Alexandersmap

    Category: Personal Growth

    • A More Available Life

      “The more you move, the more available you are to chance and little wonders.” — Douglas Westerbeke, A Short Walk Through A Wide World

      To be open to experience is risky. Openness requires more of us than to simply stay in place, doing what we’ve always done, in this familiar way that we’ve always done it. That sentence either sounds like comfort to us or a death sentence, depending on who we have grown to be.

      Westerbeke’s novel is a page-turning wonder itself, as its hero moves through the world. For those of us with travel lust, it stirs those familiar feelings. To leave all of this and go find out more about that, whatever and wherever that is. In experiencing that, we learn a lot about who we are in the process. We are moving beyond the self in such moments. We are living a more available life.

      It sounds wonderful to be forever traveling, forever moving from place to place, as if we’d die if we stayed too long in any one place. In reality, we need a safe harbor to return to now and then, to catch up with old friends and family, to tend a garden and to be there for the harvest, to know the way and what to order at certain restaurants. Familiar has its place in our lives too.

      To weave oneself back into a community is a lovely thing indeed. My barber knows my face and exactly how to cut my hair the moment I walk in the door, even if he hasn’t learned my name in the twenty years I’ve been going there. Honestly, I don’t need him to know my name, only that I’ll be back again in a few weeks to do it all over again. The stories I tell him about where I’ve been since the last time he cut my hair carry him away from that barber shop even as I settle into the familiarity of it.

      As we begin this year, as we venture into an uncertain future, what are we inclined to chance upon? What will we wonder at? Sometimes it’s right in front of us, or within the pages of a book. But often it’s beyond our current experience, simply waiting for us to venture to it. To add venturing to our lives naturally lends itself to more adventure. To go and be and do and yes, to return again forever changed, in the time we have available to us.

      Tempus fugit: Time flies. Every moment of now is rapidly receding into then. How we use now isn’t always up to us, but sometimes—more often that we believe, it is ours alone to spend. Will this day, this year and the balance of our lives be full of familiar routines and comforting safe bets or will we dare to venture beyond?

    • Dreams, Friends and Beginnings

      The sun was in his bathing suit,
      the moon in her pajamas.
      They played all day
      until the two
      were called in by their mamas.

      The sun went home and climbed in bed,
      his mama sang a tune,
      and soon the sun
      was fast asleep
      and dreaming of the moon.

      The moon decided not to go;
      instead she stayed outside.
      She danced and played
      and laughed and sang
      and stayed awake all night.

      When morning came the sun arose
      and went outside to play,
      but could not find
      his friend the moon,
      who slept inside all day.

      So now these two are best of friends,
      apart in dark and light.
      The sun turns in
      at evenfall —
      the moon stays out all night.

      The shining moon sees no sunlight,
      the sun sees no moonbeams,
      but when they each
      are fast asleep
      they’re in each other’s dreams.
      — Kenn Nesbitt, The Tale of the Sun and the Moon

      The ringing of the New Year necessitates staying up late. We early birds struggle, and must choose whether to sleep in or begin the New Year with a decent night’s sleep. The alternative is to simply go to bed early like it was any other night of the year. Whatever the choice, we often resolve to make changes to our routine going forward. Forever improving, forever seeking better things for our selves, forever optimizing. Such is the curse of the modern soul.

      I begin the year with a poem that delights me to read. Does it offer a hint of what’s to come? Perhaps, but sometimes simply finding things that delight us is enough for any given day. Why not kick off an entire year with a bit of magic, a bit of wonder, a bit of delight? We have tomorrow to be stoically focused on productivity and key performance indicators and such things that sound awful to mentioned when we began with friends and dreams. Can we resolve to simply live joyfully aware of the blessings around us?

