Alexandersmap

    Category: Personal Growth

    • Becoming Equal to the Whole

      “The problem with most people, he felt, is that they build artificial walls around subjects and ideas. The real thinker sees the connections, grasps the essence of the life force operating in every individual instance. Why should any individual stop at poetry, or find art unrelated to science, or narrow his or her intellectual interests? The mind was designed to connect things, like a loom that knits together all of the threads of a fabric. If life exists as an organic whole and cannot be separated into parts without losing a sense of the whole, then thinking should make itself equal to the whole.” – Robert Greene, describing Goethe, Mastery

      This idea of making yourself equal to the whole through exploring all available interests, normally gets you tagged as unfocused or a Jack-of-all-trades (master of none). Such expansive thinking is regarded as inefficient by many. But let’s face it, the people with a wide range of interests are able to transcend the ordinary and create things that others might not see. They become visionaries.

      We’re all just connecting the dots, trying to make sense of the world and our place in it. We are a part of that sum, and it’s okay to question what that part might be. What’s certain is that it’s our part, nobody else’s, and we ought to find a path that makes the most sense for ourselves. Everything we do, every pursuit, every relationship, every stumble along the way is a part of becoming whatever it is we’ll title the sum of our lifetime. That process of becoming is what life is all about.

      Surely, we can never really equal the whole, but we can get pretty far down the path. And that’s about all you can hope for in one lifetime, isn’t it? To pursue our diverse interests as far as we can take them, and to contribute something back to those following their own paths towards that elusive whole. That’s what Goethe did, and Robert Greene is doing. Shouldn’t we too?

    • Aspired Greatness

      “I believe that the first test of a great man is his humility. I don’t mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.” – John Ruskin

      If we agree, and I hope we do, that there’s a divine spark in each person, then each of us has something to offer. I know there some particularly hideous exceptions to that rule, but in general most people in this world are trying to do the right thing. The outrage we feel when some dark soul erupts in the world demonstrates our shared faith in humanity. Outrage originates out of a feeling of betrayal of shared beliefs.

      To reach greatness in the world doesn’t require the most followers or likes on YouTube or a particular net worth. Really great people have an aura of positive energy exuding from them. Really great people lift those around them up. Really great people strap themselves to the helm to steer the ship through the worst of storms. There are plenty of really great people in the world, and you’re probably thinking of a few examples right now.

      “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.” – Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire

      Divinity isn’t within us, it runs through us in our chosen pursuits, our relationships, our empathy and our sacrifice. It’s a calling, a purpose, that demands us to give of ourselves so that others may feel the Divine Spirit as well. That spirit may mean something religious to you (capital D, capital S), or simply something far greater than ourselves.

      I humbly write in pursuit of the divine – not to capture it, but to channel it through my writing. I’m a long way from greatness, but I see the path grow incrementally shorter with every hour devoted to the craft. Writing hasn’t been my life’s work to this point, but it’s woven in everything I’ve ever done. A modest, often futile attempt to share the divine that I’ve encountered in this world with you. Does that make it a purpose or a pursuit? I think the latter, but I hear the call of the former.

      And shouldn’t we aspire for greatness and a way to share it?

    • Happiness and Work

      “In order that people may be happy in their work,
      these three things are needed:
      they must be fit for it;
      they must not do too much of it;
      and they must have a sense of success in it.”
      – John Ruskin

      Where did the day go? You wonder such things when you have a whirlwind day that keeps your focus, or at the very least keeps you busy. An early start, a busy day and suddenly the work day is over. Does that whirlwind equal happiness? Of course not, but when you look up and to your great surprise the day is over, well, you might be on the right track.

      Ruskin’s formula above seems about right. Work should be aligned with our skillset and inclination about who we want to be in this world. But it shouldn’t be all-consuming. And we must achieve some measure of success for it to feel rewarding and worthwhile.

      Since life is weighted so heavily towards work, it ought to be something that makes you happy, don’t you think? Feeling like you’re going in the right direction is one of those things that make you happy. If you feel you’re going in the right direction and you wake up excited to get after it, you’re probably going to find that magical blend of happiness and work.

      There are so many stories of people realizing they aren’t following a path that makes them happy. Companies are finding that when their corporate goals and their employees life goals don’t align, they lose employees. This might not have been a big deal when unemployment was high, but in a world where you can’t find enough skilled workers it becomes a big problem.

      When you’ve worked a few years, you learn that it’s all cyclical. One year employees have the upper hand, the next the employer has it. But people have long memories, and when you don’t treat them well they bolt at the first opportunity. It appears that a lot of people are bolting now.

      It seems to me that the ratio of fit, workload and success always fluctuates. That elusive (and overused word) balance is the key. Are you surfing along in work Zen or slipping over into chaos? The answer to that question will probably determine your overall happiness in work. And what you might decide to do next.

