Alexandersmap

    Category: Personal Growth

    • The Practice of Living More

      I’ve become known in some circles as an avid traveler, but don’t think of myself that way. That’s comparison at work, both theirs and mine, fogging the lens of perspective. Wiping it clear, it’s more that I’m an aspiring traveler immersed in a busy life. That’s not quite the same thing, but better for me at this point in my life. Travel is a choice, and so is building a strong sense of place and contribution. We can have a healthy measure of each applying a little balance and flexibility, but we can’t have it all. What will we choose, knowing this?

      “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. — Aristotle

      Aristotle may have also observed that mediocrity is also built on repeatedly doing. We each get our stack of days to work with. Some choices are taken from us, some choices are hidden from us, but most of us in the modern western world have the agency to do with the bulk of our time what we would. Habitualizing excellence seems a prudent use of that time.

      The trick in living a life closer to excellence is in the repeatedly doing part. Arete, or excellence in life, is something to aspire to through our daily action. We pay penance to the gods we serve through our habits and applied effort. Put another way, through our practice:

      “When an activity becomes a practice, it shifts from something that you are doing at a point in time to an ongoing process of becoming.” — Brad Stulberg, The Practice of Groundedness

      The practice of daily living is ongoing, but with an expiration date we either reconcile ourselves with or distract ourselves from. Stoicism is holding on to that realization that this all ends one day and making the most of the time. How we live matters a great deal when we feel the urgency of an expiration date. Continuous improvement and living with intent are a prudent use of that urgency. The practice of living more means working to realize the things we aspire to, while savoring the life we’ve already built for ourselves.

    • Each Page

      All of Time began when you first answered
      to the names your mother and father gave you.

      Soon, those names will travel with the leaves.
      Then, you can trade places with the wind.

      Then you’ll remember your life
      as a book of candles,
      each page read by the light of its own burning.
      — Li-Young Lee, Become Becoming

      Recently, I spoke about travel with people who aren’t traveling right now for the same reasons I once didn’t travel. Different chapter of life, as the saying aptly goes. Each page offers value and helps complete the story, but we don’t always see that when the story is incomplete.

      The thing is, the story is always incomplete to the very end. We live a novel life with the last page ripped out. There’s simply no knowing how this one turns out until we get there ourselves. Each page is ours to write, mostly ours anyway, edited by the troupe that presently surrounds us. Our task is to make it a hell of a story.

      Page-turners tend to be thrilling but lack substance. Weightier tomes sometimes feel plodding and a chore to get through but leave a mark long after we’ve tucked them up on the shelf. Somewhere in between is a life’s work that is meaningfully appealing and often reflected upon.

      Ultimately there will be other chapters. Aware of this, we might choose to weave magic and depth into this one. When we arrive later in our story, the pieces may finally all come together. It’s then that we’ll remember the true meaning of each page.

    • The Grand Accumulation

      “The value of things is not in the duration, but in the intensity in which they occur. This is why there are unforgettable moments, inexplicable things and incomparable people. ” — Fernando Pessoa

      Experiences matter a great deal in moving us. For this reason seeking diverse and rich experiences in our lives moves us a great deal farther along the path to becoming than limited experiences do, but it all counts. We are what we repeatedly do (and I repeatedly use Aristotle’s quote in this blog as a reminder to myself), so we ought to do things that move us in the direction we aspire to go.

      The question of value is appropriate to ask ourselves. Just why do we value certain things more than others? Is a dinner at a Michelin-level fancy restaurant a greater experience than eating an apple on the summit of a mountain you’ve struggled to reach? One can make a case for the apple without diminishing the value of the restaurant experience. Each resonates in their own way. Each may be savored. Each counts towards completing our picture.

      Experiences may pull us up or drag us down, so we must be diligently aware of the collection of experiences that, stacked together, make up our lives. With value as a lens, we may be selective in the experiences we seek, the things we collect and the people we associate with. If this sounds rather elitist, it’s just the opposite. We can be inclusive and open in our engagement with the world, while prioritizing the moments that resonate most deeply for us.

      When we think back on the days gone by, what moments shine particularly brightly? Usually it’s something surprisingly ordinary, amplified by something unique, like a chance encounter with an old friend, a beautiful vista earned with a hike or early rise, an unusual bird at the feeder, a line from a poem that floored us, a new song that we’ll forever associate with the moment we heard it. These are highlight moments amongst the ordinary prose of life.

      Still, we can make a case for ordinary too. The ordinary is the foundation from which the extraordinary rises. With each extraordinary moment, layered ever higher one upon the next, our foundation also rises. This grand accumulation of moments, things and the people we surround ourselves with may just lead to an unforgettable life. Perhaps even we ourselves will reach incomparable. Too bold? Add another layer. It won’t be such a reach.

