Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • Starting Again, Regularly

      “be ready to start again
      like the moon”
      – Kat Lehmann, Small Stones from the River

      “If I had a week left to live, would I be doing this?” – Neil Strauss, via Twitter

      Two worthy prompts to start the mind’s gears turning on this New Years Day. I’m not one for resolutions, but find reviewing what worked and didn’t work are worthwhile exercises – not just as we round the corner into a new year but at regular intervals. But what is that interval? Is the best interval the beginning of a calendar year?

      Maybe timing big questions with the phase of the moon makes sense? Since full moon fever carries more baggage the New Moon might be a better time. Or perhaps the first random Sunday of the month. But I believe the interval is as important as the questions asked.

      The Strauss question demands attention, of course. It’s a big question, and maybe its best asked annually, saving more frequent intervals for questions of systems and processes and assessment of progress against objectives. What’s working/not working? questions. Whatever your questions are, they deserve to be asked, and answered. Regularly.

    • The Wait

      Christmas morning for early risers is all about the wait. The scene is set, the stockings are strung by the chimney with care and stuffed full of candy and knickknacks and gift cards. The coffee is made, sipped down, and sometimes made again. The waiting game has begun.

      Back when the kids were in the magic age when Santa Claus and Rudolph dominated the conversation on Christmas Eve, sleep deprivation was the name of the game. You’d stay up half the night assembling the shock and awe gift of that particular season. And then they’d wake you up in a flurry of excited activity as one or the other would stir, realize what the moment was, whisper loudly to the other to wake up! and then they’d rush in to finish the job of getting you out of bed too. At the height of this mad dash we’d often be done with the early shift unwrapping by 7 o’clock.

      Not so when they reach adulthood. Now it’s all about the waiting game. The residents of the house get up in stages like it’s a Saturday morning with no place to go. We’ll get this celebration rolling around 9 o’clock I’d guess, but then again, who really knows? But they’re worth the wait.

      We won’t see everyone we’d like to see this Christmas, but we’ll add Zoom to our day and make the most of it. It’s a different vibe, but the same love. No assembly required. But maybe some tech support and reading glasses.

      Merry Christmas. And Happy Holidays. For all this year brought I hope this morning brings you Peace.

    • Quality Time

      “What is the state of things, then? It is this: I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him. I advise you, however, to keep what is really yours; and you cannot begin too early. For, as our ancestors believed, it is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask. Of that which remains at the bottom, the amount is slight, and the quality is vile.”
      – Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

      Re-read that Seneca quote and measure your use of alive time against what you have left in the cask. If this year offered plenty of cause to question our use of time or the unfairness in the world, it also gave us time to think and to pivot towards better uses of time than we might have before. But the irony is that we can’t waste time dwelling on it, we can only use it as a guiding light for what we do next.

      “Our current use of time is not rational. There is therefore no point in seeking marginal improvements in how we spend our time. We need to go back to the drawing board and overturn all our assumptions about time. There is no shortage of time. In fact, we are positively awash with it. We only make good use of 20 percent of our time. And for the most talented individuals, it is often tiny amounts of time that make all the difference.” – Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle

      I got out and walked yesterday, pondering the narrow shoulders of the roads in my town and the number of cars driving on them in the busy stretches, and appreciating the quiet stretches with no cars where I could think. The takeaway was to remove the busy roads and walk in places where thinking is 80 percent of your walking time instead of simply surviving the experience. The time allocated to walking was always available to me this year, I just put it aside more often than I used it.

      I think back on the crazy year that was 2020, and wonder where the time went. Too much time on useless activities, chasing after opportunities that turned to vapor in the hard reality of the pandemic, and squandering time on social media, political debate, and watching entertainment of questionable quality. I spent more time with an iPhone in my hand than I should have, but tried to use that time reading the Kindle app, learning a bit of French and Portuguese, and taking pictures of the good moments.

