Alexandersmap

    Tag: Carpe Diem

    • Domino Days

      “I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.” — Françoise Sagan

      At some point in our lives we must turn our best intentions into action and do the things we claim we want to do. Otherwise we are adding our voice to the choir of quiet desperation Thoreau warned us about. Playing a bigger part in the play of life naturally leads to more things to talk about, which is nice in conversation, but it also leads us to a string of ever-larger dominos disguised as days. The thrill is in seeing how big we can grow our days, simply built upon the one before.

      There’s nothing wrong with lining up a row of our days of like size, one after the other, for a time that suits us. When we raise children, every day feels like the same-sized day of changing diapers, making lunches, helping with homework, driving them to practice, teaching them how to drive and suddenly(!) moving them to college. We’re simply helping them line up their own domino days, along with our own. It turns out those days are growing in scope too, we were just to busy to realize it at the time.

      There are days when it feels like we’ll never topple those larger dominos, but each incremental day builds towards something more substantial still. Our unbroken string of days pays off with an ever-bigger life. It’s the gaps that force us to start all over again. Mind the gap, as the Brits say, and step into the next thing. Soon we’re really going somewhere.

      The blog you’re reading now (thank you) is a string of dominos disguised as daily posts taking both of us somewhere bigger than where we started. When we view our writing and our lives in this way, we begin to see that it’s all about building and sustaining momentum, thus increasing our contribution for the days beyond this one. Growth is inevitable in both our writing and our lives when we just keep pushing a little further along.

    • Adding More

      “If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.” — Fred Devito

      These are challenging times, to be sure, but there’s opportunity on the other side of those challenges. We may either face them and continue to grow or cower at the sight of them and shrink back into what might have been. We are what we put into our days, and really nothing more than that but a bit of dumb luck and random chance. Luck and chance will only take us so far—I like the odds of growing into our potential instead.

      Challenges can be thrust upon us, like losing a job or getting a diagnosis we weren’t expecting, or it can be incremental, like increasing the intensity of a workout each time we do it. Each challenge offers an opportunity for the mind and body. Is this my limit, or can I go further? We have a choice in how to react, as Viktor Frankl pointed out, to any challenge. The freedom of that choice is profoundly ours alone.

      We can choose to add more challenge to our days, with a goal of growth and change. Adding more changes us profoundly: Reading and writing more, more intense workouts, more challenging work, more focused conversations with people of consequence. The word infers increase; let that increase bring us in the direction in which we want to go.

      Remember the old expression, pay me now or pay me later? There’s a price to be paid either way, but whether good or bad those choices compound over time. There will come a time for less. Today is not that day. There’s just so much to do in a lifetime and we only have now to work with. We may choose to accept the challenges as they come at us. Let this serve as a cattle prod to complacency. Decide what to be and go be it.

    • The Bold Step

      “If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; It is lethal.” — Paulo Coelho

      Comfort is a quiet killer. It stalks us every day, pulling us from our pursuits with its promises. Comfort means well for us, and so we trust in it. And then it steals our life away.

      We must choose adventure when it calls to us. Take the risks that inspire but make us feel a little nervous inside. Inaction is the real risk. More of the same may feel prudent, but where is it taking us?

      A full life demands boldness. Boldness in turn is a step away from the routine. It won’t call for us forever. Sooner or later it will think us like all the rest and move on to another dance partner. When we change the routine in our lives, we change our life. So shake things up. Take the bold step.

    • Just the Right Blend

      “I have learned to live each day as it comes and not to borrow trouble by dreading tomorrow.” — Dorothy Dix

      I took a long walk in Manhattan yesterday. It’s all relative of course, but it felt pretty long towards the end of it. If I were on some country path with comfortable shoes I’d have just been warming up, but on concrete sidewalks swarming with people, while wearing dress shoes and a sport coat, a mile walk feels kinda long. I’ll surely need to take a true long walk when I get home just to make up for even admitting to that mile feeling uncomfortable, but all experiences are measured by the minutiae that built it.