      I will write more this year, I can feel that it’s all still there within me, bursting at the seams, awaiting release to fly away in fully-formed verse. The words keep coming to me—more sometimes than a blog post can contain. Time will tell whether dreams come true or if they simply fade into memory, like old friends we don’t see anymore but we smile when thinking about. To embark on a New Year is either an adventure or simply another day on a limited timeline. Isn’t it up to us to decide which it will be?

    • Part of Us

      George Malley: You know, if we were to put this apple down, and leave it, it would be spoiled and gone in a few days. But, if we were to take a bite of it like this,
      [bites apple]
      George Malley: it would become part of us, and we could take it with us, forever.
      [offers the apple to Glory, who takes a bite. Al refuses]
      George Malley: Al, everything is on its way to somewhere. Everything.
      — Gerald DiPego, scene from the movie Phenomenon

      The last few days of the year are meant for reflection of what has been, blended with anticipation for what may be in the New Year. The places we go to, the books we’ve read, the things we’ve done or not done all accumulate and become our identity. We are here because of all of that, layered into who we are. It’s all a part of us, carried for our evermore.

      Reflecting on what we’ve added to our identity, what we’ve subtracted from it, leads one naturally to consideration of what one might add to our identity going forward. Just who do we want to become next anyway? What, like that apple George Malley bit into, will become a part of us forever and always? We ought to make it the juiciest and most delicious apple we can find.

      We are all on our way somewhere. Forever accumulating, subtracting, showcasing or burying deep within. Life is what we carry, but also what we build from the blocks we’ve gathered together in our lives. Want a more magical life? Gather bits of magic and make something of them (those magical bits are everywhere when we train ourselves to be aware of them).

      What will tomorrow bring? Who knows? But eternity will surely show its indifference to our plans either way. This is our verse to write, beginning forever today. What in the world are we waiting for? Take a bite already.

      Happy New Year!

    • Between Mediocrity and Excellence

      “But why diminish your soul being run-of-the-mill at something? Mediocrity: now there is ugliness for you. Mediocrity’s a hairball coughed up on the Persian carpet of Creation.”
      ― Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

      Holy Crap (with a capital C), is the year already over?! In a year packed with experiences, did we experience enough? Is the bucket list half full or half empty? Did we reach the promised land of life satisfaction or will we once again carry over unfulfilled dreams to tomorrow?

      To live an average life is fine. Fine could surely be worse. Fine is better than many people wake up to. We should offer our due respect and gratitude to fine, appreciate it for getting us here and acknowledge it for all that is. But we know there’s another side to fine, because when someone offers that response when we ask them how they’re doing we know we have a problem. An ignore it at your peril problem. Fine is fine for linen, but not for people. We ought to elevate our game beyond fine.

      The trick, I think, is to return our focus to our routine. Now, we know the very word routine infers something akin to average. And average may be a notch below fine on the scale of how the heck are you? But our routine is what we make of it. And a few strategic, small changes to our daily routine bumps the average up just enough to offer dividends over time. This is the basis of James Clear’s Atomic Habits, which is a good book to return to when we’re thinking about making changes in our life.

      “Making a choice that is 1 percent better or 1 percent worse seems insignificant in the moment, but over the span of moments that make up a lifetime these choices determine the difference between who you are and who you could be. Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.” — James Clear, Atomic Habits

      As we approach the New Year, we can focus on big, hairy audacious goals, because BHAG‘s are fun to imagine, and delightful to achieve. So schedule the trip, sign up for that marathon, write the first page of that novel today, or file for that Limited Liability Corporation you’ve dreamed up. But when that’s done, return to the little things we can do today to make the experience of living right now far better than average. What will we say yes to today? Often that begins with what we’ll say no to. Incremental progress is the name of the game, and it begins with discipline and the smallest of wins.

      We know the expression, what gets measured gets managed (usually attributed to Peter Drucker). So what are we focused on and what are we tracking in our daily lives? To step on the scale every morning won’t trigger weight loss, but it’s a lagging indicator of whatever we did yesterday. Maybe that pound we gained (or lost) is enough to trigger a different decision today. Maybe our lousy sleep score this morning leads us to look at what we ate and drank yesterday and serves as the prompt to make meaningful change today. Measuring isn’t necessarily going to lead to effectively managing, but it does serve to keep us from straying too far off the path to progress.

