The Gift of Laying Bricks

Le Mont Saint Michel

Positive Pensées

Kathy King

The Gift of Laying Bricks

“Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour.  You don’t have to build everything you want today; just lay a brick.”

James Clear

You have heard the phrase, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. 

But what does that phrase really convey?

This simple idiom holds a great and mighty truth. 

To build something great you have to start with this small yet important concept.

Lay the bricks to make a firm and strong foundation. 

Lay those bricks even if it is just one a day. 

Don’t make your house of straw or sticks. 

These structures can fall easily to the rain and wind. 

The vermin can come in at will along with the creepy crawly things. 

But the brick is stable, bonded together and will stand even under the most dire of circumstances. 

Lay those bricks!  One by one.  Become a strong structure even if it is one by one.  

Do you ever have a day where you just do not have the energy to do much of anything but exist?  We all have them.  We do the bare minimum, our work, our sustenance almost in a robot like fashion.  You reach the end of the day and realize that you did not lay one single brick of that new skill you wanted to learn, or that book you wanted to read, or even the person you need to check on.  While yes, some days that is perfectly ok.  But if we are as humans truly pursuing a better view, a more positive action then we must start to lay bricks.  Do you dear readers recall the childhood fairy tail of Three Little Pigs?  The first pig built his home out of straw, when the wolf came he huffed and puffed and blew his house down.  The second pig built his house of sticks and once again the wolf huffed and puffed and blew his house down.  When our fated pigs found themselves in the third house, it was built with bricks.  The wolf was not able to blow down the firm foundation of the bricks.  Such a simple story but what lessons can be drawn from this age old tale?  When you build the structure of your life from something as simple as straw, what will happen when your big bad wolf of life comes through and tries to blow your house down?  You will crumple from the stress, the wind, the force of that blow.  The same was true of the house built of sticks.  While they are a little bit more stable than the hay that blows in the wind we certainly could not classify a home built of this material as stable and safe, right?  The rain comes through the cracks, I would imagine you would never quite feel warm enough on a cold winter night and then of course, there are the bugs and spiders that can come right in!  No thanks.  The straw is a shortcut, it temporarily covers up from the elements in a pinch but in life we can’t build a life of straw.  We need to lay those bricks.  Why is brick so strong?  Bricks are strong because the clay is fired at extremely high temperatures, the clay fuses together to form a super strong bond that makes clay bricks like metamorphic rocks.  Clay bricks are stronger than concrete if you can believe it!  The Great Wall of China has been standing for about two thousand years and guess what the structure mainly contains?  Four billion bricks.  My husband constantly uses the phrase, “Take the long view, look ahead.  What kind of foundation are you building?” Take a moment, look ahead and instead of using straw or sticks have the patience to lay a little brick into your life.  There is a castle in France that is called Le Mont-Saint-Michel, it is located on an island outside of Normandy, France.  This spectacularly built castle was built during the one hundred years war long ago.  This castle has not fallen once during its historical stint on the planet Earth.  Do you know why?  The castle is so well built that when low tide is in residence the water recedes but the walk to the castle is fraught with wet sand.  Walking through wet sand as we all know is quite hard.  By the time that you get perhaps half way there the tide comes in and surrounds the castle.  This castle built of brick makes a land invasion almost impossible and a naval blockade not even a concept.  History has shown us that a firm foundation is key to standing even through tough times.  I will leave you with this little story, our daughter really wanted to be on the rifle team at school from the time she was about the age of fourteen.  The sport is very safety conscious, certain rules have to be followed and a strict behavior of decorum has to be used at all times.  Our daughter is about 5’4 and tiny.  At first when she started to shoot the unwieldy air rifle caused her to fall backwards from the intensity of the air that was expelled when shooting the rifle.  The other seasoned team members laughed at her and said she was just too small to be on the rifle team.  She showed up every day after school for practice and practiced breath control and core control.  She layed those bricks of discipline each and every day.  Pretty soon she was the best marksman on the team.  She won competitions and eventually became the rifle team commander. She ended up competing and doing very well on the national level because of her sheer will to build that strong foundation of hard work.  We all make this trip around this planet once. Let us do what Eleanor Roosevelt’s words conveyed: “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for a newer and richer experience.”  Lay those bricks one at a time.  Find your bricks so that when times get hard you won’t fall over.  

Source:wonderpolis.com

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