      My underlying hope in navigating my series of nows is to find just the right blend of minutiae to make each moment sparkle. We’re building tomorrow’s memories with each today, aren’t we? What goes into today’s blend will fuel our future or set us back. We ought to discriminate on the little things that make now memorable.

      Sure, know the forecast when packing for our future, but don’t wring away the present in apprehension. We can’t borrow time, but we can waste it just as easily as we can optimize it. Those tomorrows will come either way, even if we aren’t guaranteed a starring role in the play. We must accept the fragility of now and offer it our very best, lest we squander it. Not every moment is perfect, we can’t expect that, but we can seek perfection anyway, and celebrate the higher standard we reach.

    • November Pivot

      “Carpe diem, quam minimum credula a postero (Seize the day, and put the least possible trust in tomorrow)” — Horace

      When the leaves are finally all down and the chores are largely done for fall cleanup, there’s a moment of stillness with which to process what’s transpired this year. What went right, what went wrong, and mostly when are we going to do that thing we said we were surely going to do this year since we didn’t do it last year or the years before that. November is a great time to assess and adjust those habits to do something more with today. Put another way, November is a time to pivot to better.

      Why November? Why not simply wait for the New Year? Well, we aren’t guaranteed tomorrow (See: Horace) and if we’re blessed with it, a little momentum rounding the calendar goes a long way. I can celebrate the consistent writing but recognize that it’s not enough, just as casually but consistently using the Duolingo app is helping me read French better but not to speak it or understand it when it’s being spoken to me rapid-fire, a habit (like writing) requires deeper immersion to get closer to mastery. We get what we put into it.

      By November we’ve accumulated a lot of positive or negative energy from our habits. What’s working well for us? What’s fallen off? With 45 potentially transformative days in front of us, beginning with this one, what can we still do with 2024 that we thought might be possible on New Years? What one habit will transform us the most if we were to master it? What one relationship might we strengthen or even salvage simply by reaching out to someone? What life changing step should be our next? We know the answer most of the time, or at least the direction to move in to find it. By all means, we must begin it today!

    • To Be More

      “Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.” — Albert Camus

      To live and create, to the point of tears… How many of us read that and then settle back into old routines? It would be more prudent to stick with the familiar, to live a vanilla lifestyle, to do work that we’re comfortable with, and to stay in our circle of influence so we don’t upset the apple cart. There’s something to the tried and true, after all, for it brought us to this place.

      In the words of Marshall Goldsmith, “What got you here won’t get you there.” We’ve only got a few blessed days to work with, let us not dare waste this one on trivial pursuits. We may choose to be bold, and rise to meet the moments that unfold. For this, friend, is all there is.

      This isn’t a call for reckless living, consumerism or nihilism—just the opposite really. We must be bold, focused and purposeful with each moment, that we may optimize it. Optimization may sound very professional and career-focused, but can we not use the same standard on our days? We only have this one, why dare squander its potential? Carpe diem.

      With every deliberate act, we ought to consider how to amplify it more. Be more creative in our work, be more adventurous in our recreation, be more engaged in our relationships. It doesn’t take much more than choosing and following through. Momentum matters in all things: we may be more now, that we may build on that later. Live as if tomorrow depended on our actions today. We know it does.

    • An Iterative Process

      Across the evening sky
      All the birds are leaving
      But how can they know
      It’s time for them to go?
      Before the winter fire
      I will still be dreaming
      I have no thought of time
      For who knows where the time goes?
      Who knows where the time goes?
      — Fairport Convention, Who Knows Where the Time Goes      ?

      Here we go again. October has flown just like the other months, and we find ourselves in November once again. The oak leaves have completely coated the lawn, just a few days after I picked up the first round of leaves. So it must be, autumn cleanup is an iterative process, not ever one and done unless you wait for Thanksgiving weekend, and there are other chores reserved for that timeframe. I wonder at people who choose a lifestyle with no chores, for the sheer amount of available time they must fill. I suppose I’d just read more or play pickle ball or something. But that’s not for me. There’s beauty in the labor we opt into.

