Alexandersmap

    Category: Personal Growth

    • The Magic in Emergent Knowledge

      “Call it what you want. Call it belief, faith… stepping out and making a commitment without necessarily knowing what the outcome is going to be. But really leaning into it in good faith. And then you’re along for this beautiful journey of emergent possibilities and learning things and deepening your knowledge of another person and being known in a deeper way than you’ve ever been known before… The fruits and the benefits have been totally different than I thought they would have been before I did it, and I only know them because I did it. So there’s emergent knowledge… that relied on a decision. How often is that the case, where we have to make one decision in order to learn the next thing, or even the benefits of that thing?” — Luke Burgis: The Power of Mimetic Desire [The Knowledge Project Ep. #138]

      This journey of transformation that we’re all on begins with a decision. We choose our path in subtle and profound ways that we don’t fully realize when we decide. Burgis’s description of a beautiful journey of emergent possibilities is a lovely way of phrasing what happens when we finally decide what to be and begin to be it.

      A decision is the cornerstone of the bridge we build to our future in an instant of resolve. That bridge crosses a gap in our knowledge that we aren’t fully aware of in the moment. Isn’t there magic in a decision, and doesn’t that set the table for all the subsequent enlightening moments that follow?

      We gain immeasurably through our decisions—the good ones and the bad. Good decisions reveal themselves in marvelous moments of discovery. Bad decisions aren’t usually so bad that we can’t pivot towards something better. Knowing this, why do we let ourselves be paralyzed about making a decision? There’s something to be said for visualizing the worst case scenario, for it places us in a position to embolden ourselves when we recognize that the worst ain’t all that bad.

      We all ought to unfold the emergent knowledge that comes with acting on bold choices. We all ought to opt for more. For the magic lies between here and there.

    • Our Lifetime Knowledge Quest

      “Knowledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven.” — Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle

      Thoreau’s Life Without Principle is a quick read, but well worth the hour or so it takes to digest it. As with anything in life, the question is, what do we want to prioritize in our brief time? The essay is itself a flash of light that opens the mind to a lot of questions we often push aside. Isn’t that what reading should do for us? Isn’t that what we aspire to in our very best writing?

      “I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day’s devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.…
      Shall the mind be a public arena, where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table chiefly are discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself- an hypaethral temple, consecrated to the service of the gods?
      … We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are, and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention.” — Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle

      Thoreau wrote this for a lecture he gave in 1855, but doesn’t it remain timeless? Why do we dwell on the gossip of our own day and defer the very best ideas for another? Most media is junk food for the mind. We snack way too much on empty calories in our information diet, leaving our souls starving for nutrition.

      We must make knowledge our quest in our short time. If the best way to learn something is to teach it, it follows that we must tackle the deepest ideas in our own writing and conversations too. To participate in the Great Conversation and aspire to enlighten others as we become enlightened ourselves.

      We become what we focus on the most. So it follows, we ought to continue to raise the bar on our own development. To realize a full and rich life, we ought to make our lives a knowledge quest. Each day offers its own wealth to mine. And an opportunity to be a philanthropist with that knowledge.

    • The Ritual Rewards

      “Men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up.” — Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle

      I’d recently fallen back into a cycle of drinking coffee from a K-cup. There was a lot happening in my life, and it was a fast way to caffeinate. But what I missed in the instant was the ritual of grinding my coffee beans, boiling water and sending bliss through an AeroPress into a favorite mug. Sure, the coffee tastes far better, but the ritual itself also rewards with moments of contemplation. The mind is free to consider what it will, free for a few minutes from the instant gratification of our modern world.

      When we unconsciously work our way through a ritual, the world opens up for us, or maybe it falls away altogether. A space is created in the cadence of the familiar, and in that gap we find our true voice. Think of it as a quiet conversation between friends, but the friends reside between the same set of ears. It’s as essential in our days as brushing our teeth or building something of substance with the tools available to us at this moment in our development.

      Ritual places us on auto-pilot, offering clearly-defined stepping stones in our day that carry us to a place we very much want to arrive at. We’ve all seen what happens to the days that lack ritual: they slip away into lost opportunity. Indeed, we may wonder either way; “Where did the day go?”, but with ritual we’ve at least tackled a few of the things we most needed to to make that day a success.

      At the end of the day, isn’t it fair to ask if our time was productive? And where is our most essential work but on ourselves? Ritual gives us a leg to stand on. We lift ourselves up from the our previous state and get on with the business of becoming. We’re rewarded for the rituals we fold into our lives with the delight in becoming who we’ve wanted to be. And also in those moments of profound richness the ritual itself offers.

