Alexandersmap

    Category: Personal Growth

    • In Spite of It All

      “Anything that is alive is in a continual state of change and movement. The moment that you rest, thinking that you have attained the level you desire, a part of your mind enters a phase of decay.” – Robert Greene, Mastery

      Change is constant, and so must we be constantly embracing change. I’m grateful for the places I’ve been, for the things I’ve done, because if I hadn’t done them I might never have gotten to them. The pandemic has highlighted this for many people, I suppose. The world has changed massively in a short amount of time. Can we ever go back to what we were before? God, I hope not. So many sleepwalking through life, so much apathy. We have to live with urgency before we run out of our aliveness.

      I have friends currently anchored off a small island in Puerto Rico weighing their next move. They would tell you everything they initially planned has been upended by circumstances. They started later than they wanted because some critical work on their boat took longer than anticipated. They spent unexpected time in Bermuda because of weather. And now a combination of timing a weather window and global reaction to a pandemic has them waiting to finally weigh anchor and move again. But despite the strange twists of fate, to have begun when they did meant everything. Had they waited just one more year they might never have started. Might never have seen all they’ve seen. Learned all that they’ve learned about themselves and the world. To have started made all the difference.

      There are days when the writing is a struggle, when I want to just take one day off, but I write anyway and get something out of it. It’s hard to write about travel and my experiences in the world when I’m not traveling and experiencing the world. But you know that too. We all do now. These are my own plans upended by circumstances, and I’ve embraced the changes and learned more about myself along the way. I’m nowhere near where I wanted to be at this point in my writing, but I’m much farther along than I might have been had I not started, and had I not kept going despite it all.

      This pandemic will end at some point. We’ll all be transformed by it. But it will end and the world will shift into some state of new normal. That will be our own weather window to weigh anchor and get on with the business of living. Will we sail for new harbors, embracing the changes in our lives, or will we cling to the safe and familiar? There’s only one path to growth, to being alive, and our weather window is all too brief. Clearly we must weigh anchor, in spite of it all.

    • Stupid Prizes

      I’m not sure where I heard the phrase first, but I know for sure I wrote it down most recently when I heard Naval say it, so I’ll offer him credit for repeating it once more that I might truly hear it: “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”  Boy, have I played some stupid games in my life.  To be fair, haven’t we all?  Life is full of stupid games, and what are you really pursuing in the playing of it?

      I once played a stupid game where we threw glass bottles in a stream and threw rocks at them to try to break them as they floated by.  The thought of that horrifies me now, but I was a dumb kid in a time when it didn’t seem like a big deal to introduce litter and broken glass into a stream.  My prize for playing that stupid game was getting hit by a car when I tried to run across the road to throw rocks at a bottle that had gotten away.  I deserved that car windshield, and I’m grateful the prize didn’t include a coffin in my size.  I’m not sure my mother deserved the prize of hearing her son was hit by a car but hey, I was playing a really stupid game and there were ample prizes to go around.

      More typical stupid games are trying to be cool in school and missing out on better prizes while you play stupid.  Taking a job you hate to try to play the corporate ladder game for another rung into a job you’ll hate more but has more prestige and money you’ll waste on stupid prizes.  I’ve had a few dress shoes pressed into my forehead owned by ladder climbers in my time climbing ladders.  Chasing metrics and KPI’s and all manner of Chutes and Ladders in the pursuit of differentiation in a red ocean of sharks feeding on one another most famously profiled in a New York Times profile on the culture five years ago at Amazon.

      Stupid games include competing to get your child into the right school, with the right social activities, playing the right position in the right sport on the right travel team, to win the next “right” prize.  It’s another ladder with people stepping on top of each other on the scramble, made worse as it’s removing childhood from the lives of children in the pursuit of status.  That seems a particularly cruel stupid game.  Rising above stupid games isn’t easy, but it’s our only hope of winning better prizes.  But then again judging people for the games that they play is a stupid game in itself.  What does it get you but resentment or jealousy or condescension?  Now that is stupid.