      We all have different goals for our lives at different stages of it. What do we want to be exceptional at now? To be a good spouse or parent? To rise to the C-suite? What stage of life are we in anyway? What is really meaningful right now that didn’t mean a thing to us in that last stage (or won’t mean much in the next)? To live a fully-optimized life we ought to know where we are now and what will make now resonate as one of the very best stages of our life sometime then, should we be lucky enough to arrive there one day.

      Some things apply to all stages of life, and ought to be part of our core daily ritual. We ought to build and maintain a healthy, vibrant body, mind and soul, that we may thrive now and grow later. Health ought be our foundation and not quicksand pulling us to our demise. If health is our primary goal, what other goals rise to meet that level of urgency? Knowing we can’t do everything, what are our two or possibly three most important things?

      A change in the calendar is nothing but a reminder that the future is calling, and asking what the heck we want to be next. Don’t we owe it to ourselves for that to be something beyond the average we’ve lived with up to now? We may only focus on goals once a year (I hope not), but the entire process is about lifestyle design. Decide what to be and go be it, but know that we can’t be everything.

      What does personal excellence (arete) mean to us now? Choose to rise towards excellence in the few things that will make the greatest difference in our lives, and learning to accept mediocrity in all the rest. We may hate the idea of being mediocre at anything, but we can’t be excellent at everything. So what is worthy of the climb? What is worthy of our precious time? Finding the answer offers a clear path between mediocrity and excellence.

    • The World Within

      “There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside of them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself.”
      — Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

      How many countless worlds within are never realized? The tragedy of Thoreau’s “quiet desperation” is its prevalence. Living an unreal life is a tragic consequence of ignoring what’s been calling to us all along. But in a world so relentlessly distracting, who has time to stop and listen? The easy path is to simply do what is expected of us.

      We may choose to stray into expression. To learn to release that which is locked within and create reality from a dream. Imagination is a powerful ally when given given room to grow, fed with attention and allowed to manifest into something real.

      Realizing our masterpiece is a long way down the road from a first draft, begin anyway. It will be incrementally closer than what we did yesterday. Leaps are pretty things, but don’t happen without sustained momentum. Tap in to within, and make the imagined real. Reality is only asking for us to assert ourselves, once and for all.

    • To Be Productive and Daring

      Give winter nothing; hold; and let the flake
      Poise or dissolve along your upheld arms.
      All flawless hexagons may melt and break;
      While you must feel the summer’s rage of fire,
      Beyond this frigid season’s empty storms.
      Banished to bloom, and bear the birds’ desire.
      — James Wright, To a Troubled Friend

      Winter is thriving. The darkest day of the year is almost upon us, and then Christmas, and New Year’s, and before we know it we’ll be looking ahead to spring. At least that’s the hope of winter days. We look ahead, placing ourselves in some future place, brighter and perhaps warmer than where we are now. But now is the gift we forever ignore at our peril.

      I want to make something of this day—to be productive and daring. To do the things I promise myself I’ll do in the earliest hours, before the sun rises, before the first coffee bolsters my courage, before this blog post is captured and released for your consideration. Before is now for the productive mind. Now is the time to write and create something, now is the time to do that workout that mocks us. Now is before we get to those things. After is like another season altogether for the busiest mind.

      It’s all a blur of restless productivity towards something beyond here and now. Simply do what must be done next, and beyond will be there waiting. How we like to believe it so! Do with today what we only dream about for tomorrow. For all flawless hexagons may melt and break.

