Alexandersmap

    Category: Stoicism

    • Doing What You Have to Do

      “First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.” – Epictetus

      If New Year’s Day serves as the traditional launch point for goals and objectives, the 4th of July holiday (in the United States) serves as the midway point for the year.  The first two quarters are over, it’s time to reflect on what worked and what didn’t and apply it to the two quarters to come.  This applies in your career, but also with personal objectives.  This is also a time to assess what you’d like to become in the second half of the year and build towards it.  So with that in mind, I’m certainly reviewing and revising my business plan for 2019, and I’m doing the same with my personal plan.  They’re intertwined and should be scrutinized with equal measure.

      If there’s one theme constant across business and personal goals, it’s that I need to do more of the “good” things and less of the “bad” things.  Schedule more productive meetings and less unproductive meetings.  More exercise and less junk food.  More thoughtful discussion with key decision-makers, less checking the box with people who pay you lip service and never commit to buy.

      So the rowing and the 10 burpees per day are great, but increasing total meters rowed and incrementally moving the burpees up to 12 would be better so long as the shoulder pain is in check.  The shoulder injury occurred last fall when I pushed the daily total to 50 per day and ignored the objections my body was broadcasting clearly. So increase, but in manageable increments. Likewise, Increasing the number of productive face-to-face meetings is surely beneficial, and revising the target upward at the halfway mark is a good idea so long as it doesn’t dilute the quality of the meetings or ultimately the output in monthly sales revenue. Being the busiest isn’t a sign of most productive. In fact the two rarely seem to go hand and hand. Busywork can plug up the day but ultimately doesn’t get you anywhere. Someone I once worked with used the term “high gain activity” to describe the type of productive work that advances you towards your objectives, and I’ve adopted that phrase into my own vocabulary. Focusing on high gain activity means you aren’t hiding in your work, you’re maximizing your productivity through action.

      Productivity starts with knowing what you’re advancing towards, or as Epictetus said, knowing what you would be.  Sometimes that’s simple.  I would be better off healthier and twenty pounds lighter than I currently am, so that drives behavior like daily exercise and eating in moderation.  I could use more of each.  But larger goals require some deep thought and self-knowledge.  I would be better off long term in my career if I developed a more strategic and productive channel, met with more and better qualified clients and prospects and if I measure the results.

      “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” – Peter Drucker

      Tracking the key activities is essential to accomplishing the big things.  What gets tracked gets done.  Which means breaking down big goals into daily habits, which are tasks done automatically and repeated day-to-day.  Epictetus would say do what you have to do, Bill Bellichick would say “Do your job.” and Peter Drucker would say “Do you duty”.

      “Our duty is rarely easy, but it is important.  It’s also usually the harder choice.  But we must do it.” – Ryan Holiday

    • Stoic Reminders

      Welcome to the second half of the year!  Is the year half full or half empty?  I’ll go with full…  While WordPress doesn’t recognize it, I’ve written every day this year and plan to continue doing so for as long as I’m able to.  I bounce around a lot with topics, but I write about what draws my attention, and believe in a healthy mix of diversity and eclectic chaos in my otherwise structured life.

      Forget everything else.  Keep hold of this alone and remember it.  Each of us lives only now, this brief instant.  The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see.” – Marcus Aurelius

      The reminders are always there when you pay attention.  As a history buff reading some Scottish history in preparation for a fall trip I’m reading about people who have been dead for hundreds of years, but who’s lives resonate still today.  I write about dancing with ghosts, and I don’t mean the kind that haunt your house, but the kind that get into your mind.  I love to get to know the place where I am, and learn about the place I’m going to.  History tells one story, and the place itself tells another.  If you pay attention you see the old road that cuts through the forest, or an ancient stair tread that’s been worn down with thousands of footsteps over the years.  What an extraordinary thing that is – a stair tread that’s born the weight of people long departed from this world.  Their footstep, and mine today, each mark time as a drop of rain fills a pond.

      Lately I’ve been doing a lot of online research in preparation for a trip that happens in late October.  It’s funny how we get so excited about a trip four months away that we neglect the day at hand.  It’s okay to build plans, but there’s a lot of life to be lived until then.  The second half of the year has begun, and if it goes as quickly as the first half just went I’d best get moving for there’s no time to waste.

