I still have my box of lego’s. This is not a small box, it is more like a box you would stuff all your Christmas lights in. I have played with lego’s ever since I was little. I remember spending whole weekends creating a combination of lego cities and hot wheel tracks together in order to create the ultimate roller coaster of death. Whenever I would get sick, I would stay upstairs in my room all day recovering and creating. So, as you can see in the title above, today is my tribute to lego’s.

When you are playing with lego’s, you don’t if the building is going to fall apart and crumble, you just build the most magnificent thing you can. I challenge you to think of your life as a box of lego’s. Every single piece of you, your body, your mind, and your soul can be created and built upon. Just like how my gigantic lego I made crumbled when my dog ran through it, our lives are going to crumble. But when we completely fall apart when things go wrong, it just means we are incredibly inelastic. Nothing lasts. Nothing. That is just a rule of life. You cannot hold onto the things you have because they are destined to either go away or fall apart. I have been in a place where I didn’t think like this though. I thought everything was cake and I could eat it too. Unfortunately, things don’t work this way. The reason why people constantly have breakdowns is because bad things keep happening and they think bad things SHOULDN’T happen. So, in turn, they start thinking bad things will happen and then they bring it upon themselves. This is a terribly dangerous cycle to be going through.

So what can we do? Well, we can decide to build back an even more impressive or completely different lego tower or decide to let them just sit there smashed on the floor. The thing is, your mom is going to eventually come upstairs and tell you to clean them up…might as well build something impressive that you can be proud of. How cool would it sound to say ‘I rebuilt this whole entire thing after the dog came up and ruined it.’ Instead of ‘why do I have to clean up all the ruined lego’s.’ Your life is the exact same way. When things fall apart, you just sit there and look at it in amazement. However, while you are sitting there, why not be plotting in your mind of how you are going to rebuild this sucker. How are you going to create another city. How will you fight back and leave the pieces of you out that you didn’t like and fill in the blank spaces with attributes you love.

I wrote a long time ago about an experience I had when I was sitting outside just lighting matches and watching them burn. Hang in there for this quick analogy. When you light a match, and you hold it horizontally, the fire burns the wood quick and eventually sears the ends of your fingers if you don’t blow it out. However, if you light the match and hold it vertically, it takes forever for the flame to climb down the match and often of times puts itself out. When you whole world is lit on fire, which match are you going to be. Are you going to lay down and let the fire consume you, or are you going to keep your head up and stay strong. My dad always tells me, “If you are going to stand in the kitchen, you better be willing to take the heat. ” Well, if you are going to play a really big game in life, there are going to be monumental failures and lots of flames. It is what you do during those incredibly trying times that defines you as a person. Remember, 80% of the time you are going to average…champions are made during that 80%.

So this is my tribute to lego’s. Lego’s are the  building blocks of your life. With them, you can add color, shape, and size. When you think of your life as full of lego’s ready to be put into place…you will start building like you were little again.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project