Alexandersmap

    Category: Personal Growth

    • Be Yourself

      “What is the point of being on this Earth if you are going to be like everyone else?” — Arnold Schwarzenegger

      We’re all unique, yet so much of our time is dedicated to fitting in with the pack. We instinctively know the pack helps us survive, but we often chafe at the limitations of it. This is the ongoing dilemma of humanity: to be yourself or to be a part of things. As with everything, balance is the key.

      Still the call of the wild persists. We can be so much more than the average (and who wants to be average?) if we just push the boundaries a bit more. To test not just our limits, but the limits of the social construct we’ve immersed ourselves in. Yet we can never ignore the power of family and friends to pull us back in, for the better or worse, depending on the box we reside in. To believe that it doesn’t influence how far we go is delusional. The trick is to find creative ways to step out of that box. When that doesn’t work, immersing ourselves in a new social construct offers the freedom we require.

      My daughter has a friend who moved from another country to go to college in the United States. While attending college, that person decided to transition from a he to a she. In their home country they’d be murdered for such audacity as being gay, let alone transitioning. In this new social construct, she’s building a life for herself in the relative safety of California. If I got any pronouns wrong there, forgive me, for I came from a social construct that is still trying to sort it all out in our own heads. That’s not a form of resistance, that’s simply trying to learn the new game. Akin to an American watching a cricket game and trying to figure it all out.

      The point is, just be yourself, whatever that is for you. Most of us will catch up eventually. The world doesn’t turn on a dime, after all. There’s a lot of momentum forcing us to stay in line. People get spun up easily over change, and the fervor from the familiar voices (family, friends, church and state) can be compelling for people who otherwise might be more open to acceptance. Most people just want to believe the same stories they were brought up with are true. To hear otherwise is to challenge the core of who we are. Knowing this, we ought to tread lightly on their identities. Change can be hard for everyone.

      Just as we work to change ourselves incrementally with good habits, systems and routines, so it is with the world we live in. Steady progress wins in the end. We become what we consistently work towards becoming. Go be yourself. I’ll do the same. Let’s meet somewhere in the middle.

    • Experiencing More “Ought to Do’s”

      Lately, my personal quest to stack memories seems to be paying off. Scheduled experiences this year have been notable and surely memorable, but so too have the family cookouts, early morning plunges into the pool and evenings throwing axes or on a lake with friends. These are things we ought to do more often, we tell ourselves, and then we never seem to do them very often at all. Best to put it on the calendar. Or forget the calendar altogether and just do it now.

      Our perspective on what ought to be done changes over time. Some people rise up to become far more important investments in our time than others. Likewise, some activities do the same. Lately I’ve had everything from pickle ball to scuba diving dangled in front of me as things we ought to do. It all sounds fun. Find me the time. Take, for example, hiking. I’m still trying to get in more hiking time. I’m not like some other friends that prioritize it every weekend, with a nod to them for making it so. No, I’m an acknowledged casual hiker chipping away at a list of peaks I’d like to hike in the near future. When it isn’t scheduled, it simply gets pushed down the stack.

      And what of that stack? Life is full of trade-offs, and each yes is a no to something else. In the end there will be far more “no’s” than “yes’s”, so we must choose wisely. Living an active and meaningful life is taking those most important “ought to do’s” and prioritizing them immediately. Sometimes urgency matters a great deal more than at other times, when we play the long game. Some experiences simply won’t be around next time; we may never pass this way again. They say that everything has its time. At least until we’re out of it.

      There are two lenses with which to determine what to choose: Our fitness and how meaningful the experience is. Regarding fitness: will we be able to do this in five or ten or twenty years, or is this one of those things we ought to do now? If you want to run a marathon or hike the Appalachian Trail, you’re better off doing it sooner than later. But there also has to be meaning to what we do. We aren’t nihilists, we’ve got a soul that speaks to us in the quiet moments, looking for something more than a good time.

      Contemplation and reflection have a place in our lives, which is why writing is another “ought to do” that I’ve managed to do every day for almost five years now. Clicking publish and sending these blog posts out into the wild, where everyone or nobody will read them, is important for me. The goal has never been to become a wildly successful blogger (thank goodness), but to become a better writer. If there’s an obvious side benefit, I get to communicate regularly with people invested in what I might have to say. Thanks for that. It also prompts me to seek out more experiences, that the writing isn’t just a repository of philosophy notes and collected poetry.

