Alexandersmap

    Tag: Arete

    • Wrestling Back a Life

      And, I know a woman
      Became a wife
      These are the very words she uses to describe her life
      She said, “A good day
      Ain’t got no rain”
      She said, “A bad day’s when I lie in bed
      And think of things that might have been
      — Paul Simon, Slip Slidin’ Away

      When we get busy with life—the kind of busy that compresses each day into small wins amongst the incremental progress, we feel the time slipping away. Time moves the same, we just fill it differently. Put a lot into it and it flies along quite rapidly. Leave it empty and purposeless and it seems to drag on forever. There’s some balance to be found there somewhere.

      Lately, my own days are filled to the brim. I wanted this for myself, I repeatedly say each day when I put my feet on the floor and stand for another go at life. Fill the day; keep regret at bay. We must wrestle back a life of purpose from the chaos of the world that would steal our time and distract us from the beautiful work yet to be done.

      We owe it to ourselves to live a life of awareness, and with that clarity reach for a higher standard for ourselves in the things that mean the most for us. Arete, or personal excellence, will be forever just out of reach, and yet we may get closer with each day filled with purposeful action. The time will slip and slide away in any case, but we may mitigate the might have beens.

    • The Whisper

      “The key to efficiency is doing things right. The key to effectiveness is doing the right things.” — Peter Drucker

      I’ve made some changes this summer that have in turn changed how I spend my time. Things I did in an unfocused way have become very focused, while things I shouldn’t have focused on at all have been removed entirely from my day. When we make changes, it’s important to take stock of how we react to these changes. What do we want more of? What do we miss? Which habits are going to finally stick and which will we forever be trying to kick?

      The trick in Drucker’s quote is knowing enough to stop doing the wrong things. We haven’t got time for wrong things in this brief go at things. Knowing the difference between what is right for us and what isn’t thus becomes essential to an effective life. But what is right and what is wrong anyway?

      To borrow from The Tubes old song, what do you want from life? What are we being efficient at that doesn’t align with what we want? If we’re moving with purpose but we’re going in the wrong direction aren’t we just wasting time? Life requires constant assessment. To check the compass now and then to find our true north before taking another step. But knowing what our true north is in the first place requires a level of self-awareness that takes time to develop.

      So it is that we must tackle everything we do as if it’s the most important thing in the world for us in that moment. Painting a room? Aim for perfect lines. Writing a proposal? Look for words that inspire and eliminate what detracts from the real message until it flows like a clear mountain stream. Grilling dinner? Turn down the heat and focus on the perfect moment to flip that fillet. Perfection lies within us, waiting for us to focus on every opportunity to reveal it.

      Any task or odd job will speak to us, informing us that yes, this is the right path, or no, this won’t do for us. If we half-ass the work, we’ll never know the potential in it (let alone our own potential). The whisper comes to those who are focused on excellence in whatever they do. That doesn’t mean we have to keep doing it once we’ve determined it isn’t right for us, but having done it well, we may leave it behind with honor and a hint for where to go next on our journey.

    • Improve, Correct and Change

      “Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out. Time is limited. Focus on that which you can improve, correct, or change. Ignore what you can’t control.” — John Wooden

      We have a way of cramming more things into our days in our culture of growth and achievement. This can lead to some exhausting days, over and over again, until we collapse at whatever finish line we perceive is the end. Maybe that’s a nightcap when we get home, or sinking into the couch binge-watching some version of apocalyptic programming, or heading to the bars on Friday night—or maybe Thursday night. Whatever flips off the switch for a few blessed moments. It’s a slipperly slope of finish line focus.

      There is no finish line until one day we’re finished. We must build a life of meaning and productive purpose that isn’t measured by when we get to stop. What kind of life is that? The better objective is to fill our days with the things that matter most while the unimportant drifts away without the opportunity to land on our shoulders. Easier said than done. But it often comes down to what we say yes or no to. Learning to ignore what we can’t control is the key to a successful, happy life.

      I write this as a reminder to myself. Because more than just focusing on what we can control, we must choose what is within our control that will make the most meaningful change in our lives. Prioritization is thus the key. Which reminds me of the old Stephen Covey lesson about doing first things first: we must fill our days with the big things first, and let all the rest fill in after. To do the opposite means that our big things never get done.

      All that said, I’ve committed to a couple of changes in my daily routine this summer. It means the writing begins a little later than it was before so that I may complete a workout and read some non-fiction before I write. At this point in the game, the habit of writing is set, but the workouts tend to drift into a quick walk with the pup before bedtime if I don’t prioritize it first. I can’t control how the day will go, but I can best influence the way I begin it.

      When we seek to improve, correct and change what is within our control, while putting first things first, we sprinkle purpose into our days. Each day thus becomes a stepping stone towards a higher standard of living. To get closer to arete (personal excellence) requires consistent, focused effort on the right things. Today and always.

