Alexandersmap

    Category: Philosophy

    • Adding More

      “If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.” — Fred Devito

      These are challenging times, to be sure, but there’s opportunity on the other side of those challenges. We may either face them and continue to grow or cower at the sight of them and shrink back into what might have been. We are what we put into our days, and really nothing more than that but a bit of dumb luck and random chance. Luck and chance will only take us so far—I like the odds of growing into our potential instead.

      Challenges can be thrust upon us, like losing a job or getting a diagnosis we weren’t expecting, or it can be incremental, like increasing the intensity of a workout each time we do it. Each challenge offers an opportunity for the mind and body. Is this my limit, or can I go further? We have a choice in how to react, as Viktor Frankl pointed out, to any challenge. The freedom of that choice is profoundly ours alone.

      We can choose to add more challenge to our days, with a goal of growth and change. Adding more changes us profoundly: Reading and writing more, more intense workouts, more challenging work, more focused conversations with people of consequence. The word infers increase; let that increase bring us in the direction in which we want to go.

      Remember the old expression, pay me now or pay me later? There’s a price to be paid either way, but whether good or bad those choices compound over time. There will come a time for less. Today is not that day. There’s just so much to do in a lifetime and we only have now to work with. We may choose to accept the challenges as they come at us. Let this serve as a cattle prod to complacency. Decide what to be and go be it.

    • Living Towards

      “People think being alone makes you lonely, but I don’t think that’s true. Being surrounded by the wrong people is the loneliest thing in the world.”
      ― Kim Culbertson, The Liberation of Max McTrue

      I live in a small town with no traffic lights in New Hampshire that snugs up against Massachusetts. I’ve been here for three decades now and for the life of me I know I’ll never feel like a local despite knowing many of them, watching our children grow up together and watching some of those children begin to have children. How can one spend more than half their years in a town and still feel they’re an outsider?

      I’ve been plotting my escape from this town for years, but then I keep running into people with a shared history and find the conversation pleasant. I stood out in the semi-frozen front yard raking up acorns and wore out my arm waving to neighbors driving past on their way back from Sunday activities. I recognize the patterns of the season in this town, from how the stars align against the hillsides to where the deer go to hide from all the hunters. There’s a rhythm to familiarity that we may wear like a warm coat.

      Life is what we make of it. Where we live, what we do for work, and how much time we spend with people who don’t see the world the way we do is often up to us. We are the light in someone’s day when we encounter them, or we’re a reminder to them that they’ve got to get out of this place. The world largely reflects back what we project out to it. The last few years I’ve projected that I’d rather be somewhere else than this small town. Who can blame the town for feeling the same about me?

      The thing is, we ought to be building our lives towards something, not recoiling from something. It’s a subtle difference, but the latter has us on our heels, the former has us charging ahead. One is regression, one is progression. Don’t we all want to feel like we’re making progress in our lives? When the world seems to be shrinking from us, it’s usually a reflection of our own stance with it. We must lean into our future, wherever we want it to take us. Just be sure to give a wave and a smile to the neighbors, they look like they’re going through some things too.

    • Get Up and Live

      Get up, now
      Place your feet on solid ground
      Get up now
      Friends come and go, who’s got you now?
      Those obstacles ahead
      They don’t disappear if you stay trapped inside your head
      So get on out and face yourself
      Get up now
      And live
      Live for you, baby
      You’ve gotta live for yourself
      — Thee Sacred Souls, Live For You

      I dropped my daughter at the airport for her cross-country flight this morning. You learn quickly that most people never drive to the airport and don’t know what to do when they get there. There’s a metaphor there for living in general, as most people seem a bit lost and confused, not really sure of where they’re going and afraid to make a decision they’ll regret later. And so it is that everything slows to a crawl. The only answer is to let it all unfold and put yourself in a lane that mitigates risk. Success will come to most of us if we’re patient enough and consistently do the right things. And a bit of generosity with our fellow humans goes a long way.

      The most powerful change comes from within. We simply decide what to be and go be it. We may say those words for years before that, telling ourselves to change, but they’re just words until we get up and take consistent action. Habits are our lead measure for the life we’re creating for ourselves. The results may vary and surely take too long to arrive sometimes, but it all begins with what we’re going to do right now.

      Too abrupt? Life comes at us in this way. We can slow down or even hide in the corner, but it’s all going to wash over us one way or the other. We ought to have agency in our lives, yet so many concede it to others. And meanwhile our time flies away forever. The only way to capture time is to invest it in things that improve our future. We’ve got to live for ourselves. Now! Get up and live. Add a great soundtrack to brighten the day while doing the work.

    • The Bold Step

      “If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; It is lethal.” — Paulo Coelho

      Comfort is a quiet killer. It stalks us every day, pulling us from our pursuits with its promises. Comfort means well for us, and so we trust in it. And then it steals our life away.

      We must choose adventure when it calls to us. Take the risks that inspire but make us feel a little nervous inside. Inaction is the real risk. More of the same may feel prudent, but where is it taking us?