      There are a lifetime of experiences waiting for us, should we find the time to have them. Is it audacious to expect more than we’ve currently got? Clearly—but who else is going to advocate for such experiences? We must each determine who we want to be and set out to go be it. Adding more “ought to do’s” to our days is a lifetime mission. This isn’t bucket list fare, it’s setting out every day to raise the bar on what we experience. Accumulated, this makes for a more exceptional life than we might have otherwise.

    • The Greatest Ghost

      “In the end, we are haunted by the examples of the past, the denied permission to live a free journey. We are haunted by the partial examples of those in our purview, taking their pusillanimity or oppression as predictive of our own. We are haunted by the social constructs that tell us what a woman is and what she can or cannot do, and what a man is and how he will be shamed by living beyond these calculated constrictions. We are haunted by bad theology, bad psychology, and bad social models into thinking we are defined by our history, by our race, or by cultural heritage. We are haunted by the unexamined lives of our ancestors and caregivers. We are haunted by the widespread impression that history is the future. We are haunted by the limited imagination of our complexes. And even more, we are haunted by the small lives we live in the face of our immense possibilities. Haunting is individual, generic, cultural, and extremely hard to challenge because it so often seems bound by generations of practice, ancestral fears, and archaic defenses of privilege.
      The biggest haunting of all, the biggest shadow that occludes our sense of sovereignty in the outer world, is the specter of our unlived life. Something within each of us suffers, longs, despairs, persists, and even goes underground to reemerge as fantasy, as projections onto surrogate objects of desire, or as anesthetizing self-soothing. When the soul is not honored, when our possibility is denied by an outer oppressor, a social proscription, or worse, our own pusillanimity, our pathology intensifies. We are bombarded with pharmaceutical anodynes, cultural distractions, and rationalizations and evasions that facilitate these deflections from the summons to personhood. In the context of such hauntings, the greatest ghost for us is the apparition of what was possible but that we shunned. Such moments are not very pretty and may have to haunt us even more to get our actionable accountability. If we live in haunted houses, we are called to turn the lights on and clean house.”
      — James Hollis, Living an Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey

      I suppose Hollis’ words might be broken down to this: We mustn’t live our lives encumbered by the embedded beliefs that have held us back thus far. We must break away from that prison and go live boldly. To do otherwise is to succumb to our limitations. The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, as Thoreau put it.

      These are lessons that come to us in time. We see the ghosts for what they are and work to open our minds that they might drift away. Are we the best of what we might have been? Probably not, but we can point to the highlights proudly and remind the ghosts that we’ve lived a good life nonetheless. We each know where we might have done more. That doesn’t make what we’ve done worthless, but it ought to be a foundation more than a prison cell. Who we become next is largely based on what we do with the days left for us.

      The trick to chasing the ghosts away is boldness. Our ghosts don’t want to follow us into scary places. Just as a bully often caves in when confronted, so too do our self-limiting beliefs. We are capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit for. A bit of audacity is good for the soul, and sets it free to go be. Audacity is the antithesis of pusillanimity (I don’t even like writing pusillanimity, let alone being it). Like the character George in Seinfeld, doing the opposite opens up all kinds of possibilities for us.

      We are what we repeatedly do, this we know to be true. So it’s fair to ask ourselves, what voice directs what we’re repeatedly doing? Is it a ghost or the song of freedom from who we used to be? Is it time for a new dance track? Stop shunning possibility. Dance with audacity, it may just turn the ghosts on their heads.

    • A Sentient Being

      “There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate—the genetic and neural fate—of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death. I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.” ― Oliver Sacks, Gratitude

      Thinking about the progress I’ve made in some areas, I’m pleased with the progression but still frustrated with the gap between who I am and who I want to be. This is a natural state, and leads to either positive change through action or the despair of the powerless. I don’t dabble much in despair, but we’ve all been down the well now and then in the course of a lifetime. Climbing back out is easier for some of us than others. We simply accumulate enough evidence of the light to dwell in the darkness for long.

      I work to treat every living creature with the respect due a fellow traveller in this place and time. My work is on myself and making my contribution bigger than it’s been to this point. If we each aspired for greater contribution and a deeper engagement with the world, it follows that the world would be a far more exhilarating place to be. For now, we’ve identified gaps that must be filled. It’s a good thing we’re here to do the work. Awareness and the boldness to take initiative are the beginning of all great progress.

      I’m simply a sentient being working to understand the place I fill in this world, and the gap that would otherwise exist were I not a part of it. Developing an awareness of what our unique value is, and creating more of that value for more people, is one way to mark an extraordinary life. The gap between a really great life and extraordinary is what I’ll spend the balance of my life trying to fill. Measured as contribution and value, it feels a worthy use of my remaining time. How about you? Where will you spend yours?