      It would be easy to write that I’m done playing stupid games and this pandemic has shaken me of the beliefs that made me play them.  But we’re all human and will make decisions that in hindsight will be stupid.  No, life itself is a game and sometimes we find ourselves pursuing stupid.  I can’t guarantee to myself that I won’t pursue stupid games, but I can promise myself that I’ll stop playing the game as soon as I realize it’s stupid.  There are only so many games we get to play.  So I’ll at least try to raise my game and play at a higher level.  A higher level where I’m not worried about prizes and how others play the game.  That seems a worthy pursuit.

       

    • An Infinite Expectation of the Dawn

      In the dimmest of early morning light I watched a deer slowly work its way through the fallen branches, stones and muck out beyond the fence. White tail flickered and drew attention, just as a squirrel’s tail does, and I wondered at the similarities of these mammals who coexist in these woods. Each are seeking the same food – an abundance of acorns that relentlessly fell last fall. Each are prey for carnivores. The tail draws attention, but you could also say it distracts a carnivore long enough that perhaps the prey might get away. The deer feels my presence just as I felt hers. We coexist in these woods too, and I silently nod and leave her to her travels.

      “The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour.  Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers the rest of the day and night…. To be awake is to be alive.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      How quickly the morning progresses now. The birds erupt early, filling the woods with their chorus of song. New voices appear frequently now as the migration continues in earnest. At least the birds can travel. Were this a normal time I might be traveling now too. But then I wouldn’t be here rapt in the audience listening to the symphony. There’s a silver lining in everything, should we look for it.

      “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.  I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      In a few weeks the trees will start blooming in earnest while the perennials slowly climb from the cold earth to the sky. I welcome the time of year, even as I dread the pollen that accompanies it. Small price to pay for flowers and fresh herbs growing in the garden and the return of the bees and hummingbirds. I think about these things as I walk in the cold early spring garden. I’ll be barefoot out here then without the creeping cold that prods me back inside. Warm days and cold nights. Sap weather. I glance at the maple trees and down at the red buds they’ve shed on the yard. I ought to charge them a toll of syrup for their messy habit, but I realize the folly of me boiling sap for a few ounces of maple syrup. No, the trees remain untapped.

      I remain transfixed by the world around me, and the writing helps draw it out of me like cold sap boiled to something sweet and digestible. Well, you’ll be the judge of that. But I’m the better for the process, and for these journeys out into the awakening hour. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor… these words echo in my mind, as they have for years. And maybe my time out here in the earliest moments of the day spark something deeper inside me than I previously realized.

    • We Are Stardust

      Serendipity lately seems to be taking me to the stars.  I dance with the stars often, as anyone who follows me can attest.  But the stars seem aligned (sorry) for me to write about them once again today.  It began with Ryan Holiday quoting the familiar phrase “we are stardust” in his exceptional book Stillness Is The Key.  That got me thinking about the Joni Mitchell song Woodstock (with apologies to Joni and CSNY, my favorite version is James Taylor singing it on the Howard Stern Show or if you prefer, in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony for Joni Mitchell)

      “We are stardust
      Billion year old carbon
      We are golden
      Caught in the devil’s bargain
      And we’ve got to get ourselves
      Back to the garden”
      – Joni Mitchell, Woodstock

      Heavy stuff when you think about it; we’re made up of stardust; billion year old carbon recycled into our present form.  Our bodies are made up of the timeless material of infinity.  And our thoughts are built on the timeless wisdom of the ages.  That makes us… timeless in a way, doesn’t it?  And one with the very universe around us.  Whoah.  But could this be true?  I believe so, but sought out validation with a Google search nonetheless (because isn’t that where the truth is?)  And I came across a Carl Sagan quote confirming that yes, we are indeed made up of star stuff:

      “We are a way for the universe to know itself. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star stuff,” – Carl Sagan

      So this fascination with the stars is a longing to return? Maybe, but I think it’s more a feeling of solidarity with the infinite universe around me. A way for the universe to know itself… From the daffodils patiently biding their time in the sun to the stars I gaze up at light years away from that sun. To infinity and beyond, if you will. My reading finally brought me this morning to W.D. Auden (via Brain Pickings) and this stunning poem, included in its entirety because I just couldn’t help myself:

      “Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
      That, for all I care, I can go to hell,
      But on earth is the least
      We have to dread from man or beast.