      “The 80/20 Principle says that we should act less. Action drives out thought. It is because we have so much time that we squander it…. It is not shortage of time that should worry us, but the tendency for the majority of time to be spent in low-quality ways… If much greater work would benefit the most idle 20 percent of our people, much less work would benefit the hardest-working 20 percent; and such arbitrage would benefit society both ways. The quantity of work is much less important than its quality, and its quality depends on self-direction.” – Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle

      During those moments of thinking time while walking I turned over the key points of Koch’s book in my head, thinking about the the quality of the time spent and how to spend it better. We don’t really know what’s left in the cask, but we know it’s not as full as it once was. The 80/20 Principle is both obvious and widely ignored by most people. But why be most people? When applied to our use of time, the pursuit of quality becomes… imperative.

    • Stepping Out of Tiny Boxes

      Most people live their entire lives in tiny little boxes of their own making. I recognize the tendency because I too live in my own tiny box. But, for most people, the box we live in isn’t as tiny as it once was. It grows when we step out of it, over and over again. Until it isn’t such a tiny box after all.

      Experience is the great teacher, be it ours or the work of others before us. Reading and understanding are also forms of stepping out. Building things of significance, be they careers or causes or art or relationships, expand our tiny boxes. And journeys of consequence are also expansive in nature. I’ve never quite fit in my old box when I return from a faraway place or a mountain top, nor would I want to.

      Some choose to remain in their tiny boxes. Perhaps they find it comfortable in there. It isn’t our place to expand other people’s boxes, but we can gently coax them outside for a stretch. The sneaky part about helping other people expand their boxes is that ours expand in kind.

      Now and then I’ve realized that inside the box was far more comfortable than the place I found myself on the outside, but I couldn’t get back in again as hard as I tried. Soon any discomfort faded and I realized that it was just my hardened edges expanding to new places. I’ve learned to enjoy that feeling of discomfort more each time.

      We reach a point where we want to spend more time outside stretching, and less time pressed inside our borders. I hope that feeling never goes away, but I see it fades in some people. If you aren’t paying attention you get pretty comfortable in that box you’ve built and even stretching a little bit seems like a step too far.

      If we’re being honest with ourselves, sometimes it feels better to just stay where you’re comfortable. After all, there’s nothing cozy about leaping. Crossing chasms is scary and dangerous work. So why risk it?

      Because we weren’t born to live in tiny boxes.

    • Islands of Time, Cornerstones of Castles

      “Behind the issue of how we allocate time lurks the even more fundamental issue of what we want to get out of our lives.” – Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle

      In reading Koch’s book it struck me how profoundly influential he was in Tim Ferriss’ The Four Hour Work Week. Not a shock, really, since Ferriss often refers to Koch’s book as one of his cornerstones. I suppose I’d always thought of his use of the Pareto Principle as the essential takeaway, but didn’t realize the extent to which Koch urges lifestyle design himself in his book.

      The 80/20 Principle offers the usual business cases for who you spend your time with and what you spend your time on in business, but I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting the deeper dive into the self that he thrusts upon you. I’ll tap into this book in future posts, but wanted to explore Koch’s top ten highest-value uses of time. Here they are:

      The Top 10 highest-value uses of time:
      1. Things that advance your overall purpose in life
      2. Things you have always wanted to do
      3. Things already in the 20/80 relationship of time to results
      4. Innovative ways of doing things that promise to slash the time required and/or multiply the quality of results
      5. Things other people tell you can’t be done
      6. Things other people have done successfully in a different arena
      7. Things that use your own creativity
      8. Things that you can get other people to do for you with relatively little effort on your part
      9. Anything with high-quality collaborators who have already transcended the 80/20 rule of time, who use time eccentrically and effectively
      10. Things for which it is now or never
      – Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle

      The list is fascinating on a lot of levels as a look at what a “highly successful person” prioritizes. I’ve put that in quotations because not everyone has the same belief about what success is, but you can’t take away that he’s accomplished quite a bit using his belief system. We all have this lurking issue of time, for we aren’t immortal, are we? So what would you prioritize?

