Alexandersmap

    Tag: Mark Twain

    • To Hell With Comparison

      “We have so far to go” sighed the boy
      “Yes, but look at how far we’ve come.” said the horse
      – Charlie Mackesy      , The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse

      I listened to an associate talk of stocks purchased and his regret that he only made $300K on his Moderna but would have made a million if he’d stuck with it. He’d already made millions selling his business, and talked of starting another business to build and sell. He’s a hustler, a builder, a big shark in a red ocean always hungry for more. And a charming guy who quickly wins people over with his personality and work ethic.

      Another friend who worked for this friend learned all he could from the big shark and started his own company. He’s built it up to be substantial. There’s no doubt that he’s a big shark himself now, and he talks exactly like the first guy. Rattles off accomplishments in every conversation, big wins, and a trophy house on a famous lake. Also a hustler, he’s built something special but isn’t slowing down. No, he’s got an empire to build and the climb isn’t over.

      You can quickly feel inadequate when you talk to someone who leapfrogs the average. These two make me dizzy when I talk to them, and there’s plenty more just like them who will rattle off wins like entrees on a Cheesecake Factory menu. I can’t help but admire them, and compliment each accomplishment for what it is. And there’s a little bit of comparison that slips in right about then where I think about what I’ve done in the industry versus what they’ve done, and… I silently curse myself for not being a bigger shark.

      “Comparison is the primary sin of modern life.” – Michael Ray“

      When you try to keep up with the Joneses you willingly enter into an arms race you can’t win. But the tendency to compare runs deep. And I thought about my two friends. They talk often, and I wonder about their conversations. I did this! Well, I did this! And so on until their next client calls with a billion dollar deal just in time for the holidays. And I shake my head. I don’t want to swim in that ocean.

      “Comparison is the death of joy.” – Mark Twain

      When you live your life based on how you perceive yourself to be in relation to someone else you can never measure up. And you set yourself up for a life of frustration and exhaustive one-upmanship. And yet most of us do it anyway. Worse, we start looking at what our children have accomplished compared to the neighbors kids and seed our issues right in to the next generation.

      “The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.” – Lily Tomlin

      You can’t help but think about how far you have to go when you start comparing yourself to others. But it helps to look back and recognize just how far you’ve come. Often the best views are well before we reach the summit. We’re all on our own path, and it might just look pretty good to someone else. Shouldn’t we recognize that ourselves and appreciate where we are?

      And still comparison persists. Comparison can be a spur or a cancer. It serves to fuel progress, inspire action, alter our course and generally goad us out of complacency. Comparison isn’t all bad. Until you use it to degrade yourself or those you love, or to win at any cost. In those moments, to hell with comparison. Isn’t it better to be George Bailey than Mr. Potter?

    • The Abnormal Climb

      “You can’t be normal and expect abnormal results.” – Naval Ravikant

      There’s nothing wrong with normal; the pursuit of normal usually offers you an average, lovely life. But if you want to be ultra-wealthy or a washboard abs model or win the Olympics or be an astronaut or a Nobel Peace Prize winner, well, be abnormal. They don’t just give space suits to the guy ahead of you at Starbucks. Unless that guy is a Navy pilot with a Masters in Astrophysics anyway, and even then his odds aren’t great. Nope, be different than the billions of people marching through life…. or embrace the beauty of average. We all have that choice.

      I’ve dabbled in the pursuit of excellence in athletics, and frankly I opted out early. Pursue Olympic-level rowing? Thought I’d give it a try. Learned quickly that it was a very steep and long climb. I opted to be a big fish in a smaller pond. Regrets? I’ve had a few. Pursuing elite rowing isn’t one of them. I’ve known several Olympians over the years, one rowed out of the same boathouse as me. She won a silver medal! Olympians seem average on the surface, there’s an abnormal core there – a focus, that I deeply admire. But I knew it wasn’t me.

      We all want to be excellent at something, if we’re lucky we figure out quickly what we shouldn’t attempt to excel in. Sometimes great or pretty good still sets us up for an exceptional life. I was a pretty good rower back in my time, but not willing to do the “abnormal” work needed to be world class. I smile thinking about the lecture I heard from the National Team Coach emphatically telling a friend and me that the work needed was far beyond what we were doing at the time (and we were very fit). I appreciated his time and candor, assessed my willingness to execute on the plan and opted out. In a different pond I might have pushed through, but the pond I was in seemed good enough.

      “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” – Mark Twain

      This quote on the surface is funny (or scary in this political climate), but peel back a layer and there’s truth in the message. In the context of pursuing the abnormal there’s magic in Mark’s clever quip. Find your unique path, work hard and be excellent at it. Don’t be the majority, be something more. I’ve long since hung up the oar, but hey, maybe the writing will take off. At the very least I owe it to myself to become a better writer. There’s honor in the pursuit of excellence, even if we never reach it. Somebody once said that “never” is a belief, it doesn’t have to be shackles. I saw that in rowers who accepted the same challenge I opted out of who eventually wore Olympic hardware.

