Introduction

I’m writing a multi-part series about finding happiness, in work and in life, and how that shapes the way I think about architecture and the built world.

• Post #1: Going on an Adventure

• Post #2: Into the Valley

• Post #3: The Only Way Out is Through

• Post #4: DEATH.  Of the Mostly Metaphorical Kind

Where we left off:

I felt like everything I’d been working towards, my business, my life, my plans, were crumbling.  I was on a cliff’s edge, and I was a step away from plummeting off and never coming back.

Then one night I was lying in bed, playing it all through my head in a rage, indignant at the injustice of it all, mad as hell at God, scared to death, practically in tears.

And then I saw something.

Part Five

Post Fall

I was listening to a podcast earlier this year, Invest Like the Best, with investor and guest Jeremy Giffon.  It was an episode that went viral.  

In that episode, he talks about people who are Pre or Post Fall.  

He’s using religious imagery, but doesn’t mean it in a specifically religious sense.  

He describes it as: has someone really been brought to their knees by life?  

Giffon explains, “I use the word Fall because it’s capitulation.  It’s actually not really related to how hard the thing is. You can maybe go through an extreme hardship and not be beaten down.  But I literally think of it as being brought to your knees and just this moment of ‘life is out of my control’ in some regard.  It’s more about the reaction, what you come to recognize is true about the nature of reality from that, than what the actual thing is.”

I knew exactly what he meant.

The Hydra

Do you know how Hercules eventually defeated the Hydra?  

He lured it out of its cave, into the light of day. And as he was being overwhelmed, cutting off each head with more emerging, he learned, with his nephew’s help, to use a flaming torch to cauterize the wound before it could grow back. 

Most of my life I’ve never really understood the need for symbolism and myth.  Until I needed more than words to understand and process what was happening to me.  That’s when we need myth to make sense of it all.  For a myth is not just a story.  It reveals a truth in a form we can understand and integrate.  It’s the distillation of human experience, a thousand million truths, into a story that we can use and learn from.

And I needed to see a truth I was unable to see for many, many years.  I needed to bring a light to my own blindness of what hid in the dark cave of my subconscious, not even aware that I clung to that blindness with every fiber of my being.  

That truth is: The world does not work as I think it should, and I cannot control it.

My whole life had been built around a lie.  I just didn’t know it.

The Lie

No matter how many times in my life I’d been confronted with evidence to the contrary, I managed to keep that lie tucked away deep, unaware it even existed.  The lie that I knew how the world worked.  That I was fit to be the moral judge of my own life and the universe – knowing what was fair and unfair.  That I alone could know right from wrong, what people should and shouldn’t do, what should and shouldn’t happen.  How life should and shouldn’t work.  And who deserved what.  

And that I could make life work how I wanted with enough force.  I could control it.  I was in control.

I didn’t even realize I held these beliefs.  These lies.

Whenever evidence cast a light on my blindness and propelled my own fear and beliefs into the open, I would frantically, or angrily, cut off the heads.  But more would grow back because I still didn’t see.  I didn’t even see there was a monster.  I was just forced to deal with reality for a moment.  It’s like I was fighting in a dark cave.  I couldn’t see what I was fighting.  I’m not even sure I knew I was fighting.  I could just feel the venomous sting and I’d lash out, scared and confused.  

I’d been confronting immovable objects for a while: the market crashing in Carlton Landing, the government’s response to Covid which nearly ended Building Culture, and, when looking back, a thousand other things that I was too dull to truly learn from.

But it was in the midst of all the injustices of the wreck, the lost years of pain and suffering, my broken physical body – I’d never do the things I loved again (at least that’s my current experience after three years) – the altered trajectory of my life and family, the insurance and legal battle, the grotesquely capped liability that would leave me paying to deal with it all…..

In the middle of all that, my life one slow train wreck, I couldn’t even get my own lawyer to respond to a goddamn email with an update on my case.

No matter how mad I got, how persistent I was, how much I begged, how deserving I felt, I couldn’t even compel her to respond.  And when she did, it was to fire me for being a nuisance.  And then the City refused to talk to me.  And then I couldn’t hire a new lawyer because ‘I already had one’.  And then I couldn’t even get her punished by the Bar Association for wasting five months of my time and treating me as less than human.  

I’d never felt so powerless, so pathetic, so small, so helpless in all my life.

My rage was rendered impotent.  My vindictiveness neutered.  My righteous indignation lay anesthetized on the table, useless and incapacitated.  

It broke me.