      Well, Koch suggests making four lists to identify your own 20 percent that you should prioritize. He segments them as “islands”, or small segments of time, under which you list the things you’ve done that have contributed disproportionately towards each. The segments are: Happiness Islands, Unhappiness Islands, Achievement Islands and Achievement Desert Islands (periods of greatest sterility or lowest productivity). Your task is straightforward: Identify each, and then act accordingly in how you prioritize your time.

      Ah, yes… Making lists is one thing. Acting accordingly is quite another. And this is where most people fall off. And this is what Thoreau meant in one of his most famous quotes:

      “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Thoreau would have seen common ground in Koch’s list, and he himself pointed the way in Walden:

      “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Ferriss also mentioned Walden as a cornerstone book, and it is for me as well. But cornerstones only mean something if you build your castle on top of them. Otherwise they’re just a few rocks oddly places that someone else might trip over if they were distracted with their own life. Koch’s four islands are a great guide for prioritization and action.

    • Awaiting Discovery

      “It is remarkable that men do not sail the sea with more expectation. Nothing remarkable was ever accomplished in a prosaic mood. The heroes and discoverers have found true more than was previously believed, only when they were expecting and dreaming of something more than their contemporaries dreamed of, or even themselves discovered, that is, when they were in a frame of mind fitted to behold the truth. Referred to the world’s standard, they are always insane.” – Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod

      This is a year of the commonplace and unromantic if you let it be.  Lockdowns and border closings and mandatory quarantines tend to temper the passions of the high agency traveler.  But then again, if you keep your expectations and dreams focused on regional adventuring until things open up again you might just find the world under your nose.

      Yesterday I watched a bobcat, set against the snow, on the hunt.  It was slinking along the edge of the forest where the fence announces wilderness begins.  I expect it was attracted to the bird feeder activity, for there were squirrels and juicy birds for the taking for the ambitious hunter.  Unlike my snowshoe hare encounter I wasn’t prepared for a picture, and I settled for locking her image in my brain.

      Leaving Cape Cod the other day I stopped to fill up the tank and, glancing up, noticed 9-10 osprey hovering in the wind, all clustered together.  I’ve never seen so many osprey flying together, and there they were right above me gliding gracefully about.  By the time I finished fueling the car the osprey had drifted away to awe others elsewhere, but damn if they didn’t capture my imagination first.

      For all his fame as a transcendentalist and beholder of truths, Thoreau didn’t travel very much in his lifetime.  He spent most of his lifetime in Concord, Massachusetts, with notable trips to Cape Cod, up the Concord and Merrimack Rivers to the White Mountains, to the Maine woods, and one solitary trip across an international border when he visited Quebec.  And yet he saw more than most people who travel far beyond the northeast corner of North America.

      There’s light at the end of the pandemic, though we remain in a dark and treacherous tunnel.  This isn’t the time to cross borders, but the world outside our Twitter feed remains vibrant and alive, awaiting discovery.  The bobcat,  osprey and Thoreau have each inspired me to shake off the creeping prosaic mood that shorter, darker days cloak you in and dive back into adventuring.

      Et toi?  Are you ready to re-join the hunt?  Nothing remarkable was ever accomplished in a prosaic mood.

    • To Hell With Comparison

      “We have so far to go” sighed the boy
      “Yes, but look at how far we’ve come.” said the horse
      – Charlie Mackesy      , The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse

      I listened to an associate talk of stocks purchased and his regret that he only made $300K on his Moderna but would have made a million if he’d stuck with it. He’d already made millions selling his business, and talked of starting another business to build and sell. He’s a hustler, a builder, a big shark in a red ocean always hungry for more. And a charming guy who quickly wins people over with his personality and work ethic.

      Another friend who worked for this friend learned all he could from the big shark and started his own company. He’s built it up to be substantial. There’s no doubt that he’s a big shark himself now, and he talks exactly like the first guy. Rattles off accomplishments in every conversation, big wins, and a trophy house on a famous lake. Also a hustler, he’s built something special but isn’t slowing down. No, he’s got an empire to build and the climb isn’t over.

