Alexandersmap

    Tag: William James

    • The Different Angles of Experience

      “Our state of mind is never precisely the same. Every thought we have of a given fact is, strictly speaking, unique, and only bears a resemblance of kind with our other thoughts of the same fact. When the identical fact recurs, we must think of it in a fresh manner, see it under a somewhat different angle, apprehend it in different relations from those in which it last appeared…
      Experience is remoulding us every moment, and our mental reaction on every given thing is really a resultant of our experience of the whole world up to that date.” — William James

      The experience of being on a full domestic flight down the coast is different every time I take it. This is obvious as the people, service and weather conditions make every flight different. What we sometimes forget is that we too have changed, and with these changes our reaction to the next flight changes in kind.

      Some flights, like some days, are better than others. Some planes and seats and expectations of service are better than others. We too are either more prepared to roll with the changes or worse. Developing a keen sense of awareness is helpful, but not nearly as essential as having a fully developed sense of self awareness.

      I used to travel for business far more frequently. Flights all over the continent honed my travel acumen. Each flight offered both opportunity and a cost, but in all cases a new entry in the chronicles of life experience. The hope is to learn and adapt to each, that we may be better for the next day.

      Travel is just living in a different way than we live when we aren’t traveling. Life will throw its curveballs at you in either case. Experience teaches us to anticipate some of those curveballs, but more often than not something new will upset the apple cart. Such is life. Change happens and will happen again. Appreciate the journey is the most important thing we can ever realize.

    • On Action

      “Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. ”
      ― William James

      There’s nothing more essential to getting to where we’d like to be than a bias towards action. Want to have a better relationship? Earn it with attention. Want to be a better writer? Read, experience the world more and write about it often. Want to be fit? Stop wishing for it and get moving already. We know deep down that the answer is action.

      We can’t close a gap without effort. We can’t climb a corporate ladder or a mountain peak without moving one step at a time higher than we currently are. To open a door previously closed to us, we must first reach the door before we can open it and step through. Take the steps necessary to get there.

      Personally, I have a five year plan for where and who I want to be. To reach that person in that place, there are some clear steps necessary to bring me there. Most essential is taking care of the mind and body that will carry me there. We can work all our days for a goal, but we won’t reach it if we physically slide sideways off the cliff. The rest is identifying the systems, routines and habits essential to getting us to our goals, scheduling and tracking them from now until the end. We’re building a lifestyle of active participation, not just reaching some summit.

      How we want to live is as essential to ask ourselves as who we want to be. We may never close the gap fully, but a lifestyle built making ourselves better than we were yesterday is inherently optimistic and happier than one built trying to hold on to the pieces of who we once were. Be a builder instead. What is the gap and what are the steps necessary to close it? Once it’s all laid out for us, the rest is taking that first step and following with the next.

    • Strokes of Virtue

      “Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty, so that, when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. Asceticism of this sort is like the insurance which a man pays on his house and goods. The tax does him no good at the time, and possibly may never bring him a return. But, if the fire does come, his having paid it will be his salvation from ruin. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast… We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little scar.” ― William James, The Principles of Psychology

      On Sunday my bride and I walked fifteen miles around Newport, Rhode Island seeing all that we could in the time we had. We might have driven from place-to-place, we might have chosen a ride service. Then again, we might have simply plunged into the many indulgences Newport offers in food and drink and leisure. But we walked instead, burning more calories than we ate, getting out in the crisp and cold air to navigate city streets and coastal boulders alike. We certainly didn’t leave Newport without enjoying some of its many restaurants and bars, but the central part of our experience was walking.

      The trick is to keep it going. Keep doing the things that bring us to a place of better fitness, greater resilience, deeper connection and richer experience. Most of us have work to do and commitments to keep that prevent brisk walks about town every day, but we can still carve out the time to do something meaningful each day. We can be actively engaged with the world simply by consistently stepping out into it—further and further with every step.

      We are a collection of habits and circumstance, spun around the sun once a year for however long fate gives us. We must rise to meet our better self. To be more resilient in the face of hardship, we must earn it with the things we do each day to be more fit, financially sound, emotionally intelligent, street smart, book smart and with the proper collection of trusted allies. What we do with our time matters deeply, if not to the universe, then surely in how we perceive our place in it.

      The quality of our life lies in our compounding habits. To be healthier than we might otherwise have been, we ought to exercise more and eat better. Even writing that I felt the cliché ripple across the keyboard with a shudder, but we know the universal truth in it, don’t we? When we inevitably get sick or have an accident, that resilient and healthy body of ours will make us more likely to rebound than we otherwise might have been. And we know it to be true that good fitness and nutrition habits allow us to be more resistant to things that a weaker body might succumb to.

      The power of teams comes into play in how we live, for that which we lack ought to be filled in by having the right team around us, just as we fill in a void that they may have. Without the right partner in my own life, I might have opted for an Uber ride back after the first ten miles, but we pressed on and saw nooks and crannies of the city we wouldn’t have seen otherwise, talking about life all the way, while burning calories and locking in memories we’ll reflect on in future days. The people we row with will either propel us to a better future or sink us. Choose carefully and see just how far you can go together.