    • For a Little Bit More

      “You’re not lazy, you’re in the wrong job. Do what moves your soul.” — @master_nobody

      This tweet is admittedly a bit fluffy, but it poked at me all day after stumbling upon it in my feed. I suppose it’s because there are times when I scold myself for being lazy. For not doing the work necessary to make more progress in my profession or with my overall fitness. We all get like that sometimes, don’t we? Self-critical about our productivity. Maybe our labor is misdirected?

      There are plenty of times when I’ll forget I’m working at all. I’ll find myself moving six yards of loam after work and pushing past a point of exhaustion to get it done before nightfall so the coming rain doesn’t turn it into a mud pile. Or being teased about not ever relaxing on weekends or vacation, instead constantly working on the garden or doing an errand instead of sitting still with a book or a beer. Or methodically writing and re-writing a sentence in a blog post that may or may not resonate with anyone but me. These actions are not lazy, they’re stored up energy attracted to heat. There’s nothing hotter than clear purpose.

      Why do we waste the vitality we’re blessed with on anything but the pursuit of our individual greatness? It takes a few turns through the grinder of absolutely-wrong jobs to see the tragedy of misapplied energy. We do what we must to keep food on the table, but we ought to always be moving towards blissful work. Work that makes us laugh at the thought of ever retiring.

      Sure, we may just be able to relax someday, but I don’t know if that nagging feeling that we could have done more would ever disappear. Doesn’t it make sense to make a go of it with this, our one precious life? To do things that inspire and excite us, and make us want for a little bit more at the end of a long day. When we move to purpose laziness disappears.

    • The Edge

      “Development is all about growth. Your body starts to grow when, when your body says, ‘No more.’ That’s when things start to happen. Teams become great. Players become great when you get to The Edge.”
      “The Edge is where average stops and elite begins.” — Urban Meyer

      Sure, there’s a bit of football locker room bravado in this quote, but Meyer is right on point. Our growth happens when we push beyond our limits—beyond the edge of our comfort zone. This certain applies in fitness, but equally well in our creative life. We either push beyond the limit or we languish in mediocrity. That may seem harsh, or maybe obvious, depending on how we accept our current position near the edge.

      Think about it: the accepted method for quickly mastering a language is immersion. You plunge well beyond your comfort zone into a place where you have to figure things out or you’ll fail. Isn’t that pushing beyond an edge?

      We place ourselves into positions where comfort rules growth. How can we expect growth in these moments? We create participation trophies and expect everyone to celebrate just the same, and wonder why we aren’t seeing more people break through the average. Don’t get me wrong, everyone matters, but without differentiation and rewarding the individual pursuit of excellence what becomes of us?

      This writing every day thing has been informative, often challenging, perhaps mundane and repetitive for the reader (sorry) and often eclectic (not sorry), but it’s been a steady push to find the edge. Blogging is an investment in thyself, shared with the world. But there’s an edge that hasn’t been pushed through yet, waiting for the skill and gumption of the writer to catch up.

      We can’t be elite in our craft until we break through our boundaries. We can either accept average or find more in ourself. Life rewards those who break through that damned edge.

    • Horizons

      An old trick, this habit of scanning the horizon in search of a challenging quadrant and wondering: Is this my destiny? A childish trick, for we know if we go far enough we’re bound to return full circle—to the point of departure.. What is it about that horizon? What lies on the other side? Not just ships and land and more of the same old ocean—but what is the magic that calls…and who am I fooling really? — Sterling Hayden, Wanderer

      We each look to the horizon, wondering at our destiny. Some look and feel it too far a journey, and maybe it is. Maybe we aren’t meant to endlessly follow the horizon. Then again, maybe we gaze out at such a distance as a way to stop us from ever going in the first place.

      “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” — Lao Tzu

      Focus too much on the horizon and you’ll surely stumble. Focus too much on the step in front of you and you’ll find yourself going in circles. The answer, of course, is to keep one eye towards the horizon with the other on this next step.

      As Hayden points out, the funny thing about chasing horizons is that you’ll eventually end up going full circle back to where you began. What he doesn’t say is that you’ll be a different person upon your return. Surely you’ll look at where you started in a whole new light.