      “Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life.  Let us postpone nothing.  Let us balance life’s books each day…  The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” – Marcus Aurelius

      Thanks for the reminder Marcus…  and Ryan Holiday for the daily reminders.  The analogy of balancing life’s books every day is a good one.  We only have today, after all.  Tomorrow isn’t promised to us, but let’s plan (and hope) for a healthy, vibrant second half of the year anyway.

    • The Second Step is Easier

      “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – Chinese Proverb

      The first burpee is the worst one. More specifically, the first push-up on the first burpee is the worst one. Sure, they don’t get more pleasant later in the set, but then it’s just fatigue. On the first one you have to clear the hurdle too.

      I do these burpees at 6:15 AM, when the tightness in my shoulders stubbornly refuses to go quietly. Warming up on the erg helps, and some dynamic stretching gets the blood flowing in the old joints, but that first one is always a bear. Just getting on with it, fingers pointing slightly inward to relieve stress points, I shoot my legs back into plank position and slowly descend into the push-up. Creaking old guy complaints ensue and then recede; I’m on my way.

      The starting is the hard part. Always. But once you get going it becomes a lot easier.  The habit loop makes it easier to get some exercise in the morning, get some reading in, and to do some writing.  This morning was particularly foggy and the brain wasn’t completely wrapped around things until I started those burpees.  They have a way of focusing you quickly…  once you begin.

      And beginning is the theme of this morning.  Get started already, do what you’ve got to do to move forward.  Burpees, writing, work tasks…  whatever.  Carpe Diem isn’t just a clever quote in Dead Poets Society.  It’s a call to action not a poster on the wall.  Seize the day already!

      “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.” – Annie Dillard

      Dillard reminds us to structure our day to make the most of it.  And life is a series of days of course, though we don’t always see the forest for the trees…  I’ve been guilty of winging it over the years.  A scheduled day minimizes the downtime a restless mind carves out for you.  But not busywork; productive, planned tasks that move you forward.

      I’ve found the scheduled reading time immediately after exercise has been highly beneficial.  And starting with a little stoicism before reading whatever book I’m tackling is like finishing that first burpee – I’m focused and ready for what comes next.  The Daily Stoic is a good level set for me that I wish I’d discovered earlier in life.  Ryan Holiday boils down the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca and other great Stoics into bite sized daily chunks.  I wish I’d thought to write this book, but since he did I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

      That habit loop got the heart rate up today, but also got the electrodes firing in the brain.  When the student is ready the teacher will appear….   and the messages keep piling up this morning.  James Clear Tweeted his own reminder to get on with it today:

      “Life is short.

      And if life is short, then moving quickly matters. Launch the product. Write the book. Ask the question. Take the chance.

      Be thoughtful, but get moving.”

      And on cue, Mookie starts whipping me with her tail as she murders the birds outside the window in her mind.  I haven’t done all the reading I wanted to do this morning, but I can’t ignore the messages.  Get to it.  I realized that I haven’t had a second cup of coffee this morning.  Somehow that fog I walked downstairs with has lifted without the need for much caffeine.  And the day is well underway now.  Best to focus on the next task at hand.

    • Stoicism and Daily Habits

      I’m pondering a pair of quotes from the stoics.  They go well together of course; each a call to action.  And these quotes also pair well with two books I’m reading right now.

      “Give yourself fully to your endeavors.  Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal.  The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths” – Epictetus

      “Not to assume it’s impossible because you find it hard.  But to recognize that if it’s humanly possible, you can do it too.” – Marcus Aurelius

      I’ve been reading a gem of a book, The Daily Stoic, by Ryan Holiday.  This book, as the name indicates, is a daily practice.  Get up in the morning, read the one page quote and thoughts on it from Holiday.  In these days of phone addiction, this is a ritual that I’m enjoying.  I usually switch immediately to reading a few pages of whatever book I’m onto at the moment.  At the moment that means Atomic Habits by James Clear.  Brilliantly crafted book with actionable steps for the reader to establish better daily habits.

