Alexandersmap

    Tag: Philosophy

    • Let Me Not Defer

      “I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
      — Etienne de Grellet

      Yesterday I had a conversation with a neighbor I don’t speak with all that much but have known for 25 years. Beyond the casual how are the kids? small talk, we dove more deeply into what’s next for each of us. We’ve both learned the high cost of deferring dreams the last few years—his wife passed a year ago, my family has suffered losses of similar magnitude the last few years. The question is whether we act on the lessons of memento mori or keep on doing the same thing as if it weren’t true.

      Beyond the moment, what have we got? Legacy? I look at old pictures and forget who most of the people in them are. The ones who I remember most are those who were most invested in me. The rest fade away. To be memorable, I suppose, the lesson is to invest in others, isn’t it? Here and now, with all the sincerity and earnestness we can muster, that we may impact their lives in some small, positive way.

      I worry less now about memorable. I’m at a point where living a good life is enough. I don’t feel a need to be remembered as anything but a source of light in a world that is often unrelentingly dark. To add more value to the world, we must learn and grow and be ever more generous with our time with others. It’s no surprise that those who are surrounded by loving people are usually the ones who offered nothing but love to the world. We ought to stop focusing on how we aspire to be remembered and think instead about who we aspire to be right now.

      Each of us is spending currency. Let it not be frivolous, but meaningful. Whatever the future brings for us, we’ll surely find the investment in others will offer our highest return. When well-invested, isn’t love returned exponentially?

    • How Was Your Experience?

      I received the same question from my dentist and my automobile service team recently—How was your experience? It turns out both left me a bit disappointed this time around, where I’d come to expect excellence. Perhaps that expectation led me there, or maybe they simply didn’t measure up to their own standards. Either way it was the same result.

      We ought to ask ourselves this question every day with an ever-higher standard for our own behavior, execution on goals, and an ever more refined philosophy for how a life should be lived. What gets measured gets managed, as Peter Drucker supposedly said. Each day offers an opportunity to ask ourselves, how’s it really going? What needs to change? How do we become a better version of ourselves than we were yesterday? It starts with the right questions and follows with an honest answer.

    • Beyond the Same Old

      “The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it’s the same problem you had last year.” — John Foster Dulles

      I first encountered this Dulles quote 25 years ago. I know this because I wrote the date in pencil right next to it. I was a different person then in countless ways, and exactly the same in others. Some positive, transformative growth has happened in that time, and some stubborn habits that hold me back still have a hold of me even now. We all have things that carry us forward or hold us back in our lives, and mostly that’s between our ears.

      If I were to track broken promises to myself over that time, I’d see the same ones appear over and over. We can focus on such things and beat ourselves up, or celebrate the ways in which we’ve grown into a better human. If life has taught me anything, it’s to identify the positive systems, habits and routines that make us incrementally better and do more of those things. There will always be problems and challenges in our lives, the question is whether we’re just repeating ourselves or actually evolving into a person who is more adaptive, resilient and wiser than the person we were before. If so, our problems and challenges will evolve into different ones, indicating progress.

      The alternative to new and greater challenges is having the same ones. That’s as clear an indication of stagnation and being in a rut as any. When we’re in a rut we ought to climb out as soon as possible before it becomes our grave. Countless people go to their graves wishing they’d done something transformative in their lives. We should live our days with Henry David Thoreau’s warning from Walden in mind:

      “Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously course labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.” Which led to his most famous observation, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

      So what occupies us? What are our own factitious and superfluous labors distracting us from moving past the problems that have nagged us over and over again? We must live creative, bold lives that we may break from the rut altogether and transform ourselves for the better. To be successful, deep down in our own minds, is to transcend who we once were to become something greater.

      The thing is, we know all of this, and yet we still stall out here and there. Our epitaph ought to be more than “steady but unremarkable”. Progress towards remarkable is measured in the value and contribution we bring to the world; to be useful to others and ourselves, and to move that investment ever higher. What is our verse? What is our dent in the universe? What ripple will carry well after we’ve checked out? Do more of that to move beyond the same old problems.