      We chase all sorts of horizons through travel and writing and learning new things. A quest doesn’t always mean setting sail, but the analogy holds true nonetheless. For when we chase horizons we’re embarking on a journey of transformation. We all ought to chase horizons, for deep down, we know we can’t stay where we’ve been. Not when there’s so much out there for us.

    • Facing Reality

      “Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.” – Søren Kierkegaard

      There’s no doubt that, for most of us, reality is a handy place to anchor. We all must face the reality of living in a world that doesn’t go out of its way to cater to us. And yet, we all know people who anchor themselves to delusional stories instead of reality.

      We ought to fully experience all that life has to offer, but we all see things we’d rather not include in our lives. Mass shootings (welcome to America!), war, racism, toxic television… who wants any of that crap to be part of our reality? Still, we must face it just the same if we’re ever going to transcend it.

      We have a hand in the reality we live in. We don’t have to accept all that we experience, but we must acknowledge it and choose how we react. Life has its problems, but it also has its fair share of wonder.

      I wonder, what do we dwell on?

    • Get Outside

      If you can’t decide what you want to do
      If you can’t stand what people say to you
      If you can’t see when your eyes are open wide
      If you ask yourself what your doing and there’s no reply
      Get outside
      — Robert Palmer, Get Outside

      Sometimes you reach the end of the day and you don’t know what you’ve done with it. You check the boxes, have the conversations, do the work… and everything seems off anyway. These are days to get outside and feel the world.

      Yesterday, after entirely too much madness in my life, I walked outside to seek answers in the blooming lilacs. Like so many flowering woody plants their blooms are here today, gone tomorrow. Yet their fragrance is one of the most familiar of all. They make their mark on the world and recede from the scene as summer heat approaches.

      I want to tell them not to go. Stick around a bit longer. But of course this isn’t the way the world works. The lilacs remind us not to blink. It’s now or never, friend. Get outside and linger with them before your opportunity is gone. How many more lilac seasons do we have left in us anyway? We throw out our days as if our account is unlimited.

      Why do we spend so much of our time indoors when the world whispers to us in this way? We ought to be more present with the larger world. We ought to embrace the changes that wash over us whether we want to pay attention or not.

      The lilacs will surely return again next year—but will we be here to enjoy them? To every thing there is a season. The future is a fool’s game. Our moment is now. Get outside and find it.

    • Where Deep Roots Grow

      From the bottom of my heart
      Off the coast of Carolina
      After one or two false starts
      I believe we found our stride
      And the walls that won’t come down
      We can decorate or climb or find some way to get around
      Cause I’m still on your side
      From the bottom of my heart
      — Jimmy Buffett, Coast of Carolina

      Long-term relationships are about finding the space to grow together. We’ve all seen examples of couples who find a way to make things work because they want to make it work. We’ve seen the opposite too. The thing about walls is they’re always there—we either find a way around them or we let them close us off from the people who are most important for us.

      Relationships work when we break down barriers. They fall apart when we let the barriers define the relationship. None of us has to think too long about a friendship or romantic relationship that suffered from one or both parties seeing the differences of opinion but not the way around it. Nothing grows very well in a tight box.

      We live in a world that amplifies our differences. What might grow if we knocked down a few walls instead of throwing up more? The very question prompts a new level of thinking, doesn’t it? Thinking in possibilities instead of limitations opens us up for deeper relationships, wider experiences, and stronger bonds.

      It brings us to a place where deep roots grow.

    • Something Mighty and Sublime

      Rest not!
      Life is sweeping by
      go and dare before you die.
      Something mighty and sublime,
      leave behind to conquer time.
      — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

      Goethe once wrestled with the desire to accomplish great things while enjoying the comforts of a bourgeois lifestyle. By all accounts he succeeded in transcending the ordinary with his writing. And what of us? Are we so comfortable in our domestic lifestyle that we fail to seize the moment? Are we doomed to be the forgotten masses or will we create something mighty and sublime in our time?

      These are grandiose expectations for a lifetime. Who are we to rock the boat when there’s such good sailing? We ask of life what we will, it hands back harsh unfairness and tempting distractions and entertaining beguilements that quickly rob us of the one thing that matters most: time. What of it? Plenty of people have transcended all of these things and more. The only thing we can control is our focus and consistent effort towards the achievement of our hopes and dreams.

      “Do or do not. There is no try.” — Yoda

      There’s no judgement in these words, just the facts. We have our time and then it will be gone, intentions be damned. We must ask ourselves, in the quiet moments of truth, what is it we wish to do before it all ends? Rest not! Get to it already.