Building a Better Life: One Brick at a Time.

I love to watch bricklayers. These masters of the hardened rectangle work with the rhythm of the philharmonic and the beat of the human heart.

A bricklayer picks up a brick, “butters” it, and then presses it to the mortar bed, carefully trimming the excess. With that mortar on his trowel, he repeats.

This construction dance continues, one brick at a time until an entire wall appears in the morning’s vacancy.

You build a wall one brick at a time.

It is nature’s way as well.

Consider the bristlecone pine.

They are one of the oldest plants in existence. By the time of King David, they were 1500 years old. Many were germinating as the Egyptians built the pyramids.

Many of them come in the harshest conditions known. They grow at 9000 feet on the east side of the Sierra Nevada, one of the driest regions on the planet. The cold winds blow fiercely, attempting to tear apart anything in the way.

They grow by a few tenths of a millimeter yearly but rise to 60 feet tall over time.

But most of us do not like that approach. We want to have it all now, as quickly as possible.

It leads to a starvation diet in hopes of losing 20 pounds. We give up when the scale doesn’t move on the first day.

I’ve watched the January gym flies come in. They spend an hour heaving and grunting while lifting weights they had never lifted. The following day, they needed an orthopedic wing at the hospital to get them to walk.

You build a wall one brick at a time.

We change our lives one action at a time.

With the growth of online media and screens, I found my reading suffering. I once loved to read, but there was no competition for my attention.

So I had to become intentional. What are the fewest pages I could read to complete a book in good time?

This past summer, I tackled four plays of Shakespeare. I never read Shakespeare except in high school, and then I “had to.” So, I decided I could read three pages a day. And in three months, I read four plays.

I would have never read any of them in one sitting, but three pages a day made it happen.

What do you want from your life?

Do you want to know the Bible better? Be considered compassionate? Be a better parent?

Then, what are the “bricks” that build that wall?

If you want to know the Bible better, start with one verse. Read it and ask, “what do I learn about myself in this verse?” Then tomorrow, do the same—one brick.

A compassionate person does things for others. Today, find one person and do what seems to be an insignificant action. Perhaps it is smiling or asking, “how are you?” Do it tomorrow and the next day. Over time, you become compassionate. One brick makes a wall.

What does a better parent do? Turn off your phone and give your children 5 minutes of undivided attention. (Most children seldom experience this.) Repeat—one brick.

If you want to build a wall, you build it with one brick after another. If you wish to change your life, do the same. Do the small things each day, and you become what you do.