    • The Ecstasy

      “There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.
      This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad in a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight.”
      — Jack London, The Call of the Wild

      I witnessed the ecstasy on the face of a two year old mutt with mascara eyes turned shrewd hunter. My carefully-planted garden was no match for the hunter, nor was the fence—designed to keep rabbits out but not the chipmunks, and not the joyful leap of youthful hunter, straining after the food that was alive. And so I scolded her without success. I barred entry only to have her run to the other side. And finally I brought her in, if only as a reprieve until the fence could be raised.

      The ecstasy isn’t something we’re aware of nearly enough when we’re riding that high. When we’re in peak form it feels like it will always will be so, if we ponder such things at all. Nowadays I hunt for moments in the zone, where I may perform at my personal peak, striving for arete even as I understand how evasive that level of personal excellence will always be. The writing offers a taste of that hunter’s zeal, and sometimes work offers it too. And I realized, placing fence pieces atop the garden fence between paragraphs of a blog post, that the garden has offered its own version of complete forgetfulness. At least before it was shredded by youthful vigor.

    • If We Are To

      “Which was the braver, the one who left, or the one who stayed?”
      ― Margaret Craven, I Heard the Owl Call My Name

      Craven’s book was made into a movie that I think about sometimes. As an upperclassman I watched it in a class taught by a great professor who I wished I’d stayed in touch with. Now that I’m the age that some of those great professors were at then, I sometimes wish aging wasn’t a thing at all—that we might play by a different rule as humans where accumulation of experience might bring us together in the same place and time.

      Aging is a thing. And we do have an opportunity to come together with people of our own time, as those giants from our past grow more distant by the day. Or rather, we do. The person we remember is trapped in the amber of those moments. We simply catch up to where they were once. Who’s to say how far they have gone since? And who’s to say how far we may go ourselves? We know that answer is hiding in plain sight.

      We must move on from who we once were if we are to become something else. If we are to strive to meet our potential. If we are to dare to reach closer to personal excellence. There are a lot of “If we are to’s” in a lifetime. We learn that excellence isn’t static, it’s a carrot on a stick just out of reach but making us hungrier by the day. Sometimes we’re so busy reaching for the carrot we forget we’re satiated already. Sometimes we tell ourselves we’re satiated just to stifle the ache of hunger.

      We play by the rules made by someone else or we step off the trail and blaze our own. What makes the person who steps away any braver than the one who stays to keep it all together? The answer lies in the question itself: What is it that we keep together anyway? What is it that we step away from? Are we trapped in the amber of who we once aspired to be or still striving to reach another version of ourselves? Bravery is facing these questions squarely and having the agency to do something with the answers. Whether we stay or we go, we must dare to grow.

    • Honor

      “The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.” — Socrates

      The world is full of honor, but it is also full of people who fall short of honorable behavior. We may be rightfully outraged by the dishonorable, but we ought to remember that we live in a glass house before we throw stones. The question of honor always begins with the one person we can control. When we realize this and begin to hold ourselves to a higher standard, we tend to rise to meet it.

      To simply do what we tell ourselves we’re going to do is so very easy, and so very hard all at once. I’m still writing every day, not because I aspire to clicks and comments, but because I promised myself I’d do it. On the flip side, I have a rowing ergometer gathering dust because I can’t seem to find the time to row for a few minutes in my busy days. There’s honor in showing up. There’s no honor in finding excuses. And still there’s hope for us if we’d only try another day.

      The act of being is a journey of discovery. We learn something new about ourselves every day. Sometimes we like what we see, sometimes we recoil in disgust, but we ought to learn to be patiently persistent with the student. No matter what the world does, we may become more honorable every day, so long as we keep showing up aspiring towards improvement. Personal excellence demands our best. Our best begins with honor.

    • Aspiring to Excellence

      “I know you won’t believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.” — Socrates

      “As he valued excellence less and less, he began to lose his skill in assuming it.” — Mary Renault, The Last of the Wine

      For years I’ve been writing this blog, talking of that evasive personal excellence and its ancient philosophy, arete. We know that we’ll never reach it, only to get closer, until one day we release all we’ve gained to eternity. We may view this as an impossible goal and aim lower, or as a worthy height to ascend towards, offering views we’d never see if we hadn’t attempted to go even higher. Most of us tend to stick with attainable goals. And so it is that we are the lesser for having lowered our expectations of ourselves. That truth becomes apparent over time.

      Still, we may reach that time when we recognize what we’ve opted out of and choose to opt in to something more. Just as bucket lists give people who are late to the game a chance to realize some of those dreams deferred for other things, we may choose an aspirational list of personal growth that leads us closer to our potential. We may not run a PR in the marathon as we grow older, but we can fully explore our intellectual potential for as long as our mental faculty allows.