This single moment was the culmination of a decade worth of evidence piling up, mocking my perceived sense of power and control.  The belief that I deserved something.  That life worked according to my dictates.  That I was in control.

This was the final straw that brought all my illusions crashing down.  I could no longer bear the weight of my own blindness.  It was going to kill me.

I was brought to my knees, forced to see for the first time what it was I was actually fighting.  I saw the monster.  And it wasn’t the lawyer. Or the City, or the bus driver, or even injustice.

It was me. 

Dragging the Monster from its Lair

You can’t fight what you can’t see.  What you don’t know exists.  

And for that, I’m so thankful for that lawyer.  She helped me see the monster.  She helped me drag it from its lair, into the light of day.  She helped me start dismantling and setting aside the burden of lies I carried for so long, on an unsteady foundation.  And lies are a burden.  Not because of the lie itself, but because not living in reality creates burdens.  And then it takes a lot of energy to maintain the illusion.  

At the time, I desperately wished to be judge, jury and executioner, slamming down my gavel, ushering her through the gates of Hades into eternal suffering.  The whole world watching, every transgression laid bare, life and career in tatters, reputation ruined, for the great crime against humanity of….not caring about my case?

Kind of funny when I put it that way.   

It’s clearly not about her.  Who knows what amazing and good things she’s done with her life? And maybe she’s going through a divorce or some other difficult life situation? Or maybe she just took on too much?  Or maybe she’s just kind of an ass.

I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. 

While I don’t approve of her treatment of me, it’s like I was trying to take a lifetime of anger and resentment at feeling powerless and lay all the responsibility at her feet.  

It’s ridiculous on its face.

But how often have I felt like this towards people or situations in my life, even if to lesser degrees?  Far more times than I’d like to admit.  Thank god I’m not judge, jury and executioner.

There would be bodies.

Thankfully, I am to the point I can imagine moving completely past it all, leaving it behind.  Not just the lawyer – all of it.  I can see the freedom that comes from that.

But I am still going through it.  Freshly off crutches from my latest (5th) surgery and uncertain if I’ll be better or worse off, still with my case and hearing date ahead of me in December, and still waiting to see what physical functionality and life I’ll have ahead of me.  I simply am not entirely there yet.  I still have more heads to deal with.

But, now I’m fighting the monster in the light of day.  I drug it from its cave and I can see it.  I know it’s there, and what it is I’m fighting.  I can spot the venomous heads much faster, can dismantle them with much less energy, and am actively working to cauterize the wounds.  

But it’s painful – and there are a lot of heads.

The Monster

Billions of people have come before me, and will come after me.  Great civilizations have risen and fallen.  Stars that dwarf the size of our planet outnumber the grains of sand on the earth.  In this vast and infinitely complex universe, I am but a tiny speck.

It’s beyond delusional to think I can control it, to think I know what should and shouldn’t happen, to believe I deserve something.  

It is the kind of delusion, so laughably detached from reality, so fallacious and unfounded, that it can only come from the most unique of human conditions.  It has destroyed lives, fortunes and civilizations throughout history.    

Pride.

Pride is the monster I battle.  I think we all do.  I think each and every one of us has to contend with it. It’s the default human condition.  It’s the monster within.  And it will destroy everything in its path.

I am reminded of wise words from a mentor that ring ever more true: the opposite of love isn’t hate.  It’s pride.

Most people concede that love is the answer.  But hate isn’t the problem.  Hate is just the symptom.  It’s the head we can chop off, only for another to grow back.  Because as long as we hold these beliefs in tact: I deserve, I can control, I know what should and shouldn’t happen, there will always be more heads.  

The Path to Hell

When I was getting my latest surgery three months ago, I was chatting with the lady checking me in.  She recognized me.

She was asking me questions and pitied my story, talking about how wrong it all was, particularly the City not compensating me.  Then she told me a story about her own father, now in his 80’s, who lost an eye in his 30’s due to some kind of negligence.  He lost his job, wasn’t able to sue in the end, and didn’t get a penny.  It was grossly unfair.

I commiserated with her.  Then I asked if he ever moved past it.  She looked at me with haunted and hurtful eyes:

No.  He’s an angry, bitter old man. 

I’ll never forget the look on her face and the hurt in her voice.  The way she choked out the word bitter.  It scared the crap out of me.  That could so easily be me.  If I do not continually choose to let go, that will be me.  And it won’t just be my life I’m destroying, but also my wife’s and my kids’ and everyone in my orbit.