      Action is the trick.  Today I had a good day because I took action on the objectives I’d laid out for myself.  Tomorrow I hope to build on today’s momentum with more action and perhaps some solid results.  Consistent daily effort, over time, leads to results.  Nothing new in this, and yet so hard to see the forest for the trees sometimes.  That’s one reason I read so many books like this.  They reinforce the message, dilute the impact of the crushing negativity on social media, the news and from the fellowship of the miserable.

      You are the average of the people you hang with the most.  So I choose to hang out with authors and thought leaders who lead me in the direction I want to go in.  Reading and podcasts offer much more than television and talk radio.  So we’ll see how far of a leap forward I take.  But staying where you are in a rapidly changing world is really going backwards.  And I’m not going to go backwards.

    • Christmas Stoicism

      On”Do what nature demands.  Get a move on – if you have it in you – and don’t worry whether anyone will give you credit for it.  And don’t go expecting Plato’s Republic; be satisfied with even the smallest progress, and treat the outcome of it all as unimportant.” – Marcus Aurulius

      Stoicism and Christianity started at roughly the same time.  I embrace stoicism not as a rejection of Christianity, but because it completes the story for me.  Merry Christmas – and Memento Mori.

    • Tomatoes, Chicken Shit and Marcus Aurelius

      “…. Leaves that the wind. Drives earthward; such are the generations of men.”
                                                                                         – Marcus Aurelius (quoting Homer)

      “Even as are the generations of leaves, such are those also of men. As for the leaves, the wind scattereth some upon the earth, but the forest, as it bourgeons, putteth forth others when the season of spring is come; even so of men one generation springeth up and another passeth away.”
                                                                                        – Homer, The Iliad with the original quote

      We’re in the prime of growing season now and the tomato plants that I grew from seed are over knee high.  I’ve tried a couple of things this year that I haven’t done previously.  First, growing from seed instead of just buying plants at a local nursery.  I did that just because I wanted to do something “summer” in the middle of what seemed like an endless “winter”.  And second, I switched to chicken manure instead of composted cow manure.  This is a nod to my grandfather, who was known to gush about the benefits of chicken manure for growing kick ass tomatoes.  So far that seems to be bearing out.  Chicken shit is a derogatory term, but the real stuff packs a punch; pungent, powerful and efficient (a little goes a long way).

      The more I garden, the more I recognize the seasons for what they are.  And the longer I live, the more I see the similarities between our lives and the seasons.  There’s nothing revolutionary in this thought process, just refer to Homer and Marcus Aurelius and you see that countless generations of humans have thought the same thing.  This is our season, make the most of it.  Don’t fear the end, embrace the now.  I don’t view this as fatalistic, but pragmatic.  Believe me I’m in it for the long haul but know the deck of cards doesn’t always play out in your favor.

      A couple of seasons ago I had a problem with groundhogs eating half of my tomatoes and leaving the rest to rot in the sun.  Apparently they’d rather sample than finish the fruit.  Lovely habit.  Around the same time I had a nice batch of blueberries ripening in the sun.  The birds picked every last one of them before they showed a tint of blue.  Lesson learned.  Last year I planted pole beans to fill in around a clematis vine I had growing on a trellis.  The rabbits ate them all to the ground before they’d even reached a foot tall.  You just never know what fate brings your way, but I’ve learned to take measures to protect the fruits of my labor.  Don’t go through life trusting blindly that everything will be just fine.  Fence in your fruits and vegetables, change your passwords and lock your doors; trust but verify.

      “Life is short.  That’s all there is to say.  Get what you can from the present – thoughtfully, justly.  Unrestrained moderation.” – Marcus Aurelius

      Our growing season is pretty short, but it’s long enough to grow decent tomatoes.  Provide plenty of sunlight, nourish and give them a drink now and then, protect them from those who would harm them and if you’re lucky you end up with beautiful, ripe tomatoes later in the season.  It’s a basic formula for gardening and raising children, and it works well for how we maintain ourselves along the way too.  The last step of course is to savor the things you produce, the good fortune that comes your way, and the season that you’re in.