    • Tickled By Audacity

      “Il faut vivre et créer. Vivre à pleurer”
      (Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears)
      ― Albert Camus

      I’ve moved away from apps that teach me to read other languages, because they never really brought me to conversational French or German or Spanish. They aren’t immersive enough for that. Perhaps some of the AI-driven apps will deliver on the promise of multilingual proclivity, but as with most things, we learn by immersing ourselves in proximity to others doing that which we aspire to do. Which is another way to say we ought to challenge ourselves to go and do and be that person who is beyond where we currently are.

      French, for me, is the language I’ve dabbled with too long without mastering. We are all students of something, aren’t we? We may dabble in some things and attempt to master one, maybe two things in a lifetime. Conversational French is as good a skill to aspire to as anything. But skills are merely acquired to bring us to something else. Perhaps reading Camus in the language he wrote in, or perhaps holding one’s own in a local café where the tourists rarely go. We reach places we would never get to through the knowledge and skills we acquire and use.

      To live—vivre—is more than simply going through the motions. We can make a case that going through motions is not living at all. Going through anything is mere existence. To be alive we must do and dare, create and share. Embrace living by turning away from existing, towards something bolder and a little tingly. Those tingles are the nervous system expressing being tickled by audacity.

      Well, to live’s to fly
      All low and high
      So shake the dust off of your wings
      And the sleep out of your eyes
      — Townes Van Zandt, To Live Is to Fly

      How many ways must we say it? Be bold today. Live an expansive life. Try new things with frequency. Wings should never accumulate dust and skills should never be allowed to rust. We’re here to fly and strut our stuff. What is a day but another chance to make something memorable of it? What will we embark on next? What will we finally complete before we run out of time? Immerse yourself. Live and be bold! Vivre à pleurer.

    • Absolute Fullness of Life

      “This world is a great sculptor’s ship. We are the statues and there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.”— C.S. Lewis

      When I was younger we had a Great Dane named Zoe. As you might expect with Great Danes, Zoe was a large and lanky pup, who could easily knock over small children, not out of aggression but in exuberance. She wanted to be a puppy, and puppies get in the mix. Great Danes who get in the mix bump into things now and then. And it’s all part of learning to coexist together. The unique joy of having a large being in one’s life.

      One small child Zoe knocked over was my son, a toddler at the time who was shocked by the experience and became fearful of dogs for a couple of years until he got a little bigger and accustomed to wagging tails and friendly nuzzles. And then we got a dog ourselves and our son was transformed into a dog lover, like the rest of us. He’s grown up to be a basketball player-sized human himself, and while my genes played a part in that, I wonder if Zoe nudged a bit of large and lanky into him herself that day.

      You may know that the name Zoe comes from the Bible and means “absolute fullness of life”. C.S. Lewis had a lot more to say about Zoe than I quoted above (why start with a spoiler?). Essentially, he believed that we are either biological beings or spiritual beings, and we don’t become fully alive until we embrace Christianity and the spiritual life. No matter what you or I believe about embracing a specific religion, we may agree that we don’t fully live until we grow beyond ourselves and embrace something far bigger. We grow into a full life deliberately by what we embrace beyond ourselves.

      When I think back on the relatively short life of a Great Dane, I don’t mourn the duration, I celebrate the joyful exuberance that big dogs bring to our lives. We hope to have a much longer lifespan than the decade or so that a Dane lives, but what’s a few more decades without the pursuit of a full and abundant life? To find inner purpose and feel that fire burning within is to come to life. And isn’t that what we are here for? Come to a higher and more abundant life, while there is time for such things.

    • Expanding Possible

      “History enters when the space of the possible is vastly larger than the space of the actual.”

      “History itself arises out of the adjacent possible.”
      ― Stuart A. Kauffman, Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion

      What is success to you? Isn’t success something that stirs emotion within at the very idea of achieving it? Or of having achieved it? Success isn’t a thing at all, but a belief. People chase the idea of success, but often don’t have an idea of what would satiate that drive. So they keep on driving, on and on, to the end—whatever that is. Death, decline, or hopefully, enlightenment and a level of satisfaction with the place achieved during the climb.