      Writing this blog every day, I’ve come to see the changes in myself over the last five years. It’s a way to track activity, reflect on what I’ve read or experienced, and to cajole myself beyond complacency. There must be urgency in our days, and the blog is my way of reminding myself to take stock of where I am and get back to it already. I’m surely no ascetic, but I do strive for greater discipline and consistent improvement in all aspects of this brief dance with you. After all, we’re on the same team, aren’t we? Let’s see all that we can in the time we have.

    • Life Change

      “To change one’s life:
      1. Start immediately.
      2. Do it flamboyantly.
      3. No exceptions.”
      ― William James

      Some of us think of radical change but do precious little of it in practice. Instead we opt for incremental change by changing habits or jobs or the way we commute to work. There’s a strong case for incremental change in our lives, for it sets us up for long-term success. Flossing and brushing one’s teeth are good habits that can change your life (and those in close proximity to you) for the better. So is reading and writing every day: The benefits are long-term and tangible and well beyond holding your own at a cocktail party.

      The idea of changing radically and immediately is fascinating when we get stuck in a routine that doesn’t inspire us. When you see people do it, it seems less ridiculous to think you can do it too. I’m more inclined to believe selling everything to sail off to ports unknown is possible because friends have done it. There’s magic in possibility realized, and we all want a bit of magic in our lives.

      William James’ recipe for change is a simple two step approach. Begin now, not someday. And be bold in both your vision and how you communicate it to the world. We shouldn’t go slinking off to some incremental change—we must follow our damned dream to the ends of the earth if that’s what it takes. Changing the bath towels isn’t going to do it.

      Tangible life change is really a combination of bold choices and consistent action. Dreams can be realized in one bold act, but for change to last we have to do the work to make our desired identity stick. Put another way, we can buy a plane ticket to paradise, but if we don’t work a plan for our life when we arrive there it’s nothing but a brief holiday before the world wants us back. Is there anything sadder than returning to something you don’t love after a brief but glorious dance with a dream? Here’s an idea: establish what you love and put yourself in the place where you can best realize it.

      Lately I’ve been talking to people of a certain age about what their exit plan is. What are they going to do when they’re not doing “this”? It turns out most people have a general vision for a future version of themselves, but it isn’t very specific. Playing golf seems to come up a lot. Travel. More time with family. These are all very nice things, but are they bold? Do they stir the fire deep within?

      To be fair, maybe the long-term comfort of a warm hearth was the answer all along. We don’t know what we’ve got ’til it’s gone, as Joni Mitchell reminds us. We ought to ask ourselves why we want change, not just what we want to change. If the why is compelling, the what often seems to take care of itself. Habit formation is easy when the vision is clear. That vision is the person we want to be in this brief dance with light. Being a bit more flamboyant with that vision is the least we can do for ourselves, don’t you think?

    • Gratuitous Exercise

      “Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day.” – William James

      “All weakness is a weakness of will.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

      There’s no getting around it, I’ve been getting weaker – lacking the willpower to get on the erg or pick up the weights. This correlates exactly with work getting busier: more responsibility, more follow-up, and more sitting in front of a computer. That, friends, is no way to live a long and vibrant life. The science supports us: we must move to have a healthy mind and body.

      Don’t get me wrong, I’m hiking and snowshoeing and generally trying to be active on the edges of the day. But you know when you’re working hard and when you’re hardly working. A walk in the woods does the mind and body good, but you’ve got to supplement it with threshold-testing workouts. Through focused effort and honoring commitments to ourselves through exercise.

      I’ve been here before, of course. Burpees were kicking my ass until I started having serious shoulder pain. Rowing on an erg kicked my ass so much in college and CRASH-B’s that I have PTSD and have a hard time doing anything but steady-state on the thing. So what do you do when your worst enemy is yourself? You simplify and establish lifetime habits that brush aside the resistance with routine. It simply must be so.

      And so I’m returning to a workout program that doesn’t require spotters and doesn’t tolerate excuses. I’m returning to the kettle bell and dynamic stretching, and rowing on the erg to round out the challenge. You can take a kettle bell with you when you travel, you can break away from your computer for a simple workout that kicks your ass in minutes. And you can eliminate the excuse of time: Those optimistic long steady-state workouts written on the calendar that fall aside in the crush of work days. Habits build on themselves over time. Simply showing up starts the ball rolling.

      “No matter how strong you are, there will always be someone stronger than you. Using only a number as the litmus test of whether you are strong or not is self-defeating. You will get older. You will not be able to continue to set personal all-time bests forever. But you can continue to get stronger mentally. You can adjust to whatever the environment is and challenge yourself to push past wherever you are at the moment, in any way you can, and feel good knowing you just made yourself a better man or woman.” – Pavel Tsatsouline, Kettlebell Simple & Sinister

      Fitness is the ultimate objective, of course, but the why is to get stronger mentally. To build up your brain and push through excuses. To thrive on the faculty of effort and make yourself a better person. And this translates into everything else you do. If you’re making excuses on something as essential as your fitness, what else are you making excuses about? Mastery doesn’t happen overnight. But it begins with showing up and doing the work.

      “To master your mind is to master your life. There is no more worthwhile pursuit.” – Sir John Hargrave, Mind Hacking

      Gratuitous exercise implies frivolous or unnecessary. But there’s another definition for gratuitous, and that’s doing something free of charge. To exercise free from the burden of feeling like you have to do something and instead to exercise simply because it’s a part of who you are. Something you want to do. To simply do for the love of where it takes you.