      You can quickly feel inadequate when you talk to someone who leapfrogs the average. These two make me dizzy when I talk to them, and there’s plenty more just like them who will rattle off wins like entrees on a Cheesecake Factory menu. I can’t help but admire them, and compliment each accomplishment for what it is. And there’s a little bit of comparison that slips in right about then where I think about what I’ve done in the industry versus what they’ve done, and… I silently curse myself for not being a bigger shark.

      “Comparison is the primary sin of modern life.” – Michael Ray“

      When you try to keep up with the Joneses you willingly enter into an arms race you can’t win. But the tendency to compare runs deep. And I thought about my two friends. They talk often, and I wonder about their conversations. I did this! Well, I did this! And so on until their next client calls with a billion dollar deal just in time for the holidays. And I shake my head. I don’t want to swim in that ocean.

      “Comparison is the death of joy.” – Mark Twain

      When you live your life based on how you perceive yourself to be in relation to someone else you can never measure up. And you set yourself up for a life of frustration and exhaustive one-upmanship. And yet most of us do it anyway. Worse, we start looking at what our children have accomplished compared to the neighbors kids and seed our issues right in to the next generation.

      “The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.” – Lily Tomlin

      You can’t help but think about how far you have to go when you start comparing yourself to others. But it helps to look back and recognize just how far you’ve come. Often the best views are well before we reach the summit. We’re all on our own path, and it might just look pretty good to someone else. Shouldn’t we recognize that ourselves and appreciate where we are?

      And still comparison persists. Comparison can be a spur or a cancer. It serves to fuel progress, inspire action, alter our course and generally goad us out of complacency. Comparison isn’t all bad. Until you use it to degrade yourself or those you love, or to win at any cost. In those moments, to hell with comparison. Isn’t it better to be George Bailey than Mr. Potter?

    • Graced with the Ordinary

      “Let the world
      have its way with you,
      luminous as it is with mystery
      and pain –
      graced as it is
      with the ordinary.”
      – Mary Oliver, Summer Morning

      Today, for his birthday, I used the camel hair shaving brush while shaving. He gave it to me in a ceremonial way, as if turning over command of the Bridge, about eighteen months ago. Hard to say when, really, but it was clear it meant something to him and he wanted me to have it. And to use it. Well, old habits die hard, and when you shave your face every day you form deep habits. Still, I’d use the brush now and then because it performs. Nothing lathers your shaving cream like a good shaving brush.

      The small, ordinary things stand out for me. Maybe it’s the writing that draws my eye to the commonplace, but honestly I think it may be the other way around. I’ve always had an inordinate focus on the small things around me, and those small things seek a voice in the universe. We honor the things we amplify.

      The old Navy pilot would pull me aside and talk of my writing, such that it is, and encourage me to keep going with it. He read a lot, he knew good writing, and he saw something in mine that sparked his interest. It was shortly after that that he gave me the shaving brush. Maybe he had it in mind for me all along, but it felt connected. And I feel the connection with him when I use it to shave.

      Happy Birthday Pops.

    • A Weekend at The Trapp Family Lodge

      The cow outweighed me by more than 1200 pounds and had long horns protruding menacingly to her right and left, but I edged closer anyway. Bob, the Activities Director at The Trapp Family Lodge, insisted that it was safe to walk out amongst the Highland Cows. He gave us instructions on what to do if they approached us looking for apples (fold your hands into your body and turn slowly away to show you don’t have food). And he told us when one of the cows was annoyed with us. Otherwise, we were turned out to explore the field. Turning around, I realized I was one of the few who took him up on the offer. But risk has its rewards, and being close to the cattle was thrilling.

      Highland Cow

      I’ve been to Stowe, Vermont many times over the years. Mostly I’d drive up for Heady Topper beer, look around a bit and dream of lingering awhile. I’d even stopped to visit the Trapp Family Lodge, walking into the lobby to see what all the fuss was about. Like most Americans I’ve seen The Sound of Music a few dozen times. This wasn’t the Austrian Alps, but you can definitely see why they sank their roots here. The hills are alive in Stowe too.

