it just as bold? If that document tells us anything, it’s that an inspired vision that you can get behind can make a big difference in where you go next.

    • Blueberry Thieves

      It’s easy to see motion in the garden when the motion is coming from a six foot tall mess of stakes, chicken wire and plastic netting. The chicken wire was a 2021 addition after the plastic netting proved insufficient to keep the birds and chipmunks off of the blueberry bushes. Know what my blueberry harvest was in 2020? Take a look at that last number in the year.

      So this year brought new resolve and a commitment to reaching the finish line with at least one bowlful of blueberries. And then I saw motion inside the cage. Sure enough a gray catbird had somehow gotten inside but couldn’t figure out how to get out. I offered some advice, filtered here for the protection of the innocent. And the catbird found a way out with my encouragement.

      An hour later, more motion from the cage. Looking over, a chipmunk was inside, stretched to its limits in the act of attempting to steal a ripening blueberry. I threw the head of a hoe at the cage, terrifying the chipster and emptying the cage once again. Clearly this cage isn’t working out as planned.

      A quick online search for how to scare away critters brought the usual assortment of scarecrows, pinwheels and shiny tape. But it also brought up one I hadn’t considered – plastic snakes. It seems the forest creatures find plastic snakes unnerving enough that they stay away from the blueberries.

      Which makes me wonder, what am I doing growing blueberries anyway? Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to just buy some at the market? When I’ve reached a point where I’m buying toy snakes as garden accessories, has the very act robbed me of the joie de jardiner? Am I adding whimsy or tackiness? I crossed that threshold when I put up a chicken wire cage in my garden.

      I pride myself on coexisting with most of the critters in the neighborhood. Until they start messing with my garden anyway. Last year featured epic battles with the groundhog. This year it’s been rabbits, birds and chipmunks. Am I willing to concede the blueberries to fate, or is a small crop of fruit worth an investment in a scary-looking toy? Will there even be fruit to protect by the time I obtain a snake?

      The things I do for a garden…. While there are blueberries to fight for this battle isn’t over, and neither is the story. Stay tuned.

    • Endlessly Changing Horizons

      “The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” – Chris McCandless

      I’m a traveller at heart, a wanderer and nomad wannabe. So it’s easy to be stirred to action by McCandless’s quote above. He was the subject of Into the Wild, making him instantly more famous than those of us who chose a less aggressive path to chase new horizons. I know viscerally the call that brought him to the wilderness of Alaska even as I question his tactics for getting there. I’m far less risk-averse than many, but far more so than McCandless was.

      Friends poke and prod at the nomad in me, knowing it wants to break free and go. There’s a rawness in the desire when it gets stamped down too many times. And the pokes always seem to hit home right in that sore part. Nomads seek endlessly changing horizons to see what’s over there, and then over in that other place. Always chasing new and different. I know this chase.

      There are three fair questions to ask when you chase horizons: What do you seek? and How will you pull this off? and What are you leaving behind? Purpose, logistics and consequences. If you tackle all three and feel comfortable with the answers, then what are you waiting for? Go!

      Joy comes through seeing the change in yourself as you encounter new perspectives. Sometimes that’s in another place, and sometimes that’s in finding a new place within yourself. No, changing horizons aren’t about chasing, they’re about becoming.

      So, again, what is it you seek?

    • Everything, Left Alone

      We want the stillness and confidence
      of age, the space between self and all the objects of the world
      honoured and defined, the possibility that everything
      left alone can ripen of its own accord
      – David Whyte, Living Together

      I’d like to think that I’ve arrived at this stage in my life where I can just let things be. To allow nature to take its course, for things to sort themselves out, to let everything left alone ripen of its own accord. I should think that’s too bold a statement, the arrogance of youth still pulsing in my middle-aged body.

      We see it mostly with our children. In wanting to control the pace of their lives, to see them land well when they fly – to see the flight itself aim straight and true towards a logical place a few notches above where we ourselves have flown. For we’re in such a hurry to get them there, wanting the very best for them. You can’t rush the ripening, you tell yourself, and keep your unsolicited advice deep inside, waiting for an invitation to weigh in.

      You learn to wait in the wings, ready to lend a hand, just playing the parent or friend card. Maybe it’s the gardener in me, knowing you’ve got to let things grow, more often than not finding yourself in wonder at the progression as things surpass your expectations. Sure, you curse the occasional rabbit or groundhog that ruins your dreams of a perfect season, but on the whole things work themselves out in the end (letting things be doesn’t mean you don’t have to fight for what you believe in: install a fence when you need to).