      We each woke up this morning, beginning a string of successful moments and achievement of ever-expanding possibilities. Never forget the small victories on the march to summits beyond our present ascent. Writing and publishing this blog post is another small win in a series of possibilities (the streak continues for one more day). Is that success? If we believe it to be. The thing is, we can’t have success always in front of us like a carrot, we’ve got to recognize what we’ve actualized as a big part of what makes us successful.

      I heard the phrase “expanding the adjacent possible” in a Rory Sutherland Knowledge Project interview, as he called it his definition of success. As with any phrase or quote that captures my attention, I naturally look for the original source. Sutherland pointed towards Kauffman, and here we are with another book added to my must-read list. How can we believe ourselves to be well-read when there’s always another book to read?

      As someone who delights in well-spun words and phrases, I found Sutherland’s definition simply breathtaking. What is possible in our life? Not the life we’ve lived thus far, but looking ahead—what possibility are we inclined to expand? What are we willing to trade our life for, as we surely do, chasing our dreams and distractions the way we do?

      Tell me, what is it you plan to do
      with your one wild and precious life?
      — Mary Oliver, The Summer Day

      The year is almost to an end, and with it the closing of any possibility for this particular year in our lives. So many dwell on bucket lists or to-do lists. This focuses us on what we haven’t yet done, which leaves us feeling that there’s a void in our lives. I’ve recently taken a hint from Oliver Burkeman and started listing the things that I’ve done in a day or for the year as a way to expand my idea of possibilities achieved. Mindset is everything in life, and when we grow a list as we accomplish things we begin to realize that we’ve had a very successful time indeed.

      Naturally, there will always be more things to do and be. We may celebrate abundance of that we’ve achieved while delighting in executing on future plans. What is possible now, having done all this? We may grow and be, built on our expanding foundation of accomplishment.

      “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” — Anaïs Nin

      We may agree that life is expansive based on all that we’ve become and done so far in our lives. Were we courageous enough? Might we be more so in the future? Success lies in what we believe the answer to be. Chasing success is folly, akin to chasing happiness. Choosing to expand adjacent possibilities is a life of discovery and action, realized one expansive moment at a time. So as we move beyond the actual that is this day and indeed, this year rapidly drawing to a close—just what is possible next?

    • The Answers Awaiting Attention

      “When a problem is disturbing you, don’t ask, “What should I do about it?” Ask, “What part of me is being disturbed by this?”
      ― Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself

      If learning is a lifetime journey to understanding, we ought to make our quest more efficient by learning to ask better questions. Sure, there are no wrong questions, but there are questions that draw our focus down the wrong path. We won’t know we’re on the wrong path because we grow excited about finding the answer, not realizing until we’re far off the scent that we were barking up the wrong tree all along.

      That old trick to understanding deployed by young children—asking “Why?” until the adult in the room becomes exhausted, is perhaps the best tool that we have to knowing. And yet we put that tool back in the toolbox because we either don’t want to feel the rising frustration around us or we simply don’t want to know enough to continue chasing answers. Forever asking “Why?” may bludgeon out answers, but it isn’t as efficient as beginning with a better question.

      Knowing is arriving someplace, and it usually just leads to more questions about something encountered there. In this way, questions become infinite. Who has that kind of time to be so inquisitive? And yet we spend a lifetime barking up all sorts of wrong trees, instead of finding the scent again and proceeding accordingly. So many reach the end having missed the point all along.

      Learning to reframe the question is a good way to reset the mind. To question the very question is one way to reach a higher level of awareness. It’s not just asking, “Which tree should we bark up?”, but “Why are we barking in the first place?” A busy mind doesn’t ask enough questions, or is poised enough to ask the right questions. So what are we chasing anyway? There’s clarity in stillness, if we stop barking long enough to have a whiff of the truth. Awareness drifts, awaiting our attention.