Imagine with me for a minute…
Imagine that you live back in the time of the caveman. You are responsible for building your own shelter, hunting and foraging for all of your food and water, making your own clothing to protect you from the elements, and taking the necessary precautions in order to stay safe from predators.
In this totally self-sufficient life that you live, you have chosen to build a shelter made out of a number of thin branches all bundled together. You created many, many, many of these branch bundles to make walls, a roof, a door, a fireplace, a bed…the whole nine. You even cut out windows, and made “curtains” out of leaves! It’s very cozy, and you’re pleased with your handiwork.
You chose this as your material, because the area you live in is abundant in the trees that provide these branches; you feel confident that if anything were to happen to your shelter to cause any sort of damage to it, you’d have plenty of material to repair it with.
And it’s a good thing, too –
Because one afternoon, you come back from successfully foraging nuts, berries, and a crap ton of medicinal plants…only to find that nearly an entire wall of your shelter has been totally destroyed! You’re not positive what happened, but it looks like some kind of fight between two decent-sized animals occurred, and your shelter took the brunt of it.
You had planned on going fishing for your dinner that evening, but the nights have been getting incredibly chilly, and you know that you need to repair your shelter before it gets dark. So you set to work; clearing out all of the debris, gathering branches, making rope, and putting the wall together. You’re finally done, but it’s getting too dark to fish, so you eat a small dinner of the nuts and berries you had just gathered earlier in the day. You go to bed still hungry, because of all the extra calories you burned while preparing your shelter, but it’s not a big deal. You’ll make up for it tomorrow. Besides, you knew that this was bound to happen from time to time – that’s why you chose these branches for your shelter!
The next day goes a little better.
You go fishing first thing, and catch a whole heap of fish! They’ll last you for at least a couple of days. You love exploring the space around you, so you go foraging some more, and find good spots for hunting. You go to sleep that night, plenty tired, but satisfied with your productive day.
Sometime in the night, the wind starts to pick up. You wake up when you hear your shelter starting to creak, and feel it shaking and swaying. You start to wonder if maybe you should get up and make sure everything is good when suddenly your roof completely blows off! You are now exposed to this crazy wind storm, and there’s nothing you can do about it…so you lay in your bed, huddled as small as you can make yourself, and just try to make it through the night alive.
You have to spend the entire next day clearing up all the damage and debris that happened during the night, and creating a new roof (and repairing some additional damage to the fireplace and walls). You don’t have any time to hunt or forage, but you do still have some fish and berries left to eat. At the end of the day, it doesn’t feel like quite enough food after all the energy you expended, but it will do until tomorrow.
You knew this would be a risk,
using building materials that aren’t incredibly sturdy; but you still think it was a good idea, because at least you have practically endless resources for repairs!
However; this same cycle continues to repeat time and time again. You have a good day, then your shelter becomes damaged and you have to spend time and energy to repair it; you have a few more good days, and then your shelter gets even more damaged, and you are forced to eat all of the food that you’ve been trying to save up. You never quite feel like you’re able to “catch up” like you think you will. Instead, you start to slip behind…you start losing energy, because you don’t have the food storage required for your energy expenditure with all of these repairs.
Then, one day…
You’ve been able to go a couple of days without having to make any repairs, you’re feeling pretty good, so you decide to explore some new areas you haven’t been to yet. In your exploring, as you’re picking berry bushes, scoping out hunting spots, and just generally enjoying the new scenery, you see something strange. You’re not certain what it is, so you slowly move closer, staying on high alert.
Suddenly you realize what it is: it’s a shelter! There’s a person living here, and you’ve discovered their living quarters! As you straighten up, you see the presumed resident open their door and exit. You’re both shocked as you see each other, but quickly exchange friendly greetings.
They invite you to sit and rest for a moment, and you get acquainted. You ask them about their shelter; it looks very strange to you, and you can’t quite figure it out.
So they tell you their story:
They had originally created a shelter out of branches, much like yours, for the same reason: easy, abundance access to repair resources. But after a short storm had blown half of it away one afternoon while they were gone, they quickly reevaluated, and knew that it would be far wiser to start over, and to use completely different materials.
They tell you that it was much more difficult, and took more time and energy in the beginning; but they first scouted out a new spot to build one, so they would have a better foundation, and it was next to a hill, so they would have more protection from wind. Then they built a temporary shelter while they worked on finding sturdier, less available materials: stones, large, thick trees, etc. They also used trial and error to create a sort of “cement” to put it all together.
They certainly used much more time and energy in the beginning with this new shelter, but they tell you that it was more than worth it, because they haven’t had to make a single major repair. Not even with the intense storms that you have both been experiencing; nor when a bear tried to enter their shelter when they smelled food.
And since they haven’t had to make any repairs, they have had plenty of time to build up their food storage, as well as continuously examine their shelter to see how they might improve it even more! Not only to make it stronger, but also to make it more enjoyable. They’ve learned how to make wind chimes, a stone pathway leading to their front door, a fireplace that will keep them warm no matter the temperature outside, a smoker for the fish and game they kill…they aren’t just surviving out here – they are positively thriving!
The moral of this story can be applied to several situations.
Today, I would like to show you two: both of which are in the category of health.
You say you’re too tired and don’t have enough time to exercise or eat healthy. But can you now see that if you put in the time and energy up front, it will create MORE time and energy long term?
You also say that you don’t have the time or energy to even think about reading a personal development book, or working on a project that you enjoy, or creating a morning routine of any kind. You’ve heard time and time again how important these things are for improving your mental health, but you just don’t have the time or energy. But can you now see just how backwards that way of thinking may be?
This really resonated with me! Even during the story, I was noticing parallels between my life and the shelter. I feel caught in the same cycle of making mental and emotional repairs, just in time for another disaster. It’ll be hard to completely rebuild, but so worth it.
It will be challenging, but I think you’ll be surprised at how easily it comes, because of how ready you are.