Alexandersmap

    Tag: Albert Einstein

    • Aware and Alive

      “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ― Albert Einstein

      Saying yes to more things is the opposite of a focused life. A focused life requires focus on one thing at the expense of all other things. That one thing may lead to mastery. Those many things may lead to diverse perspective and the ability to manage complexity, which in turn enables us to navigate a life full of its inevitable twists and turns. Which is a better way to live a full life?

      The answer is naturally ours to know. I believe it’s to work towards mastery in something, while striving to experience as much as possible each day. Awareness and an inclination to take the plunge into the next potential miracle are our ticket to the promise of the coming day.

      I’m no Jeremiah, saying a phrase like that. Miracles are ours to realize in how we live our lives each day. Our life may be modest or bold—each brings its own opportunity to encounter that which is beyond us. Are we aware of all that moves around us? It’s all a miracle, and so too are we. Our interaction with the world is ours alone, and never to be repeated in this dance with infinity.

      The question remains: What will we do with this miracle?

    • The Dog and the Frog

      “A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.” — Albert Einstein

      Every morning I let the puppy out to relieve herself. Inevitably, she ignores her full bladder and makes a beeline for the pool to see who is swimming there today. Most mornings this time of year there’s a frog bobbing around with the acorns believing it’s found paradise on earth. And so the standoff begins. The pup will circle for hours if I let her, chasing something that she’ll never catch. The only way to break the spell is to take the net and rescue the frog from the pool, relocating it over the fence. Tomorrow it will likely be right back in there again, awaiting the pup. This would go on each morning until the end of time if the season wasn’t drawing to a close.

      Are we any better than the dog following the frog? We also run around in circles relentlessly pursuing some concept of happiness or success, as if either are tangible. Reach for either and we find it’s bobbing somewhere other than the place we just dove for it. Each are nothing but ideas of what we think we ought to be.

      The aim of life is growth. A tadpole or a mighty oak measures it’s time alive in growth, and so should we. We ought to break the spell of chasing happiness or success, whatever the heck those mean to us and focus instead on purposeful gain. What might our net gain be today with a change in focus? Knowledge or strength? Enlightenment? A deeper understanding of ourselves and our place in this world?

      Forget about running in circles with nothing to show for it but a wet nose. Break the spell of the chase and focus on incremental growth instead. Whatever moves the needle forward in a meaningful way towards personal excellence and growth are the true wins for the day. Stack enough of these wins together and we may realize a state of happiness and success.

    • Connecting Miracles

      “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” — Albert Einstein

      I spoke with one of my aunts yesterday. I don’t see her and my uncle all that much now. Really, I don’t see any of my aunts and uncles much now. In fact, most of the people who were central to my identity in the first half of my life are not very present today. Childhood friends and enemies, teammates, old coworkers and that person we went on the nervous date with once upon a time. Life gets busy, we tell ourselves.

      The truth is that we can’t be everywhere at once, and some people who mean the world to us gradually slip away as the gap of time and place grows. A bridge requires strong anchors on both sides, but oftentimes we forget to tend our own end of things. So many people in our lives want for a simple call and conversation. We have more power for connection than we utilize in our frenzied, important lives. And what is really all that important anyway?

      We have this one go at things. When we view our lives as a miracle of infinitesimal chance in the cold expanse of the universe, we may appreciate our waking up to face whatever our day brings us a little better. When we consider our fellow time travelers, living their own miracle moment at the same time that we are, well, perhaps we might appreciate their presence a little more. We are stardust, after all, and so is that older neighbor down the street, that barista serving us go juice and the guy that just cut us off on the highway. All miracles in the moment; starstruck and dumbfounded in where we find ourselves. Go figure.

      Connecting miracles is a mission we opt into. Active engagement with the world is a choice. Using that mobile device to actually make a call instead of watching another curated video is a bridge to someone else who may be in desperate need of a reminder that they too are a miracle. Connection is harder than ever in this world of distraction and outrage, but it’s our choice to make.

    • Different Things

      “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” — Attributed to Albert Einstein (but probably someone else lost to history)

      Habits have gotten us this far. Writing every day, for me best exemplified by this humble little blog, has expanded my experiences in the world as I sought out interesting things to write about. Reading every day pays dividends in creative thinking, a more expansive vocabulary and generally helps on trivia nights. These are habits that have brought me here, for all that here represents, and I’m grateful for having done them.

      And yet, some habits hold us back. I developed a routine during the pandemic of sitting at the home office desk and largely working from my desk. I bought a cool and comfortable chair. I bought a sit/stand desk that the cool chair neatly rolls under. I’ve gotten very comfortable in this space. Too comfortable. That routine no longer works in a world that wants engagement, and I force myself out into the world more often.

      If we want different outcomes, we’ve got to do different things. And so we must find new positive habits, systems and routines to replace the old ones. To try to stay the same represents stasis and our eventual decline. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep reading and writing and working out, but it does mean we ought to question why we do things a certain way and look for ways to improve.