    • Leaping Forward

      Inevitably around the early days of September I start thinking about the end of the year, of the beginning of a new year, and of the things I said I’d do that I haven’t done. Sure, sometimes I’ll linger on the things I did do, but I don’t find it all that productive to pat myself on the back for past accomplishments. There’s nothing wrong with being happy with where you are, but if that’s your frame of mind you generally aren’t in a hurry to turn it upside down for something else. Growth lies in discomfort, and you can’t be satisfied with where you are if you hope to do more in your time.

      To leap forward requires vacating the spot you currently reside in. New habits, new conversations, new attitudes about what is possible and what you’ll let yourself get away with. Leaps are exciting and a little intimidating. Sometimes really, really intimidating. So most people settle for baby steps instead. Less risky, maybe, or maybe it’s a way to trick yourself into thinking you’re making progress without the discomfort of having both feet in the air at the same time, not entirely certain where you might land.

      This isn’t a leap year, not if you use the calendar to tell you where you are in life anyway. But leaping is an attitude, not a story we all tell ourselves about what day it is. Every year can be a leap year if you want it to be. Leaping doesn’t require burning the boats, but it does require commitment. You can’t very well change your mind after you launch yourself. So decide the direction you want to go in and how far to leap (what you might want to become) and launch yourself that way with resolve.

      It’s a thrill when you wind up and go for it. Doesn’t this short life deserve that kind of thrill? Decide what to be and go be it. I hope to see you there.

    • Reaching Beyond the Immediacy of Our Experience

      “Men honor what lies within the sphere of their knowledge, but do not realize how dependent they are on what lies beyond it.” – Zhuang Zhou

      “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves and wiser people are so full of doubts.” – Bertrand Russell

      Robert Greene, in his great book Mastery, describes the challenge a missionary had with understanding the language of a remote tribe in the Amazon. The key for the missionary to unlock the code of their language was when he realized that everything they did was based on immediacy of experience, for what was not before the tribe’s eyes did not exist.

      You don’t have to dive too deeply into social media to recognize that this trait is deeply embedded in the larger world today. So many believe at face value what they’re familiar with, and ignore the prospect that what they’ve learned might not be true. Worse, they parrot what they believe to be true, reinforcing their immediacy of experience instead of transcending it.

      Part of the problem is that people become comfortable being comfortable. Sticking with the same social circle that believes a certain thing, not challenging family or a leadership figure in your life that spouts a certain viewpoint to the exclusion of all others, and most of all, not challenging ourselves. For questioning our very beliefs can becomes very uncomfortable indeed.

      “People who do not practice and learn new skills never gain a proper sense of proportion or self-criticism.” – Robert Greene, Mastery

      To reach wisdom is to grow beyond the immediacy of our experience. This seems self-evident, doesn’t it? Growth infers expansion. To go beyond our present limitations. It’s not comfortable, but growth is never comfortable. And we must persist through discomfort to transcend it.

      “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

      The path to progress, mastery, wisdom, excellence… whatever you choose, necessitates placing yourself into the uncomfortable. This may feel at times like being overwhelmed, or being called out by others, or dealing with imposter syndrome, or a combination of all of these things. We’ve got to wade through all of this to reach beyond our limits. Where, deep down, we know that we ought to be.

    • Accepting Whatever

      “Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.” – Zhuang Zhou

      Being present in the moment requires a level of surrender that my mind doesn’t easily achieve. So I trick it with the odd mundane task like picking cherry tomatoes or deadheading the geraniums or some such thing. It’s in moments like these that I finally reach the ultimate. It won’t last, but my mind and heart sync for a few beats.

      Now is more easily achieved when hiking through a quiet forest or paddling across still water. In these situations the vastness of the universe shrinks down to the immediacy of the next step or the next dip of the paddle as drops of water sprinkle down on you from the opposite, raised blade. Your restless mind has no say in the matter in such moments. It’s just you and whatever you are doing.

      I should think that I might never reach some of the things my mind wrestles with. I should think I’ll pass one day having left too much on the table. I may curse the folly of an unfocused mind in that last moment, or celebrate the stillness that awaits me. You aren’t free until you realize that that moment is now.

    • The Thing We Ought to Be

      “The ideal life, the life of completion, haunts us all; we feel the thing we ought to be beating beneath the thing we are. We are haunted by an ideal life, and it is because we have within us the beginning and the possibility of it” – Phillips Brooks

      It sneaks up on you now and then, this feeling. It’s a nagging call for action, Thoreau described it as quiet desperation, a feeling that you’re living below your dreams and see no path to reach them. But he would also remind us that it’s okay to build these castles in the air, just build the foundations underneath them.

