Alexandersmap

    Category: Relationships

    • Heaven, On Earth

      “When conditions are such that life offers no earthly hope, somewhere, somehow, men must find a refuge.” — Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way

      Everybody wants to go to heaven
      Get their wings and fly around
      Everybody want to go to heaven
      But nobody want to go now
      — Jim Collins / Marty Dodson, Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven

      Heaven is sometimes believed it to be the light at the end of the tunnel in an otherwise bleak and miserable life. It offers hope when there’s no reason to believe there ought to be any. Others describe it as a place to aspire to—an exclusive club that only the truly enlightened amongst us will ascend to. I’m not sure I’m buying that. We’re already in an exclusive club having been born at all. Do we accept the miracle of being alive each day we wake up? If we don’t celebrate this miracle, what makes us believe we’ll behave any different if we reach Heaven?

      “I don’t feel the slightest interest in the next world; I think it’s here. And I think anything good that you’re going to do, you should do for other people here and not so you can try to have a happy time in the next world.” ― Katharine Hepburn

      I fall in Hepburn’s camp on the idea of Heaven. It’s all very nice to talk of an afterlife and being happy then, but we live here and now. This is our time to fly. We’ve each hit the birth lottery, and thus far have evaded the grip of the Grim Reaper. Isn’t that cause for celebration? We might think of this lifetime as an apprenticeship for whatever comes then, should we be so bold as to believe we’ll ascend to such a place.

      Simply put, when we defer to this “someday when” we do a disservice to ourselves and the universe. Sure, we can’t always control whether our lives at the moment are heavenly or hellish, but we can control how we react to it. And most of us can do a lot more than that.

      “Take care to create your own paradise, here and now on earth” — Omar Khayyam

      Stories about heaven and hell offer guidance that historically helped keep society together. But the same stories can be used to pull people apart. We see a fair amount of that divisiveness in the world today, with people using stories of heaven and hell to justify horrific behavior and violence. If there are indeed Holy Gates I’m not sure I’d walk through the same way some of these characters believe they’ll be going. So maybe save the preaching for someday when. Nothing speaks louder than action. Give me fairness and love and living by the Golden Rule. Celebrate and honor the miracle right here.

    • To Be Joyful and Full of Love

      The longer I live, the more
      deeply I learn that love —
      whether we call it
      friendship or family or
      romance — is the work of
      mirroring and magnifying
      each other’s light.
      — James Baldwin

      We’re in the business of amplification, you and I. Our life’s work is accretive in nature. The longer we’re actively engaged in this world, the more we can contribute of ourselves to the greater good. But we must be engaged.

      Our children are a product of our presence or absence their lives, just as we are a product of our own parents engagement with us. This ripple extends to family and friends and those who become more than just friends. We’re each muting or amplifying the best and worst of each other.

      The last few years, I’ve seen some people change in profound ways. Maybe it was the pandemic, or maybe it’s their stage of life, or it’s the sum of everything the world dumps on us piling up inside. I remind them that we do have agency. We either shed ourselves of the bile or let it sink into our pores. Of course, we do the same with love. The question is, what do we mirror and magnify?

      When I find myself becoming angry and more cynical I find that person repulsive and force that tide of darkness to recede back inward. We all have reason to be angry in this maddening world, but we also have reason to be joyful and loving. Whoever we are will surely be reflected back to us. Choose wisely.

      Life is about building momentum. We see this in our careers and work, in our health and fitness, and surely, we see it in our relationships. When we are consistently present and offering love, we build deep relationships with others that carry us through the challenging times and amplify the good times. So reflect on this: we are the sum of our active engagement with others, and when we live well, that sum will resonate long after we’ve left the room. How do we live well? By choosing to be joyful and full of love.

    • Accumulating Life’s Treasure

      “Why be saddled with this thing called life expectancy? Of what relevance to an individual is such a statistic? Am I to concern myself with an allotment of days I never had and was never promised? Must I check off each day of my life as if I am subtracting from this imaginary hoard? No, on the contrary, I will add each day of my life to my treasure of days lived. And with each day, my treasure will grow, not diminish.” ― Robert Brault

      A week ago, hearing extraordinary live music on a beach in the tropics, we danced to the last note of the evening. The thing about dancing on beach sand is there’s only joy and motion. Nobody is stepping on another’s toes. You simply dance and celebrate the moment for all that it offers.

      The next morning, walking out on that beach, you’d hardly know that there was buried treasure there. The band was long gone. So too were the dancers. All that was left was the beach sand and the surf in the distance. Each trained to keep their secrets. The moment was gone, but the memories remain, at least for now. Another memory, to be treasured.

