Building a House

Last summer, one of my friends suggested that I blog on the following topic:

"You refuse to do things half-assed. Why? What's good and bad about this mentality?"

I've never been able to just do things for the sake of doing them. For example, I would never do an ironman triathlon without putting in a great deal of time and energy in trying to be excellent. Because I don't have enough time at this point, I haven't taken on that project.


I've finally figured out how to answer the question.  When I was in high school, I had a teacher who incorporated life lessons into our Latin class by telling stories. One of the stories stuck with me, and I've used it several times as an example of why pursuing excellence is important.  I'm copy/pasting it here:

An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer-contractor of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family. 

He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by. The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career. 

When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house, the contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter. "This is your house," he said, "my gift to you."

Life is a 'do it yourself' project. We are constantly building our lives and experiences, and therefore ourselves. Of course, no one ever does anything perfectly, and we can always improve -- but if you're not putting in your best effort with the tools, knowledge and time that you have then you'll start having regrets and wishing you had done things differently.  No one wants to be in that place.