      A full life demands boldness. Boldness in turn is a step away from the routine. It won’t call for us forever. Sooner or later it will think us like all the rest and move on to another dance partner. When we change the routine in our lives, we change our life. So shake things up. Take the bold step.

    • By Whatever Name

      Every day I’m still looking for God
      and I’m still finding him everywhere,
      in the dust, in the flowerbeds.
      Certainly in the oceans,
      in the islands that lay in the distance
      continents of ice, countries of sand
      each with its own set of creatures
      and God, by whatever name.
      How perfect to be aboard a ship with
      maybe a hundred years still in my pocket.
      But it’s late, for all of us,
      and in truth the only ship there is
      is the ship we are all on
      burning the world as we go.
      — Mary Oliver, On Traveling to Beautiful Places

      It’s late for all us. We can see this when we pay attention to such things. We can see the world burning as we go, we see the games of distraction that keep the masses occupied while the power brokers pad their pockets, and apparently we can’t do all that much about it. As I’ve said before, all we can really do is build resiliency and beauty into our own lives. But maybe we can do a little more. Maybe we can help others, lost in the darkness, find their way to beauty too.

      To be aboard a ship with maybe a hundred years still in my pocket… Ah the places we’d go! We’ve only got this one go at things, and it’s late for all of us. Where shall we go today? The more I see, the more I come back to where I started. Our life’s work is ourselves, and as Michelangelo put it, seeing the angel in the marble and carving until we set him free. Yes, it’s getting late for all of us, but we may still keep carving to release the angels.

      I’m not particularly religious (when you see the power brokers for who they are you see them everywhere), but there’s an undercurrent of spirituality running through me that is best expressed in empathy and reverence. Perhaps you feel that too. What’s beautiful in this world is realizing the connection. We’re all in the same boat, spinning through the universe, infinitesimal yet infinite all at once. Isn’t that miraculous?

    • Saunter to the Craft

      “The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure. There will be a wide margin for relaxation to his day. He is only earnest to secure the kernels of time, and does not exaggerate the value of the husk. Why should the hen set all day? She can lay but one egg, and besides she will not have picked up materials for a new one. Those who work much do not work hard.”
      — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau 1837 – 1861

      Thoreau was a famous saunterer, but he was also a prolific writer. Leisure, mediation, exercise and hard work all have their time. We know when we’ve reached balance and when we’ve stumbled off the line between chaos and order.

      It’s not just work, it’s inspired work that is the ultimate goal for all of us, and it’s out there waiting for us to grab hold of it and take it as far as we can. It’s just hidden amongst all the other tedious, uninspired labor that passes for work. We owe it to ourselves to do work that carries us towards personal excellence, whatever that is for us. Any work that isn’t bringing us somewhere is dragging us sideways down the cliff. We ought to choose our work accordingly.

      Efficiency is the trick. When we focus on the essential work in its time, not only do we get so much more done—it’s done so much better. Take writing for example; I can either turn off the world and write this blog post within this hour, or I can succumb to the distraction of the text messages buzzing me, wonder about the weather today, get up to feed the cats, check the news and watch some video on social media curated especially for me based on previous views. The hour will slip away in any case, but what will we show for it?

      The thing is, most of us love a job well done. We want to bring something meaningful to the world for our efforts, and not look back on the day like we laid an egg. In order to reach our potential, a bit of focused productivity goes a long way. Go ahead and saunter, but when we meet our task we must do it wholeheartedly, that we may rise to our potential. That isn’t tedium, it’s craftsmanship, and isn’t that a far more interesting expression of our time?

    • A Sense of Our Season

      “The follies which a person regrets the most in his life, are those which he didn’t commit when he had an opportunity.” — Helen Rowland

      What season are we in? I don’t mean autumn (as this is published), I mean what season of life are we in? There are things we regret not doing in each season of our life carrying us to here, and things we celebrate having done before that door closed forever. The trick is developing a sense of our season and learning to optimize wherever we are now.

      Lingering in the past is either a comforter that warms us or an albatross weighing us down. Either way, it’s not serving us today. We may know that our past decisions created who we are now, whatever that looks like for us, but it only influences tomorrow to the extent that we keep holding on to whatever we’re carrying. Previous choices are merely lessons learned that must be invested in our decisions going forward. Just learn the most important lesson: don’t make the same mistakes over and over again.

      I’ve reached a point where I don’t want to carry the weight of what a younger version of me didn’t do once in another season and instead focus on doing what I can do in the now. For me, comfortable routines were always the whisper of what felt like reason holding me back from adventures I might have taken. Knowing that tendency within me, I simply ask myself whether the next step is towards comfort or adventure, and which will I regret not taking one day in my future? What’s the worst that can happen? It’s usually not all that bad, and probably not as bad as carrying regret for the rest of our days.

