Alexandersmap

    Category: Personal Growth

    • Laying Tracks for the Journey

      “Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.
      So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis?
      …beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.”       — Hunter S. Thompson, via Farnam Street

      “Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

      How do we want to live? Why don’t we ask ourselves this more often? We keep adding to our collection of more (experiences, relationships, stuff, distractions) in hopes that we’ll eventually find all the answers. If we look up from our own reflection long enough we might notice that everyone else is trying to figure it out too.

      There’s a gap that emerges between people as they each follow their own path. Sometimes the path intersects again, sometimes the path diverges and you grow further apart. And sometimes one or both parties decide to find a new path together, come what may. This itself is a decision. We can’t have it all, yet we have that nagging voice that whispers that we might. At some point, we’ve got to stake our claim on a way of life that feels right for us.

      We owe it to ourselves to seek as much experience as we can, that we might draw from each some nugget of how we might want to live. That collection of more isn’t so bad after all, so long as we’re collecting the things that determine our desired future state. More ought to be railroad ties to lay our tracks upon, not driftwood.

      It always comes back to how we want to live in this moment in our lives, but also (if we dare) in our next moment. With an optimistic eye towards the future, we might pivot towards something more, or pause in more of the same. Of course there is no stasis, the world will keep moving whatever we decide on. We can’t expect the train that just left the station to come back to get us. But maybe that wasn’t the track we were meant to go down anyway. While we don’t always know our destination, pointing ourselves in a direction that feels right is a way to break free of indecision towards discovery.

      It’s always been about the journey, hasn’t it?

    • Garden Blessings

      Ah, yet, ere I descend to the grave
      May I a small house and large garden have;
      And a few friends, and many books, both true,
      Both wise, and both delightful too!
      And since love ne’er will from me flee,
      A Mistress moderately fair,
      And good as guardian angels are,
      Only beloved and loving me.
      — Abraham Cowley, The Wish

      The air is filled with squeaky chirps and the buzzing sound of wings beating the warm morning air, announcing that the bluebirds of June were replaced by the hummingbirds of July. They remind me that the garden, despite early neglect, still dazzles, inspires and informs. The frenetic urgency of the hummingbirds to feed brings life to the midsummer garden, just when it most needs a lift.

      It’s sometimes easy to forget the things we build around us that attract nuance and substance. We build our lives on the four cornerstones of relationships, legacy, learning and action. Each in turn determines who we might become as we build our life atop this foundation. Like the birds flirting briefly with the garden, people come and go from our lives. Jobs and money and fashion come and go. We each note the changes, but how we react is determined by who we’ve grown to be.

      What is a garden but a foundation? We stake our place in this world to cultivate our hopes and dreams as life changes around us like the seasons. Each season brings enchantment, frustration, context and acceptance. We become what we cultivate, influenced by the seasons but not always determined by them. Everything has its time, and the blessings in our lives must be realized in their own season.

    • Acquiring Different Frames

      “I think well-read, well-travelled is nothing but acquiring more lenses in life to see things. The word ‘unusual’ starts dying as you travel more, as you read more. You are less shocked. You are less surprised. Because nothing seems unusual. You’ve seen it all, and therefore you have acquired different frames. And therefore, most intolerant people who have neither read nor travelled… don’t know alternate realities… We have to be able to tap into multiple biases that coexist in us by creating all these multiple biases in our head.” — Kunal Shah, on The Knowledge Project

      We’re all frame collectors, collecting frames of reference that we use to determine how we act and react in and to the world around us. When our frame of reference bumps into someone with a contrary frame of reference it may create friction, but it ought to create a measure of curiosity as well. Why do they see things differently that we do on this topic? Are they viewing the world through limited frames, or are we missing that particular frame in our collection?

      I won’t defend the worst tendencies of humanity, but I can better understand why some people blindly fall into categorizing other people based on politics, religion, race, sex, and on and on. They have limited their frame of reference to something so narrow that they’re compelled to lash out at anything that contradicts that view. This is what makes burning books or dictating what is taught in schools so dangerous—it constricts frames of reference to only what the book burner or policy maker want it to be. Which perpetuates biases and extends the chain of willful ignorance.