    • Rounding the Mark on 2023

      The forest is dead quiet in the early morning hours when you walk out into it. At least until the creatures assess you and, seeing no imminent threat, go back about their business. It’s akin to going to a cocktail party and either working the room as the life of the party or receding back a bit and seeing what’s actually happening in the room. You might believe you’re the life of the party in the one case, but you won’t know what’s actually going on around you. It pays to shut up and read the room now and then.

      Sitting quietly in my trusty Adirondack chair, the woods soon erupted into chatter, as various couples expressed distain or encouraged more urgent attention to the nest. A young squirrel chewed through maple branches and hauled them back to the nest, where another squirrel seemed to be dissatisfied with the progress. Nearby, a house wren destroyed the silence with loud chattering birdsong. It’s always the smallest birds that make the most noise. Some might say the same about people. Two ears, one mouth is the ratio I taught my children. Sometimes I even take my own advice.

      There have been precious few mornings like this, just sitting outside listening to the world wake up around me. We’ve arrived at the month of July, and in New Hampshire it doesn’t really feel that’s possible. Blame it on the rain, relentlessly taking control of the month of June in the region. We’d all like to gift the precipitation to places that desperately need it now. Canada, on your big day, please have as much as you’d like. Feast or famine: that’s the climate now. The lawns thrive, the tomatoes and basil are horrified.

      I use that Adirondack chair for more than just listening to wildlife. It’s the place to listen to what’s happening between the ears as well. Assessing where we are, what we’ve done, what was left undone. Sometimes you have to sit still long enough to recognize it wasn’t ever about listening to the squirrels and house wrens or the weather. Assessing moments with people, places seen for the first time or the thousandth time, projects completed, projects put aside for another day. Where did it all get me? How about you?

      We’ve rounded the mark on the year: six months down, six to go. When we look back on the first half of the year, now ended, how do we feel about it? Do we like the view? A good life is represented by stacking our days with memories and small wins, all measured as progress. Sometimes we aren’t progressing at all, but receding and trying to hold it all together as best we can. Sometimes everything slips away and we feel we’re left with nothing. That’s life too. We all know how this ends, but it doesn’t mean we have to let today slip away without a small win. Maybe tomorrow too. String enough wins together and half a year later maybe we actually have something to celebrate. I hope so. But either way, there’s this other half of the year to reckon with, beginning today.

    • Becoming Rich With Memories

      “The business of life is the acquisition of memories. In the end that’s all there is.” — Mr. Carson of Downton Abbey

      “You retire on your memories. When you’re too frail to do much of anything else, you can still look back on the life you’ve lived and experience immense pride, joy, and the bittersweet feeling of nostalgia…. Making deliberate choices about how to spend your money and your time is the essence of making the most of your life energy.” — Bill Perkins, Die With Zero

      We all talk of how the time flies by, but perhaps we ought to focus on how many great memories we accumulate in that span. If we’re living well, experiences are acquired and flipped into memories with the turn of the calendar. We may not become financially wealthy, but surely we might accumulate a lifetime of memories worthy of our time. As the quote above points out, in the end, isn’t that all there is?

      What are memories but the realization of deliberate action? As much as I love a good spreadsheet, I know deep down that working in them isn’t creating memories that will last a week, let alone a lifetime. But I may just remember the conversation I have with someone important in my world a lot longer. I may recall the thrill of peering over a cliff at an angry ocean in Portugal and smile someday when I’m too old for such things. I expect I’ll still smile at the recollection of my kids realizing the amusement park ride they insisted on going on was going to be a lot scarier than they’d bargained on when they begged to go on it. This is the accumulated wealth of memories.

      Perkins’ book challenges us to stop accumulating savings and start spending our money while we’re healthy and fit enough to actually do the things we promise ourselves we’ll eventually do, someday, when we retire. As if we can do at 65 what we might do at 25 or 35. Do it now. There is no tomorrow, and if there is, we won’t be able to pull off some of the things we believe our bodies and minds will be capable of someday when.

      I’ve watched too many people in my life hear the news that they won’t make it to retirement. Cancer seems to be the most common thief of dreams, but maybe an accident or a heart attack steals everything you’ve ever planned for “someday when” away from you. Your life is now: accumulate the memories that will make you richer then. It’s the best return on investment we can have with today.