      I’m not in any hurry to reach old age, but I know (if I’m lucky) that it’s not all that far away. A few decades, maybe, to make what I might of this life project. This work in progress. Imperfect. Incomplete. But in progress just the same. Seeing this in yourself lends a measure of understanding and empathy for the journey everyone else is on. For the possibility that they’re grinding away at.

      Everything left alone can ripen on its own accord. This is the way of the world. Just remember that I’ll be here if you need me.

    • Pulling Dietary Levers

      “I guess I just encourage people to be much more attuned to all of the tools, right? So caloric restriction, dietary restriction, time restriction, right? You’ve probably heard me go on and on about my framework, the three levers; always pull one, sometimes pull two, occasionally pull three, never pull none.

      So time restriction… restricting when you eat, but otherwise not restricting how much or what. Dietary restriction is restricting some of the content in what you eat. So not eating carbs, not eating wheat, not eating meat… not eating sugar. Those are all forms of dietary restriction. And then caloric restriction is restricting the amount.

      And so if you are never pulling one of those levers, which means you are eating anything you want, any time, how much, whatever, that’s called the Standard American Diet (SAD)…. We’ve been running a very good natural experiment on that for the last fifty years and the data are in. So it turns out that less than… 10% of the population are genetically robust enough to tolerate the SAD… But for the rest of us the 90% of us schmucks… the SAD is lethal. And so you’ve got to come up with a way to escape the gravitational pull of the SAD.” – Dr. Peter Attia, on The Tim Ferriss Show

      We all know this at a certain level, don’t we? We’ve all seen what the standard American diet does to those who eat it. But escaping the gravitational pull of it is the trick. What I love about this statement by Attia is how he lays it all out there, simplifying it to three basic levers. Always pull at least one, sometimes two or all three. And never none.

      Chart your food consumption over the last week and ask yourself, how many days did I pull none of the levers? For most of us, it’s most days. Notice there’s nothing in here about exercise either. We tend to think that exercising cancels out the crap we eat. That might help burn off the calories, but doesn’t account for whatever that crap is doing to your body as it circulates through your system.

      When it comes to things like diet I like simplicity. Doing a no carb diet is a pain in the ass when you travel a lot, so maybe you don’t pull that particular lever and opt for intermittent fasting or limiting the number of calories you consume that day is the better way. Pull one to three levers in a day and see how it transforms your body over time. With discipline and work we might just reach escape velocity. Pull a couple of levers and get in at least an hour of moving to drop the SAD from your days. I’m happy just thinking about that.

    • Living Ratios

      “The secret to living well and longer is: eat half, walk double, laugh triple and love without measure.” -Tibetan Proverb

      “We’ve become conditioned to breathe too much, just as we’ve been conditioned to eat too much. With some effort and training, however, breathing less can become an unconscious habit.” – James Nestor, Breath

      My three taco dinner informed. Overindulgence in meals, especially dinner, leaves us sluggish. I literally felt like a slug lying in bed trying to get to sleep with a full stomach. Who needs that? My reaction was to eat less the next day. I skipped two meals, breakfast and lunch, and ate moderately at dinner the next night.

      Like many people, I’ve wrestled with consistently applying the commonly accepted ratios for a better life: Spend less, save more. Eat less, exercise more. Awake 16 hours, asleep for 8. The logic is easy to grasp for each principle, if hard to execute without discipline. Still, we all agree that these are ratios to aspire to. But breathe less? It seems counterintuitive. Until you consider resting heart rate:

      “Mammals with the lowest resting heart rates live the longest. And it’s no coincidence that these are consistently the same mammals that breathe the slowest. The only way to retain a slow resting heart rate is with slow breaths.” – James Nestor, Breath

      We all have the opportunity to fully embrace change in our lives. To (cue the buzzword) pivot towards something more sustainable. Training the mind and body to accept the natural order of things. And with this in mind I’m working on my ratios. Portion control, if you will, for the core life functions of eating, exercise, rest, breathing, laughter, learning and interactions with others.

      Control is an important modifier here. Not jumping into reckless exercise that creates injury, nor eliminating things from your life that are essential. Living well is not an all or nothing affair, it’s structuring your life around foundational behaviors. We won’t live forever, but we can live better, healthier and more (cue the next buzzword) vibrant lives, and hopefully for a bit longer than the norm.

      I know preaching about exercise and fitness principles and dropping a couple of buzzwords into a blog post don’t create meaningful change. Consistent action applied over time creates meaningful change. But all change begins somewhere. Sometimes it’s triggered by something as simple as a Tibetan quote and one too many tacos.