      We tend to forget, in the passing of the years, that we’re accumulating memories and experiences on our way to becoming who we are now, who we will be tomorrow. Life is a brief dance, but it is surely a dance. The treasure we accumulate in a lifetime is made up of moments that become invisible but for our memories and a few photographs. Shouldn’t we wonder, as we begin each day anew, what will we add to our treasure today?

      Buried Treasure

    • Living a Noble Life

      “Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” ― Marcus Aurelius

      Despite a list of imperfections and shortcomings longer than it ought to be, most of us strive to live a noble life. Being a good person in this world is surely something to aspire to, but we might look at it as a foundation to build upon instead of our sole objective. Put another way, being good should be a verb: yes, we are each good people, so what do we do with that?

      This action-oriented application of living a noble life is an evolution born of awareness. We grow into proactive goodness at our own pace. Some people are there from the womb, some never quite release themselves from the reflection in the mirror, the rest of us fall somewhere in between. A noble life is reaching beyond ourselves in service of the greater good. Surely something to aspire to in our quest for a life of purpose and fulfillment.

    • Juggling Less

      “Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls—family, health, friends, integrity—are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.” ― Gary Keller, The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

      We all juggle so much in our days, and prioritize the things that feel most urgent in the moment. Sometimes these are the most important things too, but often they’re simply the most urgent. Living in a state of urgency is no way to go through life. Sooner or later we’ll drop the ball on something central to our core. Deep down, we know what we’re losing our grip on while we try to juggle everything else.

      Coming back to the central questions helps: what is our why? Why are we here? What is the point of our being, here and now? What are we building towards—what are we becoming? And in the process of becoming, what are receding from? For we simply cannot stretch in every direction, we must choose what to move towards and what to move away from.

      Taking the time to reflect on these things is a lens that clarifies what to prioritize. When we see what is most essential to us it makes our daily choices obvious. The chorus of urgent will always try to steal our time, our momentum, our health and our identity. We have to prioritize our essential. The answer may be less juggling.

    • That Person in the Middle

      We each build our identity through our actions—on the people we become through our habits and relationships. As Jim Rohn pointed out, we are the average of the five people we associate with the most. There’s a lot of truth in this observation. The people around us influence us, and amplify our own actions and beliefs as we in turn influence them.

      So what happens when the people we associate with the most begin to fall away? Someone fills the void, or perhaps nobody does, but either way the dynamic has changed. The pandemic surely taught us that relationships and routines are fragile things indeed. What we lean into when our circle begins to fall away will define who we become next. Our core identity often rises to the occasion in such moments, and it’s up to us to decide whether we like who that person is. Every day is an opportunity to change the story.

      The thing is, we have agency. We may yet decide what to be and go be it. Stasis isn’t our natural state, by it’s very nature it’s what we settle for. We ought to stop settling and continue becoming. There’s more story to be written for us, friend. Consider Gordon Lightfoot, who just passed away. He was a notorious drinker, until he decided not to be. He became healthy and active when he changed the people he spent his time with:

      “I love Canada. I’ve traveled all over the North in various canoe expeditions. Fortunately, I… fell in with a group of people about 30 years ago who were into canoe trips. I got into it and over a period of about 15 years I did ten trips. I’ve done a lot of the major rivers in Northern Canada — the Coppermine, the Back River, the Nahanni, the Churchill. I feel very fortunate about being born in Canada. Never really wanted to leave.” — Gordon Lightfoot, “Gordon Lightfoot on Meeting Miles, Canadian Canoe Trips and That One Time with Ozzy”, The Exclaim! Questionnaire

      There’s a heavy dose of identity in these words. Not just about being Canadian, but about being out there exploring the wilderness of Canada. This is a man who became something far more than a heavy-drinking musician. It almost certainly extended his active lifetime by many years.

      And what of us? What is our identity, and who are we becoming through our associations and habits? We must continue to play an active role in writing a story worthy of a lifetime, for our entire lifetime. People inevitably come and go in our time. What we’ll always have is the person in the middle.

    • Putting It All Out There

      “If today’s social media has taught us anything about ourselves as a species, it is that the human impulse to share overwhelms the human impulse for privacy.” ― Kevin Kelly, The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

      But all the promises we make
      From the cradle to the grave
      When all I want is you
      — U2, All I Want Is You

      They say that sharing is caring, but the twist is that the share is what we care about at all. Life is change, how we process that within ourselves is ours alone… until we share it. So much of what we think and feel becomes part of the collective with a click. What happens after the click is out of our control, but something is released from us anyway. We’ve put ourselves out there in a declaration of the moment and try to move on to the next.