      I made a decision this week to stop doing Duolingo, the language learning app that has been a part of my routine for 5-6 years now. It’s become an obligation to keep a streak of days going, but I’m not serious enough about it to actually reach proficiency in the languages I’m trying to learn while using it. Plus they keep ruining the experience by making it more of a game to lure more young users in. More power to them, but it doesn’t resonate with me anymore. And so it joins other apps that seemed productive once and now ring hollow. Au revoir Duo.

      The thing is, that’s not the only part of my daily routine that I’m questioning. I’m ready to turn it all upside down and try a new routine on for size. I almost shut down the blog a while back, but recognize the value in writing every day and changed my expectations about it instead. The first thing one ought to do with any habit is ask why we do it in the first place? What’s our why? Where is it bringing us? If we don’t like the answer, change the habit.

      Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
      Tell me, what is it you plan to do
      with your one wild and precious life?
      — Mary Oliver, The Summer Day

      Thanks for the reminder, Mary. Yes, we’re all going to be lost to history one day, too soon: Memento mori. When are we going to stop diddling around with a routine that wastes our precious life and get on the path to meet our potential? Personal excellence (arete) is evasive, but it’s mostly a lifestyle choice. We can choose to keep getting better at the things that matter the most on our trajectory or we can get distracted by silly things. The choice has always been ours to make.

    • Coloring Beyond

      “Live life to the fullest. You have to color outside the lines once in a while if you want to make your life a masterpiece. Laugh some every day, keep growing, keep dreaming, keep following your heart. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” — Albert Einstein

      I’m usually suspicious of quotes attributed to famous people but can’t find anything that contradicts the source, so thanks for the advice, uh, Albert. He seemed like the kind of guy who might have actually said it anyway. But I digress…

      I was always a meticulous “color within the lines” kind of wanna-be artist. The lines were there for a reason, weren’t they? Don’t stray beyond, I’d tell myself. It wasn’t until I was older that I started figuring out that the lines were just someone else’s interpretation of where they should be. And I started straying beyond and finding out that that’s where the magic is. So I’d stray a bit farther still.

      When you color outside the lines you begin to notice the other people who color beyond the lines. There’s a whole community of outside the lines people fully enjoying their lives while the inside the lines people grind through their days. Coloring beyond is invigorating and a bit audacious. Following other people’s rules is constricting and subservient. Who do we really want to be, ourselves or someone else’s version of who we ought to be?

      Monday mornings feel a bit different when you stray outside the lines. At the moment, I’m thinking I ought to stray a bit further to see just how audacious I can be today. We can’t make our own masterpiece following someone else’s plan, can we? Carpe diem, friend.

    • Finding Balance, One Step at a Time

      “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein

      Walking into a hotel room, exhausted after a long day on my feet and driving three hours for the privilege of sleeping in a town previously unknown to me, I looked at my Apple Watch to find out what the score was. I’m a streaky player in this game of life, and currently I’m hitting 10,000 steps per day and closing all my “circles” every day for 22 days. My watch informed me that I still had work to do, still (despite how tired you feel buckaroo). Reluctantly I slipped on running shoes and walk down the stairs for a reckoning with the pavement.

      Streaks keep us honest, forcing our hand when we’re on the fence and could easily slip towards the comforts of life. My inclination last night was to grab a drink at the bar before it closed and read a book I’ve been putting off. But comfort zones are for people that don’t want to go anywhere in life. That’s not us, friend.

      We must keep moving, and push ourselves to move a bit more than we’d like now and then. This bicycle ride won’t last forever, will it? And there’s just so much left to see.

    • Doing More

      “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” – Albert Einstein

      Change happens slowly, one habit reinforced at a time. Some reach 10,000 views in one post, but most of us chip away for a few years of daily writing to get that first 10,000. Tolstoy filled War and Peace with 587,287 words. By that standard I’ve got a ways to go. I’ve only published 401K.

      Diet, for all intents and purposes, is one morsel shoved in your mouth to the next. You want to eat better? Don’t make an exception for that tasty treat you’re eying. Want to get fit? Move more, and more consistently. Simple, right?

      We all have reasons for the habits and beliefs we linger in. Life is a grind, after all. Sometimes the best you can do is walk to the refrigerator to see what inspires you that day. The world, as we’ve created it, can eat you up.

      Yesterday was a great day to be outside in New Hampshire, and I took full advantage of that with a hike up Mount Jackson. A hike like that, with friends and on a beautiful winter day, leaves a mark inside. It reinforces who you are in some ways, but alters your thinking as well. Standing on the summit of Jackson and looking up at Mount Washington, I thought it well within reach. I’ve climbed Washington before, but not lately. Looking up at Washington yesterday, cold breeze chilling my sweaty clothes, I thought it possible to do more.