      How should we like it were stars to burn
      With a passion for us, we could not return?
      If equal affection cannot be,
      Let the more loving one be me.

      Admirer as I think I am
      Of stars that do not give a damn,
      I cannot, now I see them, say
      I missed one terribly all day.

      Were all stars to disappear or die,
      I should learn to look at an empty sky
      And feel its total dark sublime,
      Though this may take me a little time.”
      – W.H. Auden, The More Loving One

      When the student is ready the teacher will appear.  I’m a ready student, looking up at the universe in wonder, and marveling at the bounty being returned to me by timeless teachers.  And isn’t that being truly alive, getting out of our own heads and dancing with this timeless wisdom?  We’re all stars dancing in the universe. Some brighter than others. Personally, I strive to be brighter still that I might offer more. If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.

    • Here We Are

      Google maps is still helpfully telling me my car is parked 90 feet away. My car hasn’t moved since I went to restock the groceries Monday. But I appreciate the reminder of why someone wrote that code anyway. They were thinking of their normal – our collective normal – not this current abnormal.

      “Wherever you go there you are.” – Jon Cabot-Zin

      Here we all are. Collectively working through the latest normal like I’m working through this cup of coffee. Our lives are like a cup of coffee in the collective universe; insanely brief flashes of heat and water and a bit of flavorful energy transferring from one place to another. Is that enough? It depends on where you transfer that energy, doesn’t it?

      Mary Oliver wrote of Walt Whitman, “Clearly his idea of paradise was here—this hour and this place.” This hour, and this place, they’re all that matter. It’s the magic hour, wherever you are. What shall we do with it?

      “We are temporary visitors in this world; after we are educated, we are called to different places, and we pass away. But the general education of mankind goes on, very slowly but without interruption.” – Leo Tolstoy

      Maybe that’s the gist of it, we’re all individuals in the giant collective that marches on picking up wisdom and passing it on to the next individual. Timeless. The great conversation. Different voices in the infinite choir lending our song and trying our best to harmonize with the universe. A few bad apples singing a different tune along the way who ultimately get drowned out by the harmonies of the rest. Seems about right to me.

      Well, the coffee is finished and the mug is cooling back to room temperature. The magic hour is up. Thought I’d something more to say? The day calls once again: the next hour is at hand. We stack hours up like stepping stones, slowly climbing to wherever the time takes us. Where shall we go with the time that is left?

    • Instead

      This weekend the bluebirds came back. I needed that more than I realized.  It’s a small sign of brighter days ahead in the ebb and flow world of New England in March, like early crocuses or the green spear tips of daffodils breaking the ground.  We could use more signs of hope in this particularly stark news cycle we’re living in.  This too shall pass.

      “What can we do that matters instead?” – Seth Godin

      Godin posed this question in his blog today, and it lingers in my mind. Not the “What can we do that matters” part, but the “instead” part. Because that’s the real challenge in this question, isn’t it? We can all list the things that matter in life. But what are we doing instead of those things? Binge-watching Netflix or re-watching The Office again? What can we do that matters instead? Reading the bot or troll (aren’t they one and the same?) comments on somebody’s Twitter post? What can we do that matters instead? You get the idea.

      I read and write in the early morning because I have the focus to pluck a word like instead out of a question and linger with it for awhile. Soon the day will erupt into work and the new world order hustle of Zoom and conference calls. But the in between spaces offer an opportunity to build more meaningful connection with people that matter, to offer my own sign of brighter days ahead. My mind is turning over what matters instead. What a way to start a Monday.