    • Myths and Pretty Stories

      “Like the elite of ancient Egypt, most people in most cultures dedicate their lives to building pyramids. Only the names, shapes and sizes of these pyramids change from one culture to the other. They may take the form, for example, of a suburban cottage with a swimming pool and an evergreen lawn, or a gleaming penthouse with an enviable view. Few question the myths that cause us to desire the pyramid in the first place.” – Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

      We all build pretty stories, latch on to myths that align us with a currency, political party, and what we chase in our short time on earth. Since I reached “responsible” adulthood I’ve been servant to my pyramid in New Hampshire, my second pyramid, thank you. I’ve done my part to keep both the economy and humankind going by getting married and having two children, a boy and a girl, to keep the party going after I someday check out.

      Sapiens challenges long-standing assumptions we have about our place in the world: how we got here, what we believe, what we’ve destroyed in the process of getting here and what is being destroyed now as a result of the myths and pretty stories we collectively tell ourselves. And that’s the part that I’ve been thinking about lately. We’ve all seen what collective belief in a myth can do on September 11, 2001 and on January 6, 2021. There’s a very dark side of humanity that emerges when subscribing to certain myths. And there’s a swell of resistance that rises up when confronted with myths that don’t fit our own view of the world.

      It may come as no surprise to any reader of this blog that I’m a romanticist, chasing experiences in this short life. And yet like many of my fellow romanticists I’ve also built a pyramid. And keep adding smaller pyramids around it to make this life more… comfortable? Luxurious? Sure. But every myth has a price, and to function in this society your story needs to align with the larger story of paying mortgages and car payments and working to fund it all.

      We humans are complicated, aren’t we? Life is about the pretty stories we tell ourselves. About where we are and where we’re going. We all tell ourselves and others these stories. I tell myself that I’m chasing washboard abs, but still managed to have a third taco last night. Now I’m planning a long walk and yard work to make up for the three tacos. Washboard abs are just another pretty story I tell myself if I don’t align my habits with the larger goal.

      As an American I grew up believing certain things about our Rights as citizens. We buy into the belief that all men and women are created equal. Over time you learn this is a myth, we aren’t at all equal. Some are dealt tougher hands than others. Some drink the Kool-Aid of scarcity and fear and react to that with aggression and hate. In sharp contrast, may of us subscribe to something bigger. A belief in each other and a better future.

      “Well, big wheels roll through fields where sunlight streams
      Oh, meet me in a land of hope and dreams”
      – Bruce Springsteen, Land of Hope and Dreams

      Inevitably there’s friction and chafing when one person’s myths run into another’s opposing myths. We live in a dangerous time, and a lot depends on how the pendulum swings during our watch. Like Springsteen I’m an eternal optimist, but recognize that’s just the way we frame our pretty stories. Like washboard abs and too many tacos, sometimes pretty stories and reality don’t align and you’ve got to recognize that and commit to changing the story.

      We all have to work for the pyramids we are building towards the sky. It’s fair to question whether we’re building the right pyramid in the first place. Isn’t it?

    • Dancing in our Seats

      “To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful… This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking” – Agnes De Mille

      “It’s the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance.” – Xiaolu Guo

      Out for dinner with my bride on a Friday night,
      the place packed like it used to be
      before pandemics
      and not a mask in sight
      Obviously everyone is vaccinated…
      right?

      I know, that poem needs a lot of work, but this isn’t a post about the poem, but the moment. A packed tavern, literally hundreds of people jammed into the building for a wedding down the hall, trickling over to celebrate in the tavern. A mile from our home and looking around we don’t know a soul in there. Even the waitstaff is entirely new. So forget social bubbles, the place was bursting.

      And, it seems, if we are to compare COVID to the Spanish Flu from a century ago, we’ve entered the roaring 20’s phase of our collective story about the pandemic. And honestly, there’s a big part of me that’s ready to dance again. We’ve done our part, socially isolating, getting vaccinated, and trusting the science. At what point do you just get out there and start living again?

      My bride and I are sitting at a hightop table in the back corner of the tavern, having drinks and dinner. Laughter and conversation all around us. And the music pumping through the sound system is the hits of the disco era. One hit wonders and big boogie groove things pulsing through the crowd. And I see my bride transform into the kid I fell in love with, twinkle in her eye and dancing in her seat song after song. And I dance a bit myself, just a bit, and smile in the moment.

      We’re out, and outside ourselves. If this place had a dance floor we’d have been on it. Without one we dance in our seats, waiting for our meals and another round. And life ever so slowly begins to be a celebration of all its possibilities. Glory on earth, once again.