      And here we all thought we’d transcended our biases.

      It’s never been easier to acquire information, and never easier to acquire misinformation. We all must sift through the garbage to find a measure of truth that resonates for us. Shah, in this same podcast, points out that our minds are so fatigued with the information overload that we’re actually more susceptible to following people who state things with conviction. This explains the feverish followers of politicians, Bible-bangers and toxic faux news personalities. If you sip enough of any one flavor of poison, you develop a taste for it and tend to order it again next time you belly up to the information bar. We may be stuck in a world where we have to wade through the bullshit, but we don’t have to consume it.

      Our world is full of alternate realities, so why do we keep ordering vanilla? We must deliberately expand our pallet. We must challenge ourselves to read diversely, travel broadly, and listen more intently when others are speaking for a grain of truth we might have missed otherwise. We’re all figuring this sh*t out as we skate through life. We don’t have to listen to those who would have us skate in circles.

    • Memorable

      If it’s easy it’s not memorable. Sure, we remember things that just come to us, but remembering isn’t memorable. Memorable must be earned with effort and iteration over time.

      If you’re a parent you’ll never forget when your children were born, or when you figured out a car seat for the first time, or that first epically challenging diaper. Like scoring an Olympic gymnast, it was memorable because of the level of difficulty involved.

      We all have our lifetime and then its gone. What will make it memorable? Challenges accepted and overcome. Worthwhile relationships stuck with through thick and thin. Hard lessons and leaps of faith. A bias towards action and the will to see it through.

      We should never take the easy route, for it doesn’t lead to memorable.

    • An Urgent Summons to a Larger Life

      “One of the virtues of mortality, if one wishes to look for such a virtue, is the reminder that choices really do matter and that the issue of permission to make those choices is now critical and necessary. It may well lead one to realize that a life managed by fear is a life unlived. In the cases where I attended those overtly dying, most came to conclude that the interim provided them an urgent summons to a larger life.” — James Hollis, Living an Examined Life

      “Your days are numbered. Will you pass them half awake and halfhearted or will you live with a sense of urgency?” — Robert Greene

      After a string of noteworthy experiences this year, mixed with a series of body blows to the soul, I look at the world differently than I did when it began. Perhaps you feel that too? There’s no doubt we’ve been through a lot the last few years, and the universe keeps piling on. But we have this opportunity to do something radical in our brief time—to answer the call that only we hear.

      Most of us are blessed with choices in this modern world, choices that billions of our ancestors would have cherished. But most live lives of deferment and low agency. The universe remains dispassionate to our individual quest for meaning and fulfillment in this world. It’s our job to make something of our time.

      We’re all being eaten alive by time. We can’t stop the clock but we can fill the moment. The answer always has been to awaken from our lethargy and take action. We all have our personal collection of fears and biases that hold us back from the urgent and important contribution we must make to feel our lives have meaning. What we do next is truly up to us.

    • Stacking the Positives

      “We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be tomorrow.“ — B.J. Neblett

      On a beautifully still morning I watched the fish in the bay react as a seal hunted for its breakfast. Perfect stillness broken by panicked splashes. The seal must eat and the fish must leap to survive. The story evolves around me, yet I have no meaningful role in it but to bear witness.

      There’s no denying the last few years brought plenty of negative experiences, and each shaped us in ways we might eagerly trade for an alternative outcome. But life isn’t gingerly holding our hand for this ride, it grudgingly allows us a seat on this train. The rest is up to us as the hits and highs come at us. What we make of our lives depends on how the sum of our experiences shapes us.

      The stakes aren’t always so dire, but in life we’re either breakfast or having breakfast. Our story will play out one way or the other, and based on how we react, in subsequent choices made in the balance of our days. We must fight for what we believe in yet accept what we can’t control.