      The currency of our lives are time, wealth and health, and we spend what we have in each season. Saving for the future makes some sense (we all like having a nest egg), but some currency can never be used in future seasons and can’t be wasted by not spending it now. Health is a good example of that. A younger, more fit version of me toyed with the idea of running a marathon. Those days are long gone now. Will I regret not having run one on my deathbed? Probably not, but the fact is I missed my chance.

      We may never have just the right amount of health, wealth and time, but we may have just enough of each to do something special with the season we’re in. And whatever that season is, we ought to do more with it, simply because we may not have the right ratio of currency in future seasons. And that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Do something special with this season before it’s gone, when all we’re left with are regrets.

    • Just the Right Blend

      “I have learned to live each day as it comes and not to borrow trouble by dreading tomorrow.” — Dorothy Dix

      I took a long walk in Manhattan yesterday. It’s all relative of course, but it felt pretty long towards the end of it. If I were on some country path with comfortable shoes I’d have just been warming up, but on concrete sidewalks swarming with people, while wearing dress shoes and a sport coat, a mile walk feels kinda long. I’ll surely need to take a true long walk when I get home just to make up for even admitting to that mile feeling uncomfortable, but all experiences are measured by the minutiae that built it.

      My underlying hope in navigating my series of nows is to find just the right blend of minutiae to make each moment sparkle. We’re building tomorrow’s memories with each today, aren’t we? What goes into today’s blend will fuel our future or set us back. We ought to discriminate on the little things that make now memorable.

      Sure, know the forecast when packing for our future, but don’t wring away the present in apprehension. We can’t borrow time, but we can waste it just as easily as we can optimize it. Those tomorrows will come either way, even if we aren’t guaranteed a starring role in the play. We must accept the fragility of now and offer it our very best, lest we squander it. Not every moment is perfect, we can’t expect that, but we can seek perfection anyway, and celebrate the higher standard we reach.

    • The Wealth of Without

      “We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.” — Immanuel Kant

      We’re heading into the holidays, and holiday consumerism has replaced politics as the distraction du jour. We all know that it’s about to boil over into a frenzy. Honestly, I could do without all of it. Not because I don’t like new, shiny things, but because I want very much to simplify and focus on the abundance of beauty that is already in my life.

      Truth be told, I’ve already been on a spending spree the last few month in the form of the sometimes necessary “out with the old, in with the new” purchases to raise the overall quality of our lives. And I admit that spree has me inclined to reign it all in and reset back to more frugal ways to balance it all out. This is normal of course, all part of the ebb and flow of our financial life. The trick is to keep that balance. Stuff has a way of complicating our lives even as it solves some problem or other, doesn’t it?

      We had visiting friends stay with us for a week, a nice surprise for us and a reminder of what’s truly essential in a world where everyone wants their share of your time. A quiet conversation with friends doesn’t cost much more than the price of a beverage or two. Life without those who mean the most is impoverishment. True wealth is an abundance of equally-invested people in our lives with whom to share the journey.

      When we simplify our lives and focus on the essential, we grow richer in experience and overall happiness. We ought to stop being so busy accumulating distractions in our lives and look for a higher return on investment. To be present in the lives of those we care about the most offers tangible rewards when we spend those limited grains of sand. Shed the excessive and grow truly wealthy.

    • Far More Than Nothing

      You get up every day, you are entitled to nothing.
      Nobody owes you nothing.
      You can have talent, but if you don’t have discipline, you don’t execute or focus, what do you get? Nothing.
      If you’re complacent and not paying attention to detail, what do you get? Nothing.
      So nothing is acceptable except your best.
      Everything is determined by you trying to be your best so you can build on positive performance.
      That is the only thing, and there should be nothing else.
      We can’t accept nothing but our best.
      — Nick Saban, The Importance of Nothing

      We must ship the work in its time, as Seth Godin reminds us, even when it doesn’t feel like the best we could offer the universe when it ships. Nothing matters more than putting out the best we’ve got at the moment. We learn and refine and grow from that release of our work to the universe, and must then leverage that to do it all over again, but better.

      Our best changes all the time as we change. My best rowing time for 2000 meters was in my early 20’s, and I know I’ll never see sub-6 minutes again in my lifetime. But I can get more fit than I am now, and beat the times I’ve posted earlier this year. Improvement is relative to where and who we are now. Better is always on the table for something.

      I’m a better writer than I was ten years ago, simply because I do it every day and I’ve developed the muscle memory to convey what I’m thinking into words on a screen. More than that, I’ve read a few hundred books in that time span, lived through a pandemic and my children growing up and people I care about passing away and a whole host of other experiences that have tangibly changed who I was then to who I am now. Simply put, our best is way better at some things now than ever before. There is always a season for some highly developed skillset or knowledge that we may bring to the world now.

      Without shipping our work we have nothing. Doing our best at the things we feel are most essential for us is the clear path to personal excellence (arete). Perhaps a poetic speech by an old football coach will be just the thing to shake those ideas loose, that we may do our best in our one and only today. Perhaps arete will be evasive today, but we may get that much closer to it than ever before. Maybe our best will be enough for today, or maybe not. But the attempt to reach it is far more than nothing.