Alexandersmap

    Tag: Arete

    • Giving Attention

      “Time and attention are not something we can replenish. They are what our life is. When we offer our time and attention, we are not merely spending and paying. We are giving our lives.”
      — Robert Waldinger, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

      Many get it wrong when they think about making changes in their lives, believing they’re giving up something instead of the other side of that coin: choosing something better. Transformation begins with what we focus our attention on. Just imagine what we could do if we simply paid attention to the right things for a year, or a decade, or a lifetime? But that’s too broad a spectrum. Focus on today instead. Today will always be the day that requires our full attention.

      So what do we pay attention to? Inevitably, that’s where our time goes. Time in itself is a measure, but we can spend time without giving our full attention. Consider a casual restaurant on a busy night. How many scroll their phones while sitting at the dinner table? Are they giving attention to those they are dining with, or is it merely spending time together? When we pay attention to those we love, we are giving more than just our time, we are putting the rest of the universe on hold for the person in front of us. Isn’t that the ultimate gift?

      What gift are we giving ourselves today? What are we consuming that will make us better? Not just food, but information, and feedback from the network of people that surround us. What are we telling ourselves in these moments, or are we distracting ourselves to drown out that inner voice? Maybe we ought to pay more attention to that voice. Surely it has something it wants to tell us.

      Attention is a muscle that we may develop. It brings us to awareness, which is essential to our growth and development. This idea of personal excellence (arete) that I write about frequently in this blog is not some clever affirmation, it’s a daily ritual of discovery and reach. Decide what to be and go be it. What are we waiting for? More time? Our time is right now, waiting for us to finally pay attention and get to it already.

    • The Path

      “You can figure this thing out. And your path is going to be different from my path… but there’s certain principles that you can apply to whatever your individual path [is]. And you can learn about the value of discipline and of personal autonomy and personal accountability and figure out how to get better. You’re going to have failures and they’re going to feel awful, they’re going to feel terrible, but they’re very valuable. And you can’t shy away from them because that’s where you learn how to get better. And then your feelings of success, don’t dwell on those either because it’s not about that. It’s really about this path. The path is what it’s all about. It’s really about learning how to live, and learning how to exist in a harmonious way with not just other people but also with yourself. And you have to have respect for yourself, and the only way you develop respect for yourself is you have to know what you’ve done. You have to know that you’ve worked really hard. That you’ve overcome things. And known that you’ve had these little mental battles, these bad ways of thinking, that you’ve turned around. And you realize that that’s possible. I did it before I’ll do it again.” — Joe Rogan, Episode 23352 – James Talarico

      I don’t listen to a lot of Joe Rogan podcasts, because I’ve unfairly thought of him as another bro perpetuating conspiracy theories. But he runs far deeper than that, beginning with a strong desire to listen and understand those that he has conversations with. This episode with James Talarico is a great example of that. But what really caught my attention was Rogan’s description of the path he’s been on, from martial arts to wealthy and influential podcaster. The path is the thing—the path has always been the thing. We just get so distracted by the noise of life that many of us neglect staying the course.

      The thing is, we’re all on a path of our making. That path may lead to the promised land or to our destruction, but it’s our path because we are the ones who are on it. Don’t like the path? Step off of it and take your first steps on another path. See where it leads and decide whether to stay on that one. Paths are simple (if not always easy)—it’s our busy and distracted mind that trips us up. Discipline, focus and an earnest desire to see the path through are what keep us on the path. That’s a life leading towards arete: personal excellence. May we all get closer to our version of it this day.

      I’m on my current path just a little while longer. For 52 days I’ve been focused on better health and fitness, learning and practicing a higher level of discipline and mental toughness. I’ve learned a lot in these 52 days, but mostly I’ve learned to simply stay on the path and do what I promised myself I’d do. Next month I may stay on this path or climb up to something even more challenging, but I know that this path is leading me to that one. Sticking to a path always leads us somewhere. Why not make it somewhere better than where we’ve been?

    • Beauty, Grace and Connection

      “Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.” — Zahid Abas

      Worry is a distraction conjured by the mind. We have plenty we can worry about in this world, but what do we gain by doing so? We gain ground when we focus on the direction we wish to go in, not by looking sideways or behind us. How many Olympic sprinters win looking sideways for the entire race?

      In general, we become what we focus on. This blog tends towards the positive and the productive for a reason. I will continue to hold the line on character while seeking to raise the bar towards personal excellence (arete). To squander this gift of life on petty grievances is as wasteful as staying inside on a beautiful day. We must always venture outside of ourselves if we hope to find beauty, and we ought to be inclined to share what we encounter along the way.

      I won’t tell you that life is all roses and sunshine. There are challenges and setbacks, painful loss and pervasive madness and cruelty in the world working to grind us down. We may be aware of all of this and still focus on beauty, grace and connection. The richness of a wonderful life is sown through awareness of everything, while still favoring the light.

    • So Is Life

      “As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.” ― Seneca

      The neighbors must think I’m crazy at this point. Walking all the time, sometimes with the pup, but sometimes without. Rain or shine, extreme heat or biting cold. I don’t care if they think I’m crazy. They’ve known me long enough to have formed opinions I can’t possibly sway one way or the other. What matters is the walk, what matters is doing what I said I’d do.

      I tried writing later in the day. I keep returning to the morning, so long as I’m not rushing off to catch a flight or some such thing. When something works extremely well for you, why change it? Surely we must test our theories, beliefs and assumptions, but having done so, we can safely stick with the things that move us in the direction we wish to go in. The writing habit is fully embedded in my identity now. The question now is where to take it next?

      As is a tale, so is life… What kind of creative storytelling are we doing with our lives? We forget sometimes that we are the authors of our days while we’re so busy reacting to the world and our place in it. We must remember our agency. We must remember our lives are an expression of growth and creativity born out of time well spent.

      Seneca also said that life, if well lived, is long enough. But what is well lived? That’s different for each of us, but I think it begins with growing closer to the personal excellence we aspire to. A bit of exercise, a bit of creative work, time with friends and family, and the pursuit of a larger life than the one we started today with seems the path to health, wealth and happiness. Those three pillars may or may not be in the cards for us, but they’re more likely to be a part of our lives if we apply ourselves to constant and never-ending improvement.

      When is enough enough? When do we stop working to grow and begin to simply enjoy what we’ve got? The question itself is a test of philosophy. Would we stop reading books because we finished a great novel? Would we stop writing because we reached some milestone, be it number of blog posts or publishing that book that’s been forever haunting us? The question is flawed, for it infers that we may be more content settling into satisfaction and rest. But isn’t stasis decline when viewed against the progression of life?

      How good a life we have is measured by more than how happy we are, it’s measured by how big a ripple we might leave one day. It’s measured by the love reflected back at us by people we care to move through this one precious life with. It’s measured by how long our health span is, and what we do with that healthy time. We will all be dust one day, but not just yet—so what matters greatly to us this day? We must be earnest in our pursuit of it, for there lies our evasive personal excellence. Look at how far we’ve come. Is this not good? Our tale grows more compelling by the day.

    • 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.