    • Proper Work

      “How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly, looking at everything and calling out Yes! No! … Imagination is better than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” — Mary Oliver, Yes! No!

      I saw some pictures of friends off on some beautiful hike over the weekend, and other friends reawakening their sailboat before setting off for adventure. My own activity this weekend was less inspiring. Instead of adventure, I found some new soreness this weekend, earned with a pressure washer and a tall stepladder navigated to high places to make the house shine a little brighter. Sometimes our proper work is doing chores that have been nagging us for awhile, that we may return our focus to the universe yet again.

      The thing is, when I walked the pup later in the afternoon when the sun was shining just so, the house smiled back at me. We become what we put into the world, and a bit of housework does the body and soul good. It may sound silly, but I can look at a sparkling clean house and say “I did that” just as proudly as if I’d hiked up Mount Washington. The memories are different, but every journey set out upon that is completed counts for something.

      Proper work is highly subjective, but in the end it’s the things that we apply focus to that moves us forward. Writing this blog—to me—is proper work. So is tending the garden and washing the dishes and calling the customer you know is angry because it’s the right thing to do to hear them out and help them move to a better place. To be present and engaged in each thing that we do matters a great deal, for it’s the stuff of life and we only have the one go at it.

      What we say yes and no to in our days becomes our identity. When this day is complete, what will it say about us? We ought to slow down just enough to see the path we’re on, that we may know where we’ve been, and perhaps, where we’re going next. And so if you’ll excuse me the blog is now complete for the day, and it seems I have even more work to do.

    • Productive Motion

      Some of us abhor stasis. I can’t imagine sitting in one place for long without some measure of productivity involved. To lie on a beach towel? Only possible with a great book or conversation happening, otherwise I’m out of there. Give me motion please.

      But often motion is just its own distraction. To “fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way”, as David Gilmore put it, can be thought of as scandalous and wasteful, whether we’re moving or sitting around doing nothing much at all. But that’s being human, isn’t it? We all waste some amount of our time in the course of living a full life. But we ought to lean into things that move us forward.

      We know what’s essential for us, why do we fill our bucket with fluff? Because it kills time? Our habits and routines will carry us to greater places or drag us sideways down the abyss. We may have a say in our fate.

      So it is that I’ve begun weeding the routine to foster growth in the productive and important at the expense of the frivolous habitual. A bit more productive exercise, a bit less watching YouTube videos. A bit more reading, a bit less scrolling. It’s amazing where we find the time when we add a bit of selective bias to our habits.

    • Of All We Make

      The potter
      innocent of all
      he makes
      how could he know
      his bowl would hold the moon?
      — Peter Levitt, The Potter

      Inevitably, for every high when everything seems to click, we find ourselves in a low when everything seems to be off kilter. Working through the down days brings us to the other side. The trick is knowing you aren’t quite through yet and to take yet another step forward. We aren’t simply in it for ourselves here, planting breadcrumbs and such—we’re here to grow, that we might offer more to those who need more from us.

      We don’t always know what will come of our work, only that we may do it. Making it better than yesterday ensures we’re climbing. We ought to know that the climb is bringing us to the right mountaintop, but every false summit is a lesson too. Making sense of all we make is impossible while we are in the act of making it. What we need is a moment to look around from the vantage point reached. We know when our work resonates. We know when it doesn’t. To charge ahead without a glance at our compass will have us running around in circles.

      Joseph Campbell referenced the Krishna’s dictum and observed that “the best way to help mankind is through the perfection of yourself.” Perfection will always be elusive and just out of reach for us mortals, but we’re all works in progress, aren’t we? Every day is one more humble attempt to do something positive in this world through our advancement. To stall now would be a disservice to ourselves, surely, but also to those who quietly root for us from the corners of our lives. Keep going.