Her father has every right to hold his belief that his life was ruined by some jackass, and that the response was monumentally unfair.  If he told a thousand people the story, a thousand people would agree with him in righteous indignation.  He’s right.

And in insisting on being right, he’s destroyed not just his own life, but hurt countless others.  FOR FIFTY YEARS.

He created his own Hell.

The Monster Within

The truth I’m coming to see is that life’s events don’t cause my emotions or reactions.  They simply reveal what’s already there.  They shine a light into the cave and give me a moment to see what’s really happening.  The source of the emotion.  Who I really am.

But too often I’ve chosen not to look.  To pretend there is no monster within my own soul.  That the monster is outside.  The event, the other person, the lawyer, whatever is happening to me – that’s the bad thing.  That’s the cause.    

This is a terrifying realization.  Suddenly there is no one to blame.  It puts all the responsibility on me.  I’m the problem.  

And as much as it irks me, it’s a binary choice.  

I can continue to hold on to my claims about fairness and justice, insist on being right, continue feeling wronged and blame others, continue feeling like I deserve something and that the vicious world has unjustly dealt me a bad hand.  Continue to hold on to indignation, vindictiveness and contempt. Continue trying to control the outcome.  I have every right.  None of this was my fault.

But I know exactly where that path leads: to an angry, bitter old man.  A Hell of my own making. 

Or, I can let go.

Slaying the Monster

Letting go is painful because the Monster will not go quietly into the night.  The heads need cauterizing and the beast needs slaying.  It’s a bloody process.  And like it or not, it’s a piece of me.  A piece of who I am, my identity.  How I think, what I believe.  

This is why it’s easier to leave it in the cave, undisturbed.  To see it is to see a part of myself I don’t want to see.  A part that scares me. A part that needs to die.  

In many ways, slaying the Monster is an act of letting go.  Releasing my claims on life, that I am like a god, able to judge everything the light touches.  Dictating what people should and shouldn’t do.  Demanding life respond as I see fair and just and fit.  That I know what people deserve – what I deserve. That my perception of justice is absolute.  That I know.  That I can control.

Believing these things offers a perceived sense of security in the world, I think.  In this crazy and chaotic and non-deterministic world where buses can smash into you out of nowhere, in the blink of an eye, it offers a sense of safety and strength.  

Except, like every lie, it’s an illusion.  When the seas are calm we can get away with it, like a styrofoam boat bobbing along in calm waters, polished and beautiful.  Tut tutting about as if the seas will always be calm.  As if it can control the weather.  

But the storm reveals the lie – and will smash it to pieces.  A true boat, on the other hand, can take the beating. It can weather the storm.  It may take on water, it may get damaged, but it can stay afloat until calm waters return.        

And one thing I do know for certain in life: there will be storms.

Believing something untrue about ourselves, that we are powerful and god-like, that we deserve this or that, that we are in control, makes us vulnerable.  We can try to avoid the storms that will smash our illusions to smithereens, but we can’t do it forever.  

Sometimes buses don’t stop at red lights, and there is nothing we can do to foresee or prevent that. 

Putting to death those beliefs, letting go of the claim to them, is painful because it’s putting to death our pride, part of our identity, admitting we are not gods.

Yet it is along my own journey of letting go, of feeling powerless and seeing how small I really am, of confronting my own inner-monster, that I am beginning to realize just how powerful we truly are.  

No, I cannot control the world.  But my decisions matter.  I know they matter because I know the path towards becoming an angry, bitter old man.  It’s the easy path.  It’s right in front of me.  And it’s the path to Hell.

It may be a Hell of my own making, but it isn’t just an inner reality, affecting only me.  It emanates outwardly, affecting everyone and everything around me.  Just like the angry, bitter old man brought a taste of Hell to everyone in his life.  

That’s utterly terrifying.  But it makes us immensely powerful.

Which begs the question: what would happen if we took the opposite path?

To be continued

Next Post: The Call to Adventure

Conclusion

As you can see, this has been quite the journey for me. And this post today is, in some ways, the culmination. At least of this particular chapter. It’s the shattering of my illusions about life and myself. I am certainly not the first person to realize any of this. But all the sudden many stories and books and cliches and words-of-wisdom make a lot more sense to me.

All of this has deeply shaped how I think about Building Culture, and what our mission is in this world. I look forward to sharing more with you soon.

I appreciate you reading along, and hope you can take something useful or encouraging for your own journey. Just hit reply if you want to drop a note and I’ll see it in my inbox!

Sincerely,

Austin