    • Eternal Sunrise

      Having been married awhile, my bride and I know each other’s tendencies. She rolls her eyes at me when she sees me watching YouTube videos of faraway places. I’ve got a regular playlist of places I’d like to go that I visit regularly, and virtually tag along with friends as they sail around the world. She anticipates my travel proposals well before I open my mouth. In turn, I roll my eyes when I hear her turn on home improvement shows, and feel like I live in one for all the projects her viewing inspires.

      There’s an undercurrent of restlessness that flows through many of us, wanted more in our time, whatever that “more” happens to be. In the best of times it’s positive and productive. Perhaps improvement on our lot in life or progress towards a personal goal. In the worst of times it might inspire jealousy and betrayal. Look around at the world, it’s easy to see examples of both.

      The question of how we’re perceived, or how we perceive ourselves, begs to be answered. The world is very good at showing us what’s possible with the right mix of resourcefulness and boldness. For all the cries for instant gratification in media, in reality most of us simply chip away at things until we get there. We can become some version of who we choose to be over time, but we must apply patient action.

      “The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd – The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.” — Fernando Pessoa

      At what point is enough enough? When are we satiated and content with our share, pushing our proverbial plate away? This seems to be the moment where we embrace bliss. Change will always happen, we just learn to focus on what we can control and find happiness there. The rest is just an entertainment of ideas.

      For us, the nest is always being improved upon, even as we try to fly away from it. Sometimes we go, but we always return. Both the nest and the residents of it change over time. This is our eternal sunrise, as we are forever becoming something new, embracing change as it rises before us.

    • Be Whole

      To be great, be whole;
      Exclude nothing, exaggerate nothing that is not you.
      Be whole in everything. Put all you are
      Into the smallest thing you do.
      So, in each lake, the moon shines with splendor
      Because it blooms up above.
      — Fernando Pessoa, Poems of Fernando Pessoa

      An early morning. Out the door long before the dawn brought me deep into the heart of New York City commuter traffic. I still tell myself that this is the price of greatness, something I’ve told my children more than they want to hear, something I don’t always want to hear myself. Yet it still applies, and should for a lifetime. For don’t we owe it to ourselves to put all we are into everything we do?

      The price of greatness is consistently showing up and doing the things we know deep down that we must do. We might never reach greatness even paying the price, but we’ll surely get closer than we might otherwise. Mostly, we honor a commitment to ourselves to at least reach for it. Without this honor, we aren’t quite whole are we? We’re incomplete because we left something of ourselves out of our work. We owe ourselves something more. To be whole.

    • Simply Do

      “I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous, or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular, but because it never forgot what it could do.” — Naomi Shihab Nye (with a nod to @MayaCPopa for showing the way)

      Fame is overrated, contribution is where it’s at. We are utilitarian at the root of it, here to be productive in our time, whatever our calling, lighting the way until we pass the torch.

      We tend to lean into complicated. This is a distraction from the beautiful truth, a collective turn away from the briefness of being, a wish before the song fades and we blow out the candles. It’s contribution that lives beyond wishes.

      Poetry stares the truth in the eye, wanting nothing more than to face it. I wished somedays I was a better poet, a better writer. I’d forgotten what I could do. Now I simply do.

    • The Shape of Our Circles

      “We are mirrors reflecting one another. The people with whom we surround ourselves shape us, and we shape those around us, too.” — Brad Stulberg, The Practice of Groundedness

      I had a conversation with two strong players in my circle of influence who both disliked The Banshees of Inisherin, a movie I absolutely loved. The movie shows the desperation of breaking free of circles when you feel trapped in a place. The four main characters each deal with this in their own way, but ultimately the circle is broken. How you react to the character’s choices generally informs what you think of the movie, but it isn’t about their choices, it’s about the desperate friction of a limited circle.

      We don’t live in a movie, but they capture our imagination because they often mirror moments in our own lives. Our circle can be a trap that surrounds us or a blessing that informs us. It’s often both, and when we break out of it we can reshape ourselves. People come and go from our lives, and the circle around us fluctuates with the stages of our lives. We ourselves have the agency to choose our dance partners in this lifetime. We’ve each felt the sting that each character in the movie feels.

      We’re collectors of people, each of us, gathering relationships and nurturing them over time. We aren’t meant to go it alone for the long haul. Solitude is a blessing best savored in doses. And we are the average of the five people who we associated with the most. This in itself is a blessing or a curse, offering guidance with whom we ought to spend our days with. Our closest relationships help inform us of who we really are, and also reveal where we’re going.

      Sometimes we find that the circle doesn’t suit as anymore, and sometimes we find that the people in our circle feel more alive in a different one. Over time we reconcile our place in a series of circles. We’re either running around in circles, circling the wagons or spinning off to another place. That’s life, dizzying as it might seem. But we must always remember we have a hand in shaping our circle even as it shapes us.

