Comparison Is The Death Of Joy – Or Is It?

I am always disappointed by how long it takes me to complete my projects. Most of the time, this disappointment is compounded with self-loathing brought on by my perception of wasted time. By that I mean, anytime I am not actively working or sleeping feels like wasted time.

Even by the most relaxed standards, I waste about 40 hrs a month. Doing that math brought my self-loathing to a new low. Just imagine what I could get done with that much time. Dobby very sorry, Dobby had to iron his hands.

Though I don’t know who said it first, I love the quote, “You’re not tired, you’re just uninspired.”

However, that is not the case when it comes to roofing my house. My son, Lee and I spent 64 hours roofing during my vacation. Since then we only rip off the amount of roof we think we can put back in a weekend. We are currently at about 1/3 complete… and damn it, I’m tired!

For the past two weeks, our progress has been slowed even more by the amount of wood that need to be replaced due to water damage. However, I think the worst of the carpentry is behind us – so we are starting to pick up speed. Even though we aren’t getting a full 8 hours a day in, we are still completely spent when we finish for the day.

I say all of that to say this – WORK TAKES TIME.

Sure my neighbor had his house roofed in a day but he hired (literally) 20 guys and many hands make light work. And sure my neighbor seems to take delight in asking me how my roof is coming along. And sure a lesser man would have already beat him into a coma with a bundle of shingles. But I digress…

Below are two YouTuber couples I follow that are building or rebuilding houses.

The first is Wild Wonderful Off Grid – this couple is amazing. Josh is an electrician by trade and is knowledgeable enough to be a general contractor. His wife, Erin is a workhorse that works even harder than Josh. The two of them seem to spend every available minute building their family home. BUT WORK TAKES TIME. As best I can tell, they have been working on their home for about 18 months or so and still have a ways to go.

The second couple is The Hollar Homestead. Ben and Meg made the bold move from California to North Carolina to build their family homestead. For the past 6 months they have been bouncing from project to project as they try to do it all – build a home business, deal with live stock, and rebuild a mobile home. Their progress is slow but their soap making business seems to be flourishing.

What these couples have in common is that, like me, they have tackled large projects with minimal help and are using a lot of sweat equity.

So while I am kicking myself for not getting more done, when I compare myself to these other homesteaders, I see that I am right on target.

I get 15 days off a year and I have saved them all for the end. So I have another vacation coming up next week – another 9 days off (5 PTO) for the week of Christmas. Once again, Lee and I are going to give it our best and see what we can get done.