You Think You’re Building a Cathedral, But You’re Just Laying Bricks

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This is Tom.
He’s 41. He owns three jackets, two hammers, and one slightly haunted expression.
Tom is building a life.
At least, that’s the idea.

🧱 The Grand Blueprint Illusion

Tom doesn’t talk about it much, but in the quieter corners of his mind, he’s always imagined his life as a kind of cathedral. Not necessarily a grand one. But something dignified. Solid. Worth walking through slowly.

Maybe it’s got stained glass windows that catch the light just right. Maybe there’s a quiet bench somewhere near the back, next to a dusty piano that nobody plays but everyone respects. The kind of place you’d bring someone you love and say: “I helped build this.”

Tom has always imagined that’s what it would feel like… once he got the job, or the house, or the better relationship with his son. Once things settled. Once it all clicked.

But here’s the issue.

🧱 Life Doesn’t Happen at Blueprint Scale

It happens at brick scale.
And laying bricks is boring.

It’s Tuesday morning and Tom’s sat on Teams again. There’s a spreadsheet open. Someone’s microphone is echoing. He can smell his own armpits. Somewhere behind him, the washing machine’s gone rogue and started a second spin cycle without consent.

This is not what the blueprint looked like.

And yet—this is the job he dreamed about. This is the house he bought after years of renting. This is the family he never thought he’d deserve. And somehow, he still feels… grey.

🧱 Tom’s Theory of Upgrade Days™

Tom used to think that once he hit certain milestones, he’d unlock better bricks.

Like:

• Brick 5,000: “Now with more joy!”
• Brick 9,300: “Includes purpose!”
• Brick 10,001: “Fully aligned with your inner child!”

He called these Upgrade Days™. They had names like:

• The Day I Got the Promotion
• The Day We Moved to the Country
• The Day Toby Said His First Word
• The Day I Finally Got My Shit Together™

But the weird thing is, every Upgrade Day eventually faded. The excitement wore off. The brick went beige again.

Tom started wondering if the problem was the mortar.

🧱 Hedonic Treadmills and Emotional Damp

Tom’s not broken. He’s just a human. And humans are weirdly good at adapting to everything, including the stuff they used to desperately want.

This has a name. It’s called hedonic adaptation.
It means your brain is great at turning miracles into Mondays.

“I’d kill for a job like that.”
→ Three months later: “Why does Sandra always schedule meetings at lunch?”

“I just want a healthy kid.”
→ Two years later: “He still won’t sleep through the night. I might fake my own death.”

Even blessings get mundane under the right fluorescent lighting.

🧱 So What the Hell Do You Do With That?

Tom used to think happiness was a cathedral thing.
Now he’s starting to think it might be a mortar thing.

The brick is always kind of dull.
But the way you lay it? That’s the bit that matters.

Sometimes, Tom tries this thing called gratitude. Not the fluffy Instagram kind. The Northern England kind. The kind that sounds more like:

“Aye, it’s shite. But it’s my shite.”

Or:

“I remember when I’d have given anything for this problem.”

He doesn’t always get it right. Some days the bricks are wonky. Some days he wants to launch the trowel. But some days… the light hits just right. And the brick doesn’t feel heavy at all.

It never felt like progress. But it was.

Closing Thought

You think you’re building something epic.
And maybe you are.

But life doesn’t feel like that while you’re living it.
It feels like bricks. Over and over.
Heavy. Repetitive. Sometimes pointless. Always important.

If you're waiting for the feeling of legacy, you’ll miss the whole thing.

Just lay the brick.

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