      The reader is in a time machine, picking up where we left off and processing our unique stack of words into thought. Sometimes a comment coming back to me after something I’ve published throws me for a loop, and I need to re-read what I wrote to see who I was at the time. We’re each on our path to becoming, and who I’ve become after clicking publish is somewhat different than the person I was before.

      That timestamp of the moment isn’t trivial, for it’s a brief glimpse into our fragile lifetime. As the years go by, so do the moments. Is sharing a grasp for the elusive amber? We can’t be forever locked in any moment but through the media that carries on after us. Still, there’s a big difference between a journal and a blog post, isn’t there? Should there be?

      What compels us to share anything of ourselves at all? Do we need to clear space for our new identity? Are we leaving breadcrumbs for others who might be inclined to follow? Perhaps the very act of sharing of ourselves is integral to becoming whatever it is we’re moving towards. Each of us have our reasons—our why— for sharing that run beyond ourselves. This why is the puzzle in everything shared, to be discovered by others.

    • Keeping On

      I don’t want to wait anymore I’m tired of looking for answers
      Take me some place where there’s music and there’s laughter
      I don’t know if I’m scared of dying but I’m scared of living too fast, too slow
      Regret, remorse, hold on, oh no I’ve got to go
      There’s no starting over, no new beginnings, time races on
      And you’ve just gotta keep on keeping on
      — First Aid Kit, My Silver Lining

      At a work event this week I looked around the room at the characters in the play. I’ve known them all so long, and yet only know a few of them very well. Some of the older characters talk of retirement and moving on, some of the younger characters openly plot their next move. I don’t play either of those parts, yet I’m still in the game.

      Building something tangible in our lives is really nothing more than showing up every day and being an active player. Life is humbling and teaches us we can’t have it all, and some will have more than perhaps they deserve. There are things we simply can’t control in this world, yet so much we can influence when we apply energy and focus on what matters most.

      We know when we’re running hard. When we’re pushing ourselves into new places. And we know when we ease off more than we should. Life is this balance, lived on the tightrope of commitments and aspiration while the winds of change swirl around us. Putting one foot in front of the other is really the only way forward. Still, we must ask ourselves, are we moving in the right direction? When should we follow another line?

    • A Thing Promised

      Who hasn’t thought, “Take me with you,”
      hearing the wind go by?
      And finding himself left behind, resumed
      his own true version of time
      on earth, a seed fallen here to die
      and be born a thing promised
      — Li-Young Lee, To Life

      We feel the urgency to live, feel it deeply within. We see the days go by so rapidly—blink and you’ll miss it quick—and something wells up inside of us to do something with the moment. Before it’s gone forever. Each moment matters, the moments of inertia just the same as the moments of peak performance (whatever that might mean for us). We are the sum of each, collected in our time, defining our lives.

      Each of us wrestles with the desire for more against the desire to savor what we have already. This restlessness is expressed in different ways, varying from bucket list experience-checking to home improvement projects to staying up all night to read a page-turner, or perhaps binge-watching a favorite show just to know how it ends. What satiates this restlessness? When do we linger a beat longer?

      As we accumulate experience, we naturally want more of it. To leave this world with boxes unchecked seems a waste. But rushing off to the next big thing usually means missing the best part of the big thing we’re already living in. The moments that are locked in the amber of our memories are those moments we paused a beat and payed attention. Dwelling in place and time offers opportunities to add layers of experience too.

      Seeds are often carried by the wind, but grow in place. Aren’t we the same? Our best relationships with people and place are developed over time. Our promise in this lifetime is fulfilled with our presence.

    • Serving Joy

      “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” — Rabindranath Tagore

      As spring usually goes this time of year in recent years, we seemingly went right from winter to summer, fooling the daffodils and hyacinth into blooming quickly, lest they miss their moment with the sun. There’s something to be said for rising to meet the fragile moment. Flowers know this instinctively. What of us?

      Traveling all week, I almost missed the fragrant offering altogether. This was a long week full of work and follow-up and more than one’s fair share of absence from those one loves. We each have our dues to pay in this transactional lifetime, but there ought to be joy in the work too. What are we here for but to serve our compelling why? Life is service to others, or it is nothing at all.

      We know it when we find our joyful service. It’s work that matters a great deal to us. It’s stirring words together just so, words that stir something deep inside of us, words better shared than jealously sheltered. And it’s doing the quiet daily offering that mundane chores represent, moving us forward in our progression through life.

      Talking quietly in the early evening hours, shedding myself of road weariness, talk moved to the garden and work still to be done. There’s always work to be done in a garden, isn’t there? What mattered wasn’t the weariness of the work week, or the prospect of more chores ahead. What mattered was the why: growing something more, together. Serving our fragile moment with joy.