      What do we make of ourselves when we know what we ought to be?

      How we reconcile this in our own lives is how we determine for ourselves whether we lived a successful life on our deathbed. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. When you pause in a quiet moment in the day and reflect on where you are and where you’re going, do you like the answer?

      The haunting is a call to action.

    • Patterns of Action

      “There are cues and subtle aspects you can only pick up through a person-to-person interaction—such as a way of doing things that has evolved through much experience. These patterns of action are hard to put into words, and can only be absorbed through much personal exposure.” – Robert Greene, Mastery

      If we were to agree that activity is a key performance indicator, then you might learn a lot about someone’s direction from their level of activity. But as anyone who’s worked in an office for any amount of time knows, you can easily skew the numbers with busywork. We all know people who are masters of the metrics game. But in the end all that matters is results.

      Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are the metrics identified as important indicators towards the progression and eventual completion of an objective. If that sounds pretty dry, well, welcome to the world of corporate metrics. Put another way, it’s reading the tea leaves to see what the patterns are. Patterns of action indicate our direction because they’ve indicated the direction others have taken before us. What works for you should work for me, the thought process goes. Of course, everyone and every situation is different. The art of leadership (or self-leadership) is in seeing what to focus on.

      When you want to change something about yourself, what do you do first? We can stay very busy messing about with planning and preparation. There are people who build entire careers around each. I have a workout plan that will have me winning the next Olympics in rowing, should I ever follow through on it. I won’t follow through on it.

      And that’s the key point. Life is about execution and following through on what you say you’re going to do. There are clear patterns of action that get you there, one step at a time, if you’ll choose to take them. Measuring activity isn’t the point, the point is to manage patterns of productive activity that are generally agreed upon to take us from where we are to where we want to be and turn them into results. Take action, note the results, and take action again. Repeat.

      That feeling of “stuck” we get when we aren’t seeing progress is an indicator that we’re mired in busywork but not meaningful patterns of action. We must either pivot to other goals or face the truth that we aren’t working on the things that really matter. Our patterns of action are all wrong. See the truth for what it is, and then do something about it.

    • The How of Things

      “We humans live in two worlds. First, there is the outer world of appearances—all of the forms of things that captivate our eye. But hidden from our view is another world—how these things actually function, their anatomy or composition, the parts working together and forming the whole. This second world is not so immediately captivating. It is harder to understand. It is not something visible to the eye, but only to the mind that glimpses the reality. But this “how” of things is just as poetic once we understand it—it contains the secret of life, of how things move and change.”
      – Robert Greene, Mastery

      You might read a paragraph like the one above with the eye of a scientist, seeing the truth through the lens of composition of matter and chemical reaction and such. You might read it through the eyes of a politician or businessperson, immediately grasping the backroom deals and favors that occur well before the headlines catch the attention of the public. Or you might read it with the eye of an artist, seeing the structure of the words themselves and how they spin magic in their unique assembly on the page. There is indeed poetry in the how.

      There’s a light that dawns when you see this other side of things, this secret sauce of how and why things are the way they are. Lessons learned through experience and intelligent observation and time invested in the questions of how. Some people receive the gift of a curious mind early in life and immerse themselves in the wonder of how, but most of us are too dazzled by the sleight of hand to focus on how the magician does the trick.

      There’s magic in the how. Watch Paul McCartney at a mixing board isolating bits of a Beatles song and you learn the intricate composition and experimentation that went into crafting it. The magic seems to sparkle on the surface, but it’s much deeper than you might hear in a first listen. The final product is an illusion built on layers of sonic novelty and gumption. The joy lies in discovering things you missed the first dozen times you heard a song.

      The magic lies in the mix. What we see on the surface is only the tip of the iceberg. Dive deeper into the how.

    • Change Begins With Understanding

      “When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you
      don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not
      doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or
      less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have
      problems with our friends or family, we blame the other
      person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will
      grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive
      effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason
      and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no
      reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you
      understand, and you show that you understand, you can
      love, and the situation will change.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

      I have a low tolerance for blame. Blame doesn’t reach for solutions, blame swims in the dark pool of emotion trying to drown everyone else. There’s no productivity in blame.

      And yet I struggle with it. Blaming the world for not choosing better leaders, blaming the unvaccinated for the Delta variant, blaming myself for not focusing more on disciplined action during a pandemic. And what does that do? Stirs resentment with all that is around us. And so I work to drown the blame instead of directing it at others. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Look for solutions instead of scapegoats.

      I know why the lettuce won’t grow: there’s a determined and hungry family of rabbits who keep eating it. And in knowing that I can find a solution. A fence, or a dog, or raised beds… the solutions come to you when you start looking for one. And isn’t that what we desire most? To change the situation we first must change our state. And to see with an open mind.