      “Blah, blah, blah, blah. DO THE WORK.” – Jocko Willink

      At some point you get tired of regurgitating excuses and you find something to be singularly focused on pursuing. We’re all running out of time, get up and do something already. Balance is important but it’s also an excuse. Prioritize, focus and do the work. Want to be a writer? Do the work? Ab model? Do the work. Olympic athlete? Do. The. Work. We arrive at excellence by what we focus on, and by what we say no to along the way. The day offers the same opportunity for all of us living in a free society, so why exhaust that day coming up with excuses for why you didn’t do something? Get fit, work abnormally hard at your chosen craft, whether writing or astronaut or parent, be consistently, abnormally doing the work, and you’ll reach a level of excellence – or at the very least, be well above average. Seems a worthwhile climb after all.

    • Handshake with History

      Handshake with History

      Whenever I visit a place, I try to understand a little bit about the place.  Who came before me?  What happened here and how has that changed this place and the world we live in?  You stumble on ghosts walking through quiet woods when you come upon a stone wall running straight as an arrow left to right.  Or an old logging road cutting through the forest.  Dimpled rocks betray the hundreds of micro spikes that gripped this granite before you came along.  Statues and monuments tell one story, but so too do the buildings and canals and cobblestone streets.

      I’ve visited Mark Twain’s house in Hartford, Robert Frost’s farmhouse in Derry, New Hampshire and Ernest Hemingway’s house in Key West, Florida.  I ran my hand up the stair railing in each and stood in the doorways they would have been standing in as they looked out on a different world than the one I live in.  Dancing with ghosts.

      I once helped a friend tear down an old shed that had seen better days.  Hammer and pry bar in hand, I stripped layers of plywood and siding off the walls until we were down to the studs of the shed.  This was no Home Depot special.  The studs were old growth wood, hand sawn and straight.  They’d been quietly doing their job for a hundred years or so.  I gave a nod to the craftsman who built it.

      I visited the Duston Garrison in Haverhill, Massachusetts last year, the day after visiting the island that Hannah Duston escaped from between Concord and Franklin, New Hampshire.  In walking around the garrison, built by Hannah’s husband Thomas, a brick layer and farmer, I came across a pair of thumb prints in the brick.  Were they his thumb prints or those of someone who worked with him or re-pointed the brick wall somewhere else in history?  I don’t know, but I do know that whoever it was came before me and I put my thumbs in those compressions in a moment of solidarity across the centuries.

      Thomas and others built this garrison in 1697 for protection from the indians who attacked Haverhill, killing members of his family and his neighbors.  This was the frontier, and I often think about that time in history, so close to where I’m living my own history, and yet so different.  321 years later, this is our time.  That’s not some bullshit motivational slogan.  We’re alive today while the vast majority of people who have lived aren’t.  So many others came before us, and so may more will come after us.  I quietly make my handshake with history when I feel it.  And I feel it a lot in the places that I go.

    • In Search of Mark Twain

      Growing up on Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, I have an affinity for Mark Twain.  As a kid I always thought of him as a Mississippi River guy.  No wonder given his most memorable characters and the settings for his greatest work.  But Mark Twain moved from Missouri to Hartford, Connecticut and spent summers at his wife Olivia’s family farm in Elmira, New York.  These are the places where he wrote most of his novels.

      Both places have developed and changed since Mark Twain’s death in 1910.  The Hartford neighborhood beyond the block on Farmington Avenue is grittier and more urban, while Elmira beyond Quarry Farm has grown more industrial.  Mark would surely look around in wonder at both.  I have a lot to say about this guy.  More than one blog post possibly can contain.

      I visited Elmira a couple of weeks ago to visit Mark Twain’s study and grave site.  I was envious when I visited his study in Hartford, but seeing the octagonal study with it’s fireplace made me positively jealous.  It once was perched on a hill at Quarry Farm overlooking Elmira and the river below.  Since 1953 it’s been at Elmira College, where it’s open to the public.  Mark Twain viewed it as a place away from distraction where he could focus on his writing.  In Hartford he would chat with friends and neighbors, or play pool in his study there.  In Elmira he could draw inspiration from the views and simply write.

      On the day I visited it was raining and I found myself alone looking in the windows of the study.  I made a point of checking the door knob just to see if it was open, but also imagining Mark Twain grabbing this same door knob on his way in to write The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  I’d had a similar feeling walking up the stairs in his home in Hartford, sliding my hand up the railing, which was one of the only things you were allowed to touch there.  I wonder if the door knob is original, it certainly looked like it.

      I’ve written before that I like to chase ghosts.  Not the poltergeist kind, but the living history kind.  Visiting Hartford and Elmira brought me a little bit closer to Mark Twain.  And gave me a little inspiration.  I’m not sure how long I’m going to live in the house I’m in now, but I think I’m going to build myself a study.  Perhaps not as ornate as Mark Twain’s, but something that gets me out of the house and looking at the trees out back.  Maybe I have a novel in me, or maybe I just use it as a base of operations in my current job, but either way I think of it as a way to be a little more like Mark Twain.  That’s not such a bad goal.