Two Rooms Down, It’s Still a Construction Site

Ever since I started renovating my 70s house, I keep thinking: A construction site is a pretty good metaphor for life.

We have this idea that personal growth should happen in perfect order: First the foundations, then the walls, then the wiring, then the finishing touches.

One step at a time.
One trade after another.

But neither a real construction site nor a real life works that way.

In one room, you’re already adding the finishing touches. You know who you are. You’ve understood things, worked through old patterns and perhaps even created something beautiful.

And two rooms down, you’re standing in the middle of the bare structure thinking:

Holy shit. Everything is still missing in here.

But here’s the strange thing: The unfinished room doesn’t make the finished one any less finished.

You can be incredibly far along in one area of your life and only just starting to lay the cables in another. You can have completely moved through something and, at the same time, feel utterly lost somewhere else.

Relationship: great.
Money: We’ll talk about that later.

Motherhood: nailed it.
Skills as a lover: room for improvement.

An absolute machine at work. At home, the laundry has been sitting on the chair for four days. Possibly four weeks.

Spirituality: enlightened.
Nervous system: has some follow-up questions.

And yes, of course, some things depend on others. Without a foundation, for example, nothing else makes much sense.

But perhaps we need to stop treating our unfinished rooms as proof that we haven’t come far enough.

Perhaps growth doesn’t mean that one day, everything will be finished at the same time.

Perhaps it means noticing where beauty has already emerged. Honouring what we have built. And turning towards the rooms where we are only just beginning to understand what still needs to be done.

One room is allowed to shine while dust is still hanging in the air in the next.

Both belong to us and both are growth.

And we probably never reach a point where we are completely finished anyway.

What do you think?

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