Building

"A building is not something you finish, a building is something you start." - Stewart Brand

Today, I was thinking about a friend of mine who I keep messing up with. I don't want to, but it doesn't matter what I want, it matters what I do. Now you might be thinking "What does this have to do with building?" To me, everything. I've spent so long trying to cultivate good friendships, being around good people, and always being the best I can be and helping others and one of the key points in that is that you show up. It doesn't matter how you show up, but you show up in anyway you are able to at that moment and I don't feel like I have been.

Building, to me, means being consistent in what my actions say and what my words say. It means being on time and building a good repertoire. I've been messing up a lot lately: ditching hang outs that I know I'll enjoy, not taking care of myself properly, pushing too hard. I keep wanting to make up for lost time that I keep jumping steps to make sure that it happens. But in doing so, I'm not taking the time to cultivate the friendships around me. I am rushing too fast through life, not taking time to build up connections, to build up the people around me. "Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and take a look around every once in awhile, you could miss it." (From Ferris Bueller's Day Off). This semester has been moving so fast, it's almost March already and I feel like I've started to build something, but the foundation needs to be filled out a little more.

Building relationships, building your body, and building your mind takes time. If you don't give it that time, if you try to rush it, you could lose yourself in the process and that's not good for anybody. I want to return to who I used to be, but with the new things I've learned. I want to be consistent in my actions and not miscommunicate with people and be as concise as I can because time is precious and words are something to be treasured. I have a real problem with words because a lot of the time I feel like I say things I don't mean or say it in a way where it comes out hostile. I'm working on this, but it's taking a lot of time and effort to be better in this regard.

One other thing that I'm trying to learn is to "do it scared" because my fears have held me back from so much in life. I think that they're healthy fears to have and some of them I won't trade because there are lines that won't be crossed, like drinking alcohol, but some of them have held me back from things that I want to do - like my social anxiety. Doing it scared, doing it when I'm petrified and tired and don't want to, that's what I want to learn. Discipline even when all the odds are against me and everything in the world is crumbling. Even if it's just small, even if I just go and do a small workout or climb one wall, just getting in the habit of going. That's what I want to build. This will take time, maybe even a lifetime, but at the end, I hope that I gave as much as I could and that I built those around me and by building those around me, I hope that I built myself.

Building takes time. It can be scary to build. The story of Noah comes to mind because he built even when everyone called him crazy, even when all the odds were stacked against him, he kept building because he believed in what he was doing. He believed in a higher power that wouldn't lie to him and lead him astray. He had God and with God on his side, he knew that what he was doing was right. But it took him a long time to build that ark. Building doesn't happen overnight, there are trials and tribulations and some days you won't want to build because you're tired, it's too much work, I mean that even happened to me today with my gym session, I tweaked my shoulder yesterday and didn't want to go because I didn't want to injure myself further but I didn't even do legs. I just said not today and went back to bed.I'm still going tonight, but that early morning gym session is my time for the day and I know it helps me and I love doing it, but some days I just don't want to. I'm working on that and it's gotten a lot better over the years, but discipline also takes time to build.

I hope that you take the time to build others and in doing so, I hope that you get to be built too. Good luck and keep on building, even when all the odds are stacked against you, even when everything feels like it'll come crashing down, keep going and if you realize you're building the structure you want strong then correct it and try again.

Have a fantastic day,

Alex Risdall :)