    • Greeted With Joy

      “If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal — that is your success.” — Henry David Thoreau

      I frequently tout the value of each day, going to great lengths to remind myself and anyone who’ll listen to seize it—Carpe diem!. Memento mori! It’s a system for being forever in the moment, maximizing each day as best you can as life throws its curveballs. And it immediately sorts obligations and opportunities into appropriate buckets.

      I’m not always sympathetic when others value perceived obligations over the opportunity to amplify living, but I’ve learned to accept that it isn’t my life but theirs. Still, the question remains, as we begin another day, what will we make of it? We ought to do our best to make it successful, whatever that means to you.

    • Opening Up This Moment

      “Our choice at every second: will we cut up this moment with chatter or open it up with silence?” — Pico Iyer

      We suffer from too much noise. Clutter, really, demanding our attention. And as with clutter, most noise imposed upon us eliminates skating lanes for our mind to wander. Noise often betrays insecurities or impulsiveness or disrespect. Noise reveals even as it repulses. Do we wonder, in the shattered moment, what retreats?

      When I walk with my bride, we talk of the future, about home renovation plans to plunge into or punt for a future homeowner someday, the progress of our children as they wade deeper into adulthood, money, our days… and frequently, blessedly, nothing at all. When you’re with the right person you don’t feel compelled to complete thoughts or otherwise step over what the other is saying. You don’t fill the gap with trinkets. You respect the quiet space between you and let it do all the talking.

      The thing is, silence has a lot to say. Things that so many are afraid to listen to. But not us.

    • Walk the Walk

      “Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.” – Epictetus

      To make giant leaps forward in our careers, athletically, intellectually… whatever, is a worthy aspiration. But should it be a goal? Shouldn’t we focus on consistently taking action towards who we want to be, instead of focusing on the end game? If you want to be a great photographer or writer or 400 meter hurdler, then chip away at meaningful activity that moves you incrementally towards realizing that dream. Talk is BS, it’s only the walk that matters.

      Shane Parrish recently wrote about Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, who touched on this topic. Adams favors systems over goals because it reinforces success every time you do what you said you were going to do. A goal usually ends up frustrating and discouraging us while a system rewards us constantly:

      “Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous pre-success failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if things never work out. Systems people succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do. The goals people are fighting the feeling of discouragement at each turn. The systems people are feeling good every time they apply their system. That’s a big difference in terms of maintaining your personal energy in the right direction.” — Scott Adams, as quoted by Shane Parrish in his blog

      I don’t agree with Adams on a lot of things, but I definitely see the truth in this statement. We can’t possibly feel successful if a goal is always out of reach, but we can feel good about our last workout or clicking publish one more day. We all should live by our personal credo. But it isn’t what we say that defines our lives, it’s what we do that exemplifies how delusional or on point that credo is. So walk the walk.

    • Mouth Shut, Mind Open

      Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
      Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment is intuition.
      — Rumi

      I had it all wrong when I was younger. I was a poser, trying to come off as someone who was on top of his game, overtly clever in my response, the one with all the answers. I knew nothing and learned nothing. It took a few years of ego knocking to start listening more and talking less. And sure, I’m still a work in progress like every other soul bouncing around the pinball machine of life.

      Cleverness denotes having it all figured out. None of us have it all figured out. We just acquire a few skills, a bit of street smarts and maybe some trivia to throw around at parties. If there is wisdom that comes with age, it’s generally learning to keep your mouth shut and open your mind instead. Life is learned on the fly.

      The point is, we’re all better off bewildered and trying to figure things out. Learning is a lifetime adventure, and we reach the end knowing we haven’t come close to knowing everything. Anyone who tells you they’ve figured it all out is expressing an opinion of themself. It might seem clever but it’s rarely more than a statement of where they are in their own development.

      This blog documents that work in progress, nothing more. It’s an attempt to document what I pick up along the way. I get a bit defensive when people I know talk about it with me, because it isn’t me at all, but a breadcrumb I left behind on the trail. It may be a part of me, but it’s distinctly apart from me. Otherwise it would be nothing but clever.