      So in the clutter of the day I find myself in, starting extra-early this fine Monday, I’m looking for exceptional.  Not on my news feed or in the heroic deeds of medical personnel everywhere, but in myself.  Demanding a little more from myself instead.  What can I do that matters instead?  It seems a fair question. And an opportunity to answer it well.

    • How Rarely We Mount

      “Our winged thoughts are turned to poultry.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walking

      When you dig deep into Thoreau’s work you mine these little gems. It’s his reward for sticking with him as he crams his every thought onto the page. Every great book gets richer and more meaningful when re-read a second or third time. Lately I’ve been revisiting some old classics even as the stack of new calls to me, offended at my slight. Everything has its time, I say of the stack and of myself too. Be patient, work hard, reach higher… keep flapping those wings. The pace of my progress rarely reaches the level of the grandness of my plans. We aim to soar, but sometimes we find ourselves stuck on the ground with all the other turkeys and chickens, pecking away at the ground. Do they have aspirations too?

      “We hug the earth—how rarely we mount! Methinks we might elevate ourselves a little more.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walking

      Writing every day, chipping away at it, means something to me. It’s the climb, the aspiration for higher ground, that both challenges and drives me. We all hug the earth – our daily routines and comfortable life and the assurance that this is enough. Nothing shakes up the normal like a global event, but shouldn’t we shake up our own snow globe once in a while just to see the magic that was just sitting there all along? How rarely we mount: Shouldn’t we use this tragic circumstance as a catalyst for more? Or shall we return, should this ever end, once again to poultry? Methinks we might elevate ourselves a little more.

    • Avoiding Counterfeit Coins

      “Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins
      That may buy you just a moment of pleasure,
      But then drag you for days
      Like a broken man
      Behind a farting camel.”
      – Hafiz, Cast All Your Votes for Dancing

      Habits are great things when working for you, and your worst enemy when they’re conspiring against you.  In normal times I’d be chipping away at the usual mix of exercise, writing, reading, learning a language and having my day stacked up ahead of me in my bullet journal.  The upside down nature of this pandemic and the home renovations have challenged my habits, but I’m still chipping away at each of them.  Perhaps nothing has suffered more than my bullet journal, usually filled with meetings and travel.  I’ve decided I need to keep entering bullets to cross off, even if they’re smaller in scale than they were – what?  Two weeks ago?  Habits die when they aren’t fed.  And when good habits die bad habits fill the void.

      I deleted Facebook from my life in January, and honestly I don’t feel pangs of withdrawal.   It’s a massive distraction, designed to get you spun up in the random thoughts of family and friends.  Sharing pictures and life moments is great and all, but it was getting harder and harder to find any quality content without sifting through the swamp of political, religious and social commentary.  Freeing up the mindspace was refreshing.  But I’m finding Twitter conspiring to take over that space.  And Instagram, that perfect platform for sharing family photos, nature shots and travel pictures, and once a refuge from people’s opinions, is starting to get populated with people’s thoughts on the world (If I wanted your unsolicited thoughts on the world I’d get back on Facebook).  No, social media is a trap, designed to capture your attention and keep you from getting things done in this world.  I have things to do.

      We all are focused on the pandemic and the economic hit we’re all taking because of it.  Working from home changes you in ways that you don’t realize initially.  Over time you learn to be disciplined, both in doing the work that needs to be done and eventually turning the off switch and moving on to the other things in your life.  Where once I had to contend with a couple of cats interrupting a conference call, now I have two other people on their own webinars and calls in relatively close proximity to me.  It’s a new world and it requires more intense focus on positive habits, avoiding the temptation of checking Twitter or the latest headlines, and keeping a disciplined, focused calendar.

