The Zen of Doing It Yourself
The Zen of DIY Renovations
A simple repair to your garbage disposal. A fresh faux paint treatment to a bedroom wall. A once-tired table that's been sanded, stained, and brought back to life. None of these may seem like life-changing achievements at the time. But a home improvement project actually has the power to change how you feel about yourself forever. A task that once seemed beyond your talents can become a confidence building life lesson. Each new project has the power to change who we are. Sound a bit Zen? It is and it's very powerful.
One of the main principles of Zen teaching is to live in the moment, to focus on one task at a time without thinking about all the others that require your attention. For most women today who find themselves multi-tasking from the moment they wake, the act of being able to totally focus on one project is, in itself, a healing and gratifying experience.
Once you get an idea for a home improvement project, the spark of creativity is ignited. The idea for the project may linger in your head for a long time until you are ready to act on it. For too many people, this is extremely difficult. Like the desire to start exercising after months of inactivity, the hardest part is getting yourself to the gym. But once there, you don't understand what took you so long.
The same holds true for home improvement projects. Once you decide to act, you have conquered the hardest task.
Now you can focus on how to best accomplish your task whether it is building a brick barbeque, fixing a window screen, refurbishing your kitchen cabinets or making an upholstered headboard. If you are not used to doing such tasks, this first step may mean taking a class at a home improvement store, researching online or getting help from a friend. This kind of self-learning expands your mind and your horizons. It inspires you to keep going with your task (and may indeed inspire those around you.)
Home improvement taps your inner creative spirit. The ideas flow as you look at the project from different angles. You must learn how to plan and prepare and in the process, you must learn to be patient in order to achieve your goals. This is the very foundation of all Zen teachings.
When approaching the idea of making a change, you must overcome your doubts and apprehensions, the twin evils of procrastination. It is a well-known fact that confident people achieve more. They do not spend a lot of time doubting themselves or their abilities to perform tasks. They simply move on with what they want to achieve. The more they accomplish, the more confident they become. And confidence, like sunlight, makes things grow and prosper.
This is not to say that confident people never fail. It is to say that they do not take failure as a personal indictment. If something doesn't work, a confident person will chalk up the exercise as a learning experience and go forward. They know that challenges cause us to think in new ways. Indeed, Zen practitioners are often grateful for the failure as a life lesson that will help them in the future. You've heard the cliche that says when life hands you lemons, make lemonade? Confident people know that lemonade can be the sweetest and most refreshing drink in the world.
Of course home improvement tasks also teach you Zen-like humility. It is important to know when to give up and turn the task over to a professional. Being stubborn and obstinate is never beneficial. No one has to know how to do everything. What is essential is that we know, understand, and accept our real limitations and never endanger ourselves by taking on more than we can realistically achieve.
On the other hand, we never really know what we can achieve until we try and DIY tasks are all about taking on new projects we never thought we could accomplish that expand who we are as people, parents and friends.
A Zen scholar once wrote that, "a day without work is a day without food." Work is nourishment and we have all experienced the joy of concentrating so completely on a task that the hours zoom past and we are shocked to realize how much we have completed without conscious thought. This is a true Zen state of bliss and one that we all aspire to achieve whenever we are working on something that fulfills our passion and sparks our imagination.
And finally, the joy of completing a task is priceless. To look at something that we have built or repaired or refurbished and know that we have done it all by ourselves provides profound pleasure. Learning expands your mind and your heart and enables you to take that life lesson one step further, to share it. What we learn, we can then teach to others. We can form a community by helping others and pooling our talents. There is fun and enjoyment in the process and Zen teaches us that such joy is fundamental to all aspects of life.
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