    • The Rest of Your Life

      This is the beginning of the rest of your life
      You better start movin’ like you’re running out of time
      The realization coming over your mind
      That it should be a canter
      If you could just find the answer
      You know it could be a canter
      If you were just a wee bit less of a wanker
      More than half ae’ the time
      — Gerry Cinnamon, Cantor

      An old friend pointed me towards Gerry Cinnamon recently. Thick Scottish brogue filled with energy and clever lyrics. That friend has navigated the darkest of tragedies in his life, and I listen when he points me towards the music and writers he’s using to process his life going forward. Most of us are lucky to have easier hurdles than he’s had, but we still have hurdles. We all must find a way forward from whatever lingers.

      The first thing that old friend asked me about was how the writing was going. Not the blog writing, mind you, but that other writing. Not as well, I told him. Wrestling with fiction hadn’t felt right. Maybe non-fiction would be best. Just write and let it sort itself out. And so I am.

      What possible advice can you give a friend who has navigated grief you shudder to contemplate? Nothing unsolicited. Instead, we talked of finding beauty in a dark world, which prompted the Cheryl Strayed quote, which seemed like just enough in the moment:

      There’s always a sunrise and always a sunset and it’s up to you to choose to be there for it,’ said my mother. ‘Put yourself in the way of beauty.
      — Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found

      Life is short. We’ve wasted enough time already, and we must be deliberate and emphatic in how we spend our days. Whatever we wrestle with, demons and darkness or a tendency to idle through our time, we must break free of our inertia and get moving. It should be a cantor. But remember to find the beautiful on the journey.

    • Deliberate Reflection

      “Productive activity has nothing to do with being swept away by the inertia of busyness. It is not about quantity, either. Rather, it is a deliberate choice of where and how to direct one’s attention.” — Brad Stulberg, The Practice of Groundedness

      We seek solitude, when possible, in the quiet places. Places of stoic beauty with elbow room necessary to reflect. Places of quiet walks and the indifference of cold. For me these places are off-season beaches and lonely trails that lead me deep into the woods, or most days simply the magic hour before the rest of the world awakens.

      Some believe solitude is the very opposite of a productive place, thinking collaborative effort and the energy of the pack fuels production. But we humans aren’t cogs in a factory, at least we aren’t meant to be. We can be so much more than that if we choose to find it within ourselves. There is no reflection in a turbulent sea.

      Sometimes, even in quiet places, perhaps especially so, we come across characters who are starved for attention. They’ll steal sand from our hourglass if we let them, and take us away from ourselves. These sand gobblers disguise themselves brilliantly in the faces we trust the most. There’s nothing wrong with sharing our sand with others, but we must guard against the gluttonous lest they take it all.

      We must be deliberate in where we use our time, and mindful of just who is the director of our attention. The world will always ask for everything. What we give to it is up to us. We earn our director position in every moment. Deliberate reflection is not an act of selfishness, it’s preservation of the self.

    • What to Do With Our Time

      you will never catch up.
      Walk around feeling like a leaf
      know you could tumble at any second.
      Then decide what to do with your time.
      ― Naomi Shihab Nye, The Art of Disappearing

      I’ve fallen in love with the bullet journal again. It’s not so much because of a love of organization, it’s more a need for organization that draws me deep into the pages of a blank notebook. Each X drawn through a bullet is uniquely satisfying, each habit represented as a filled in square that designates a day when I did what I told myself I was going to do fuels a desire to keep the streak alive one more day. As lines grow on paper day-after-day like a sideways bar graph, lies we tell ourselves become as apparent as the promises kept. How we reconcile each line tells us who we really are.

      If there’s one fatal flaw in the life of a busy soul, it’s following through on all that we want for ourselves. There’s only so many things we can say yes to, and endless things we must dismiss with a no. The yes’s seem so trivial stacked next to the no’s, but we forget that the collection of no’s is ours too. No’s matter a great deal in keeping us from tumbling. We aren’t leaves in the wind, to borrow Nye’s lovely analogy, we’re purposeful humans finding our way in the world.

      We must decide what we won’t be good at in this lifetime. We must see the path through the wilderness that carries us to a place where we might thrive. Breaking up is hard to do because we don’t want to let others down, but when we don’t break from things that don’t matter to us we’re letting ourselves down. Just who are we breaking up with? We must choose identity over misguided altruism. The world will ask for everything we’ve got. The best response in such moments is “Thank you, but that’s not for me”.

      Decide what to be and go be it. No isn’t fun, but it’s not ours to hold onto. The trade-off, becoming, is where the real fun is, for this is where we set our sights on big yes’s and watch them grow.