      October was one of my most productive and transformative months of the year in many ways, but it’s all last month’s news now. We must begin again today with whatever momentum yesterday gave to us. Each day brings an opportunity to be fully alive and present, whatever that means to us. My day begins with the keyboard—the first of several habits that steer me towards purposeful and productive living. Today will fly by like all the rest, the only question is what will we remember of it? What will carry us into tomorrow a little better than we arrived at today?

      I’ve been told I dwell on productivity too much, and that may be an ongoing theme of this blog, but productivity means something different to each of us. Productivity to me isn’t giving my life to a job, it’s doing something with my life. Productivity is simply building a system for living that brings positive momentum to our lives. Those grains of sand will keep falling through the hourglass far too quickly for our liking (tempus fugit). We can accept that time is flying by and with our awareness begin to realize our place in eternity. Discovering our purpose is an iterative process too. We may do something meaningful in our given time, built one step at a time.

    • Stories to Tell

      He who does not travel, who does not read,
      who can not hear music,
      who does not find grace in himself,
      she who does not find grace in herself,
      dies slowly.
      He who slowly destroys his own self-esteem,
      who does not allow himself to be helped,
      who spends days on end complaining about his own bad luck, about the rain that never stops,
      dies slowly.
      — Martha Medeiros, Die Slowly

      Sure, this blog is one big reminder to live in the moment and to savor it all. Amor fati already! The aim is a counter narrative to the relentless soundtrack of outrage, nihilism and distraction found in most media platforms nowadays. Be the change you wish to see in the world and all that. In this way the blog is a lifeline to anyone who needs to hear it, beginning with the author.

      What became clear a thousand posts or so ago is that writing a blog is a solitary act of self reflection shared with the world, or at least the few that seek it out or stumble upon it. Travel, reading, music, gardening, hiking—whatever it is we’re exploring in the season and discovering within ourselves ought to be fair game. Every day is a statement of here we are.

      We are alive today, and maybe not tomorrow. We must heighten our appreciation for that gift and find within ourselves the grace to accept and carry the weight of our brief shelf life. Not to dwell on it, just to acknowledge it as a compelling reason to jump back into the dance with life.

      So bravo to the adventurous spirits who seize their precious lives and get after it. We all should be so bold. You do you, I’ll do me, and perhaps we’ll meet on the dance floor one day soon. If we are blessed to meet again, may we each have our share of intriguing stories to tell.

    • The Only One

      “We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we have only one.” — Confucius

      Blame it on autumn, or maybe the series of life events I’m currently passing through, but it feels like life is starting over again. Every moment we’re fully alive offers that opportunity of course, but stack enough stuff on the scale and the balance tips enough. Enough for what? For whatever is next in this one wild and precious life, as Mary Oliver so vividly put it.

      This is it, last time I checked, so let’s make the most of our time together. Double down on adventure, take calculated risks more frequently, do the “one day” bucket list things in this time bucket while we have the vitality to experience all it might offer. Defer deferral for a [real] change.

      So stop wasting time already! This is all we have left. Practice active savoring in this one and only dance through life. We can be co-conspirators while the rest of the world marches on thinking there will always be a tomorrow. Let’s not waste a second on such illusions. Seize what flees.

    • All the Nerve

      Oh, when you were young
      Did you question all the answers?
      Did you envy all the dancers
      Who had all the nerve?
      Look round you now
      You must go for what you wanted
      Look at all my friends who did and got what they deserved
      — Crosby, Stills & Nash, Wasted On the Way

      Early this morning far from home I turned the corner and my headlights spotlighted two coyotes who quickly scurried off into the woods. I had no business being right there at that moment, but for a series of events that brought me to that encounter. Just a guy putting himself in the way of beauty (thanks to Cheryl Strayed’s mom for the suggestion).

      We know the people who have all the nerve. They’re usually the ones who have few regrets in the end. To be bold is to break out of the boxes we framed around ourselves. We ought to make box-breaking a regular part of our routine. Really, it’s the only way. How else can we grow?

      Rising to meet the day