My husband and I got new faucets for our kitchen and bathrooms. We worked on the kitchen first, which was quite a challenge. The area under our sink, like most people’s, is very crowded with a disposal and different pipes and it’s hard to reach to the very back where we needed to get to.
We (and by we, I mostly mean my husband haha) got the old faucet off fairly easily. However, one part of the new one was slightly bent which made it extremely difficult to line up the threads on the nut that holds the faucet in place.
So, between a defective part, using tools that didn’t fit well in a tight space, and not being able to see what he was doing, my husband was having a lot of “fun.”
While he was struggling to get the nut screwed on, he was pressing against the floorboard of the cabinet when it suddenly dropped out of the grooves that held it in place.
The “fun” continued…… After closer inspection, we found out that there had been water damage to the original cabinet floor that was underneath the one he had been leaning on. The original floor material crumbled in our hands as we tried to get pieces out.
The upper cabinet floor was made of heavier, thicker, better-quality wood than the original. It appears the previous house owners had just put the other piece of wood on top to make it look better instead of fixing the foundation underneath.
There was no easy way to put the upper floor back where it belonged without buying and cutting wooden supports to prop it up to the appropriate level. So, everything under the sink is now recessed several inches lower from the bottom of the cabinet doors and resting on the secondary wood, which is sits directly on the subfloor of the house.
This experience reminded me of what I have read in Lesson 7 of Haanel’s work. He writes
“You must build it firmly and securely in your mental world, the world within, before it can take form in the world without, and you can build nothing of value, even in the mental world unless you have the proper material. When you have the material you can build anything you wish, but make sure of your material. You cannot make broadcloth from shoddy.”
Charles Haanel, The Master Key System
I understand he is talking about “mental construction” in this context, but this universal truth is accurate in the physical world as well.
Trying to cover up and ignore the old with something new only gets you so far for so long, just like the wood under our sink. The old rotten wood was still there and had to be upgraded to have a strong foundation to build the new on.
This is true for thought patterns, beliefs, and those peptides we learned about. We can try using will power alone to change things and that may work for a time, but eventually we go back to old patterns if we haven’t dealt with what’s underneath, the root of the problem.
Sometimes, almost always really, replacing the old worn-out material isn’t quick and easy, but it is necessary if we truly desire new and lasting conditions. MKE is giving me the tools to make these upgrades in a faster and more effective way than covering things up like most self-help programs.
Wow, that’s a powerful story and correlation, Brittany!
Brittany, you and your husband make a great mm team!~ 🙂
Way to see the lesson in your project. Keep up the great work. I truly enjoy reading your blogs.
Hi Brittney, thank you for the illustration of whaat we have read this week. I can identify completely having worked not older and new homes myself. What is truth is truth on so many levels.
Surprises like that are not so much “fun”, but once they are taken care of everything feels so much better. Both when it comes to cabinets as well as building a new mental and conscious foundation for our lives. Thanks for sharing.
Brittany what a wonderful analogy between the foundation of the floor under your sink and the foundations of our thoughts! So true what you said. It’s tempting to cover things up with new and shiny objects because it’s faster and less painful, but they only last so long.