    • Start Again

      The birds they sang
      At the break of day
      Start again
      I heard them say
      Don’t dwell on what has passed away
      Or what is yet to be
      Ah, the wars they will be fought again
      The holy dove, she will be caught again
      Bought and sold, and bought again
      The dove is never free
      Ring the bells that still can ring
      Forget your perfect offering
      There is a crack, a crack in everything
      That’s how the light gets in
      — Leonard Cohen, Anthem

      For all the madness and imperfection in the world, this is our time in it. We may still let the light in and find our way again. This theme has snuck into my awareness a few times in the last few days, in social media posts, in video clips from commencement speeches, and engraved on a bench overlooking Rockland harbor in Maine. It seems everyone is reaching for something, and whispering to those who follow how to find their way. When we open ourselves to the universe, it will tell us all we need to hear.

      We know the world is imperfect just as we know that we too are imperfect. We ought to stop counting our flaws and focus on the things we’re doing right. Work on the good things, let the rest fall away like bad relationships. And aren’t the imperfections we focus on nothing but a bad relationship that we can’t break away from? Let it go already. Start again with the clean slate of a fresh outlook.

      Imperfections are beliefs about the things we don’t have in our lives. None of us are born whole, we each have something within us that is imperfect. My own list is uncomfortably long—but so what? Focusing on what we don’t have in our lives is the surest path to misery. Discomfort is good when we apply it to changes we can influence, but undermines us when applied to focusing on who we’ll never be. That person doesn’t exist and probably shouldn’t—they’re just a character in the story we tell ourselves about our place in this world.

      “When you cut water, the water doesn’t get hurt; when you cut something solid, it breaks. You’ve got solid attitudes inside you; you’ve got solid illusions inside you; that’s what bumps against nature, that’s where you get hurt, that’s where the pain comes from.” — Anthony de Mello, Awareness

      The trick, it seems, is to be more fluid in our perception of ourselves. Joyfulness is found in awareness and acceptance. Being aware of our imperfections and the gaps between who we are and who we wish to be is healthy and may lead to positive change. So is accepting that sometimes the gap is just there to show us who we aren’t meant to be. Ring the bells that still can ring.

    • Ideas, Dogma and Individuality

      “All leadership takes place through the communication of ideas to the minds of others.” — Charles Cooley

      “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” ― Steve Jobs

      If there’s one thing that will define this time in our collective history, it’s the division of people into one camp or another. It’s all dogma and posturing, with little basis in actual reality. Stories are powerful, and “people like us” is compelling precisely because we don’t want to be perceived as “people like them”. It’s all just stories, amplified and accelerated by technology perhaps, but still just stories. We believe what we believe, and choose to follow those who make us feel like we belong to something bigger than ourselves. Sometimes the results are extraordinary, and sometimes they’re a tragic stain on human history.

      The key for you and me is to know that we’re always being sold on a story, and to separate ourselves from the passion of the moment to find the truth within ourselves. That’s easier said than done, especially when the people we surround ourselves with start singing the same song as the lead singer. Who doesn’t love a good singalong? It’s only when we sober up that we realize how foolish the whole thing was. That’s what the passion of the crowd will do, and it’s challenging to remove ourselves from that mosh pit once we’ve been swept into it.

      There’s no doubt that individuals get swept up in the events of their time. Sometimes self-determination isn’t in the cards. But sometimes it is. Logic and reasoning may not be as fun as chanting and clapping and doing tomahawk chops seems to be, but it removes us just enough from the zealotry of the moment to think more clearly about who we want to be. This applies equally to any group-think activity: political, religious, regional, familial and cultural. When we become part of the tribe we may identify with certain beliefs and behaviors as normal and acceptable, while we quickly judge or dismiss rival beliefs and behaviors as naive at best or abhorrent in more extreme circumstances. Wars have been carried out for less.

