The Beginning
In 2018 I received a call from my dad about a job that would require “some digging”. I didn’t ask about it much and gave the man my dad knew, Scott a call. Reece had previously asked me if there ever was a job I should keep him in mind. I took the job and gave Reece a call with which he agreed to join.
What we both didn’t know is that we would be digging in a crawlspace with about 2 feet of headroom, 6 feet down into hard packed, back-breaking dry clay. It took us 10 days ranging from 8 to 12 hour days. The pay wasn’t all that great but what we took in memories and lessons from those days was priceless.
At the time Scott mentioned this a couple of times, “you’ll be thinking about this job for many years after you finish” and I didn’t beleive him. But looking back I realize there was much more to the experience than I first understood. Not once did either of us complain, neither of us dreaded coming to work either, we were driven by something other than the cash. We were driven by finishing the day and looking back at what we had achieved. Physical labor is one of those jobs where seeing that difference is always evident day to day. We would step back, see the massive amount of dirt we brought out of under this house and it makes you feel worthy, it makes you feel accomplished, it makes you feel as if your place in this world today is justified. That is with everything, there are times when you feel stagnant, you feel there is no improvement, and all you need is that step back to see how far you have come to make you feel that your journey has been and is worthy.
Another lesson I learned from under Scotts house was that doing hard things is important. Not so that you can tell your friends you did them but so that you prove to yourself you are capable of enduring. Life is filled with hard things, breakups, losses, cheats that should never put you on your ass, when things get hard you keep going and you can only learn to keep going if you’ve kept going by changing your mentality. That comes from knowing what is good for you, knowing that last set of squats will only make you better, not eating that piece of cake because that will make you better, not speaking to that person because they won’t make you better, all those things are hard to do but knowing they won’t make you better and bring you closer to your own goals is enough to help you keep going.
These two lessons are connected, a lot of the time we do hard things there is no difference day to day. You go to the gym today, tomorrow you look in the mirror and there is no difference. You bring your wife flowers and the next day there is no difference. You wake up an hour earlier so you can make breakfast for your loved ones and also make it to work on time, tomorrow there wont be a difference. However, with things like this becoming a day to day habit, a few days, months, or years later there will be a difference. You will only see that when you take a step back. Now going to the gym won’t be easy, spending some time after a long day to stop and grab flowers wont be easy, waking up early won’t be easy, training after training won’t be easy, but it all comes down to your motive and your mentality. When we were faced with the job at Scott’s house we knew rock by rock, shovel by shovel we would accomplish our goal. The same is with your goal, you must believe there is a higher cause, a meaning and goal you believe in. Whether that’s getting fit, being a good husband, a good employee, and ultimately being the man you would look up to as a child and a man you would be proud of as an old man. Find things you believe in for certain, work at them every day and stick to them.
