It can sneak up on us without even realizing it. The troubling thing is that it is so easy to rationalize.
When we bought the house, it needed a lot of work. I mean, A LOT! We closed the day before Thanksgiving 2011, but our first night in the house was between Christmas and New Year’s. We knew it was going to be a lot of work, but as with any 30+ year-old house, there are bound to be problems that creep up that you did not plan for.
For example, the previous owners had pets in the house, and did not always do such a great job of taking the pets OUT of the house. 42 sheets of OSB later, nearly killing the truck on the drive back from Home Depot, and we had replaced nearly all of the subfloor on the upstairs. We had to paint. We had to clean up outside. The house was a disaster.
At the time, I was working for an insulation company, getting into work about 5:45a every day. Once work was done, I would drive down to the house to work for anywhere from 4-8 more hours, go home to sleep for a little bit, then get up and do it all over again. Abbie was doing the same. On weekends we would often put in 20+ hours.
Needless to say, we got burned out. We moved in without trim installed. A ton of the house was far from completed. But we were so burned out that before we knew it, a year had passed and we hadn’t done anything else on the house. Maybe we had put up curtains, which were a nice addition, but still not much.
I had become complacent. I won’t say that Abbie did, because she is always ready to do more, but I know I had. Over time, we finally completed some of the trim upstairs, though as I look around, complacency rears its ugly head again and again, as I see trim boards that I know were cut, but were never nailed up. 90% of the way done, and yet unfinished. Complacency.
There are so many little things that are so easy to do, which can greatly improve our living experience in this house. I am going to be much more proactive in getting those little things done which do not take much time, they just take getting off the couch.
For example, the knobs on closet doors. It’s been six years, and we’ve been resigned to opening our closet doors by sliding a toe underneath and pulling them open. This is pure complacency. Again, 90% of the way done, yet unfinished.
8 minutes.
That’s about how long it took to install the knobs on the closet doors, including setup. Another 4 minutes finished the knobs in another room (ironically the first room that we “finished” for Devin when she was born). Drill, tape measure, laser level, knobs. Complacency kept that unfinished for six years.
It’s time to start knocking out those little things – nail up that trim, put up coat hooks in the entryway, fix the drawer in the kitchen.
What have you become complacent about? What simple things could you do to make improvements in your life?