      The story we tell ourselves about who we are defines us and our place both in the group we find ourselves in and in history. Decide what to be and go be it, but know the risks from making the choice of the individual: ostracized, berated and occasionally burned at the stake. That’s exactly why most people simply go with the flow. But we ought to remember that there’s a price for every decision.

      The thing is, individualism aside, we all want to be part of something larger than ourselves. Being a contributor to a meaningful organization or cause feeds our purpose for being here in the first place. When we separate ourselves from dogma and popular opinion and find that we align with the mission we’re joining, extraordinary things may happen. There’s power in teamwork and shared objectives, after all. We just need to be in it for all the right reasons.

    • Ready Now?

      “It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.” — Hugh Laurie

      It’s a theme woven deeply into the fabric of this blog: do it now. I repeat myself not to bore the reader but to remind myself to keep one foot moving forward even as the other is anchored in the moment we’ll soon leave behind. There is only now… and yet we often wait anyway, deferring to tomorrow what we ought to do today. The timing never feels right for some things, and definitely not right for some other things. The stars rarely align just so.

      One of the reasons I publish this blog every day is to maintain the habit of urgency. Writing first thing in the morning most days, I feel incomplete until it’s done. Depending on the circumstances of the moment, I usually stack another daily habit or two on top of the writing to feel like I’ve really done something with the day. This small blog isn’t going to change the world, but it changes my world every single day.

      We must break the habit of deferring to tomorrow what we may do today. Sure, we must also be fiscally responsible and learn the skills necessary to navigate the world we aspire to enter, but we must stop using such logical things as excuses for not doing anything. Small steps forward are still steps forward. And when we develop this bias towards action, when we grow into our future, we surprise ourselves with the momentum.

      Beliefs are formed through routine. Our future positive or negative outcomes are directly linked to what we do now. So it makes sense to stack today with the actions necessary to turn tomorrow positive. Ready or not, the future is coming. Carpe diem, already.

    • The Splendid and Meaningful

      “This is a brief life, but in its brevity it offers us some splendid moments, some meaningful adventures.” — Rudyard Kipling, Kim

      “As each day arises, welcome it as the very best day of all, and make it your own possession. We must seize what flees.” — Seneca

      Lately I’ve had a good run of splendid days. Not every day, mind you, but surely enough to make the year memorable when you reflect upon the sum. These are days we’ll remember—and so we must remember to live with this in mind. Be bold while we have the currency of health, wealth or time to do something about it. Most of us will never have all three at the same time, but chances are we’ll have one or two in abundance at any singular moment in our lives. We must use this currency wisely.

      I’ve been known to post a lot of pictures of whatever adventure I happen to be on on my social media timeline. Perhaps there’s too much of a good thing, but for me it’s about capturing the essence of the moment at hand in the best way available to me at the time. Images and words are the best way for me. If I overshare I do it with two people in mind: the one who can’t do the adventure I’m doing for lack of available currency (again, not always financial) and the one who chooses not to spend the currency they have in the moment. For the former I’m bringing them along on the adventure, but for the latter I’m hoping to shake them loose from their frugality before their currency is gone forever.

      I’ve had the opportunity to travel with people who have lost the currency of health and it always makes an impression on me. Did they simply wait too long or are they giving it their best shot with the currency they have left? The answer means a great deal to the outcome. We must know our limitations but be unafraid to stretch beyond our comfort zone. The people I shake my head in disbelief at are those who defer their lives beyond the limits of their available currency. Do it now! There is no tomorrow when the well runs dry.

      The last couple of days I’ve been sequestered with a book, my bride and our dog for a soggy weekend. The currency being spent is time, and I’ve delighted in the long walks and chapters of reading completed simply because I had the time available to do them. Splendid moments don’t have to be expensive or exclusive, but they ought to be meaningful to be worthy of the currency spent on them. We must remember to seize what flees.

      Just another sunset, or blessed with another sunset? Attitude is everything.