    • The Less Lazy Way

      “Men are inclined to laziness. Some will feel that he might have said with greater justice: they are all timorous. They hide behind customs and opinions. At bottom, every human being knows very well that he is in this world just once, as something unique, and that no accident, however strange, will throw together a second time into a unity such a curious and diffuse plurality: he knows it, but hides it like a bad conscience.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power

      To borrow the Kenny Loggins phrase: This is it. Make no mistake where you are. You’re going no further. We know this intuitively, yet we still wrap ourselves in lazy routines and escapism. We’ve got nothing more than now to work with, yet we treat our days as frivolously as disposable napkins. ’tis now or never friend. Break the lazy—be bolder.

      Easier said than done. We all have our bank of bad habits. I know I ought to work out more and put in more time with the things I’m leaning into becoming. But life gets busy, people we care about need our attention, work demands are never quite satiated. The fact of the matter is, after a long day of filling other people’s buckets our own feels pretty empty. Good enough seems okay in such moments. This is where we must break free of ourselves.

      “How does one become stronger? By deciding slowly; and by holding firmly to the decision once it is made. Everything else follows of itself.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power

      Decide what to be and go be it. And then establish habits that affirm the identity we wish to have in this brief lifetime. Simple, right? We know better. Creating the person we wish to become is never simple, but it is possible. This is the less lazy way, and everything else follows.

    • Being Frugal With Sand

      When the goal is to seize the day—Carpe diem— then being busy is the natural state. To do everything we wish to do in a lifetime requires our full attention. But the thing about attention is it is quickly stolen away by all of life’s distractions. Focus is thus essential to prioritizing the most important things. We know when we’re being pulled away from the meaningful and important, and when we’re deeply immersed in it. What we lean into makes all the difference in how we feel about those grains of sand moving through the hourglass.

      There’s no doubt that one kind of “being busy” can be viewed as a distraction from other things we ought to be tackling. But there’s also a kind of “being busy” that is living an active, meaningful life. One key indicator is the phrase itself: When we say we’re very busy, it’s usually the distracted kind of busy. When we’re deeply engaged in meaningful activity, we don’t think of ourselves as being busy so much as making the most of our time.

      Taking stock of the year as we close in on the halfway point, we might be amazed by all we’ve done with the time. I hope so, for isn’t that the point? To augment our days with joyful activity at the expense of all of the trivial pursuits that the universe throws at us has always been our underlying mission.

      It’s one thing to be aware, it’s another to be absorbed by the trivial. How many grains of sand would we trade for things that don’t matter in the end? We must be frugal, even as we must be active. Our lives depend on it.

    • All is Well

      “I conclude that all is well,” says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile sufferings. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.
      All Sisyphus’ silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols… Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. — Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

      Fidelity has two meanings, of course, but in the case of Sisyphus, it’s verism—we humans must embrace the entirety of life, not just the beautiful but warts and all. That means the drudgery, the pain, the elation and the wonder. As with Sisyphus, this is our curse, but also our purpose. We’re here to do what we can with the circumstances life delivers to us. Amor fati.

      There are a lot of people who would rather dabble in distraction and conspiracy theories, rather than face the rock and push. The realist finds clarity in verity and derives purpose in the push. Some days grind us to dust. Some days fill us with joy. Each is a gift we may not fully realize. Sometimes the gift is surviving to fight another day. So it is. We have but to react to it in the moment and find that bit of hope that keeps us going to we push again. All is well, friends.

    • The Story Continues

      “Nothing in my past life fills me with the vain desire to repeat it. I have never been anything more than a mere vestige, a simulacrum of myself. My past is everything I never managed to become. Not even the feelings associated with past moments make me nostalgic; what one feels is of the moment; once that is past the page turns and the story continues, but not the text.” — Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

      I confess that reading Pessoa is a struggle for me. I am a different person than he was, trying to engage with the world and not just be a witness to it. Still, I press on with his book, off and on, working to finish it one of these days. James Joyce said that life is too short to read a bad book, and I generally subscribe to that theory. The thing is, I don’t believe that The Book of Disquiet is a bad book, it’s just not a book that resonates with me at this moment. Yet here I am, quoting it anyway, precisely because some of what he writes does indeed resonate with me. Perhaps that’s enough in the end.

      If you could, would you repeat a chapter of your life? When you think back on who you were at the time, would you do it again? In a life well-lived I should think you’d consider it for a beat or two. I might go back to a time of peak fitness and all the time in the world. But what is the trade-off? Would you do it all again the same way, or would you stray off the path into something different? It’s easy to remember the best of ourselves, but what of the worst?

      Give me today, thank you. Give me the next chapter of this story, not the earlier chapters that merely set the stage for who I’ve become. There’s nothing to the past but faded memories and the things that got away from us. We can only do something meaningful with today, building on the momentum that brought us here. Life is a progression, not a regression. Our best days may yet be ahead of us.