      The Trapp Family Lodge is a lovely place, with fires roaring and pilsner flowing freely from taps and a quiet elegance without pretense. Pictures of the family decorate the walls throughout the lodge along with art derived from the story of the family’s escape from Nazi Austria. The mountains surround the property in all directions, and the von Trapp family owns much of the land and has donated many more acres to a land trust, ensuring this view would remain largely as it’s always been.

      We’d explored some of that land on our first day at the Lodge, walking the trails to find the Chapel at the top of the hill, and circling back to check out the Kaffeehouse for a snack. There are hiking and snowshoe trails criss-crossing the woods at the resort, and we had plenty of options for getting to know the lay of the land. Mountain bikers had their own single track trails that offered challenging terrain to explore. And wide cross-country skiing trails waited patiently for the snow to arrive. This was an outdoor enthusiast’s paradise. The outdoor hot tub and spa is a great reward for having done the work.

      After meeting the Highland Cows we walked back up the hill to the Lodge, with massive ravens flying about us speaking a sophisticated language of their own. I wondered at the banter, and wished we had more time to get to know them better. But we had other places to explore, and a long hill to walk back up. It seemed the cows were on the furthest pasture from the Lodge, and we had to earn our visit. It worked out to be about a mile each way, and a good way to work off breakfast with a different vantage point.

      We made a quick trip to downtown Stowe to explore the shops and made a stop at The Alchemist to pick up our Heady Topper beer order curbside before returning to the Bierhouse for lunch and a pint. We made a point of saving room in the cooler for some von Trapp beer as well. The Alchemist helped make Stowe the heart of New England IPA country, but the von Trapp’s make a great case for pilsners with their brews. This wasn’t some mass-produced American lager, this was beer with substance.

      Brewing at von Trapp is serious business

      As luck would have it, the woman who seated us was Kristina von Trapp, the granddaughter of Maria and a Director of the resort. She was a gracious host, with a striking presence about her borne of her family celebrity but honed on an active life outdoors and running a successful business. She wasn’t quietly sitting in the corner office looking at spreadsheets, she was hands-on and engaged with the public. And that made the von Trapp experience all the more impressive.

      We resolved to come back here again in the other seasons. Stowe is beautiful year-round, even on a cold November morning when the trees are bare and the snow is just hinting that it might return again. Staying here in all four seasons seems a worthy goal. And it will help keep the refrigerator well-stocked too.

    • Reflecting in the Present

      “When purple colored curtains mark the end of day
      I’ll hear you, my dear, at twilight time”
      – The Platters, Twilight Time

      Piscataqua River

      The sunset gets all the attention, and sure, when you have a western view at the right time of day you enjoy the show. I take great pains to see as many as I possibly can too. But my favorite Navy pilot reminded me long ago to turn around and see what was happening in the rest of the sky, and as we were offered a view of water and a glass of rum to celebrate Democracy in action last night we watched the sun setting on the Piscataqua River in Dover, New Hampshire. The windows on the opposite shore (in Eliot, Maine) suggested the sunset we were missing while we were looking east, but the night was calm, the rum was good and the company was exceptional.

      Looking east at twilight offers something beautiful. It’s a look back on where you’ve been, even as the sun draws you over the western horizon. We can appreciate where we’ve been before, regret moments lost and mourn those we’ve lost. Alternatively, we can look ahead, ignoring where we’ve been before and barely acknowledging where we are now in our scramble to get somewhere else. But really, all we have is now. Here you are lingering in between; reflecting in the present.

      The view in the present can be stunning or off-putting or maybe even monotonous at times, but its our view no matter what we think of it. We can learn from the past, build towards the future and slowly, incrementally change our present – moment-by-moment. Looking east, I reflect that what’s done is done. We did our best with the time we once had. Looking west, I eagerly plot a future I can only hope to arrive at. Reflecting in the present gives us a chance to reset. To pivot towards a better future, built off of who we once were and who we are now. And to celebrate the day we’ve been given even as we hope for a better tomorrow.