      This too shall pass.  It will change us in ways we don’t fully understand yet.  But ultimately events like this should be unifying and enabling.  Progress starts in the mirror, and feeding the habits that will carry us today and tomorrow and onward towards a better future. Bad habits lead to loss of control: frivolous spending leads to debt and maybe working at a job or two to makes end meet; frivolous spending of time leads to loss of productivity, and worse, wasting the one thing we can’t ever get back. Beware the validity of the coins you spend: Brief moments of pleasure can drag you for days, or a lifetime.

    • Living Heartily

      “I’m not the river
      that powerful presence.
      And I’m not the black oak tree
      which is patience personified.
      And I’m not redbird
      who is a brief life heartily enjoyed.
      Nor am I mud nor rock nor sand
      which is holding everything together.
      No, I am none of these meaningful things, not yet.      ”
      – Mary Oliver, I’m Not The River

      I walked outside barefoot to a chorus of woodland song early this morning. Robins and cardinals and even those clever rascals the crows were all singing to each other at the edge of the woods where humans begin. Birds don’t give a thought to human worries about COVID-19 or mortgage payments or how many steps show up on your watch. No, they go on living heartily, not thinking about the briefness of the duration but working hard to ensure this particular moment isn’t their last.

      It’s Spring in New England. The world wakes up similarly to the way it woke up yesterday, but there’s a slight shift in attitude. The mild winter and a pandemic cancelling everything normal in life and Mookie Betts dumped for money and Tom Brady moving on all make this Spring feel different from any other in my memory, but walking out into the morning chorus you see it’s all the stories we tell ourselves. We’re all just living this brief moment and trying to live another day. Stoicism offers a guide to living more powerfully.  To accept fate (Amor Fati) and our ultimate fate (Memento Mori), and to apply this knowledge, this understanding of the world, to embrace every moment.

      “It’s time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

      I’m working on things just as we all are. Holding things and people together, working to be patient with this world around me, working on small, daily improvement. Living heartily might seem a challenge right now, but it’s more important than ever. I’d think it was a lot more challenging a hundred or a thousand years ago. No, we live in relative comfort compared to those before us. They’d surely laugh at the things we call hardship. We can hold it all together and get beyond this too. Walking barefoot out to greet this first day of Spring and embrace the chorus seems a good first step. But there’s so much more to do with this day, isn’t there?

    • That Which Is Around Us

      “I am what is around me.” – Wallace Stevens, Theory

      We build the world around us, surrounding ourselves with things and people that reinforce for us that image in our minds. Believe you’re a hiker? Go to the mountains and be one. Sailor? Get a boat or crew in someone else’s. Runner? Get some good running shoes and hit the pavement again and again until it becomes your identity. Writer? Write every day: immerse yourself in the Great Conversation, pull in all that is around you like a warm blanket on a cold night and share it with the world.

      I heard about the death of a friendly acquaintance last night. He was larger than life in some ways, but fragile from years of abusing his body. He would drink too much, love too many, drive too fast and talk even faster, but he had a good heart and it showed in how he treated those around him. He lived the work hard, play hard mantra more than anyone I’ve ever met. I learned not to keep up with him drinking, to drive separately when going to meetings, and to keep pace when it came to work. I was just in his town last week but decided not to call him, thinking I didn’t have the time. It turns out I only had that time.

      We are what is around us. Jimmy surrounded himself with a lifestyle that killed him young, but was as fully alive as anyone I’ve met. We don’t get to choose everything that happens in our lives, but in our daily habits we slowly build up and reinforce our image of ourselves and what we might become. Ultimately it’s all just a story in our mind, and like any story you can choose to send it in another direction at any time. But you can’t turn a tragic-comedy into an action-adventure or a romance novel easily. Sometimes you’ve got to scrap the entire first draft and start writing a new book.

      As a nod to Jimmy, I’ll work to be more alive in the moment, but with a lot less vodka. I’ll work hard in my career and play hard at healthier activities than he chose. Like Jimmy I’ll beam in pride at my kids, but will try to lead by example that the things you surround yourself with in this one precious life matter much more than you might think. Those things either hold you up or press you down, so choose wisely. Thanks for the reminder Jimmy.