      The key is to determine a higher standard of living for which we will aspire towards, and attempt to exceed our standard from yesterday today. We may be late bloomers whatever our age, but damnit, we may bloom yet. We may aspire to arete, our evasive personal excellence, and grow to meet the potential within us. Life shouldn’t be a series of settlements of our standards for ourselves, but a steady climb to better. Shouldn’t it?

    • Where Do 2500 Blog Posts Bring Us?

      “You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journals of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861

      This is the 2500th blog post published. Countless others never made it this far, but surely influenced me just the same. The process of writing informs, whether the world sees what we write or not. But to publish is to be bold, today, at least for one audacious moment.

      I ask myself, sometimes, what took me so long to come to blogging? I ask myself, why I would ever write another? Each post is a minor victory in productive ritual. Each underscores a strong desire to learn and grow and become something more. A late bloomer coming to a dying art just as reading seems passé to the hip crowd. And yet, once in a while some words resonate with another.

      The thing is, I began writing thinking I might change the world, I ended up changing myself. Talk of heaven and hell is often nothing more than deferring our one and only opportunity to live and be what we will. There is no other life than this, and I’m inclined to go and do and see and be while I can. We know what’s coming for us, and ignore it at our peril.

      So where have 2500 blog posts brought us? It’s always been a call to action to go forth and see new places. And the places! Faraway and deep within, forever seeking the new and interesting. Forever changing, forever changed, with an eye on personal excellence (arete) that will be just out of reach but worth the effort. To make the most of every day we’re blessed with and write a few words about it again and again until one day it ends. One step closer to knowing with each blog published.

      Postscript: In a moment of humbling realization, 2500 blog posts brought a typo in the title, since corrected but forever locked in on social media and emailed articles. We must laugh and toast to nothing. I’m a long way from arete but trying just the same.

    • Beyond the Walls of Belief

      “There are two different types of people in this world. Those who want to know and those who want to believe,” — Friedrich Nietzsche

      We all believe in something, but we ought to recognize the blinders we’ve put on as we wrap our minds around it. Beliefs are made to be challenged. And so we must be open to the provocation if we wish to grow beyond who we currently are.

      We know the world is full of people who want no such thing. Belief is a corridor with high walls. Zealous believers are inclined to believe just about anything that reinforces the core beliefs they came into the conversation with. We ought to reflect in that moment on our own core beliefs as well, that we may see the walls we’ve built.

      Growth comes from knowledge, not belief. Knowledge is the goal. Knowledge of universal truth, knowledge of the self, knowledge of becoming and reaching for our potential. Personal excellence may reside just beyond our reach, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still reach.

      The thing is, we ought to recognize what our inclinations are and learn to provoke and challenge ourselves with each step. When we’ve settled on a belief we tend to stay in place with it. I may believe that all people who voted differently than I did were fools or fanatics, but believing that puts me in a box from which I’ll never climb out of until I learn to see something else about those people. I walk through my community knowing roughly half of them would judge me ill-informed with my own vote. None of us have it all figured out, and judging others is just another wall built of belief. The better question is always, where do we go from here?

      Where is the path forward when everyone is building walls with their beliefs? We must become aware of who we are and where we have holes to fill in our own incomplete masterpiece. Each step on our journey offers insight into who we might be if we would only stop believing we’ve got it all figured out.

    • Changing the Game

      “Inspiration is perishable. Act on it immediately.” — Naval Ravikant

      Life is an ongoing encounter with moments of action. Action is either taken or deferred, which moves us in one distinct direction or another. Attainment is a series of choices to act just as stasis is a series of choices not to act. One single choice to act or not to act changes the game.

      “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

      Some days we are jolted into action. The scale gives us a number that horrifies us, the casual glance at the phone almost turns into a fender bender, the customer isn’t so friendly anymore. We know immediately in such moments that we’ve got to change our game. The choices become clear with the consequences.

      Other behavior isn’t so obvious. Vitality dies of neglect over time in our work, our relationships, our health and with our finances. Going through the motions is just another way of choosing not to act even if it feels like we’re busy. How many organizations that have lost their way schedule meeting upon meeting to avoid the uncomfortable truth that meaningful action is being neglected? How much of our own busywork is nothing but sidestepping the real work we must do in our own lives?

      “Anything above zero compounds.” — Sahil Bloom

      Do something, now, that changes the game. One pushup is better than zero. One call to an old friend is better than not making that call. And one minute focused on creative and meaningful work is better than spending that minute doom-scrolling yet again. What compounds from nothing? Nothing. Doing some small thing and then doing it again in our next moment of choosing action over inaction compounds into change.

      Life isn’t a game. We must choose deliberately who we will become and act on those choices again and again until we reach the person we wish to be. Personal excellence (Arete) requires an action-oriented lifestyle. We can only get from here and closer to there through consistent action. So what are we waiting for?