Good decisions

Two years ago we were rehabbing our first house – a crappy duplex in Chicago. Imagining I was a lot handier than I actually was, I decided I wanted to take on some of the smaller projects myself: light fixtures, window treatments, painting, landscaping, that kind of stuff.

I made a lot bad decisions in these projects that led to me getting stuck. In fact, almost everything I touched I fucked up and had to call a pro to come fix. For a few weeks we had half-working light fixtures, missing blinds, and mismatched paint.

This was pretty devastating. My history of perfectionism, high standards, and engineering background failed me and it was embarrassing and depressing.

I was constantly calling pros from Thumbtack and handy friends and family. I had expected I'd just be able to look at a problem and fix it and that couldn't have been more wrong.

Once, I was putting up a new, heavy curtain rod. I followed all the instructions: drilling pilot holes, installing wall anchors, and screwing in the mounting bracket... I got the rod installed, stepped back and felt pretty good. Within 30 seconds the mounting bracket ripped out of the wall and the whole thing crashed down.

I was pissed.

What happened? Where did I mess it up?

A bunch of googling and calls to my grandpa later, I realized I followed the dry-wall instructions, not the plaster instructions.

How was I even supposed to know the wall was plaster? Why didn't they just make it work for both? I was so upset and embarrassed by my own stupidity and trying to put the blame elsewhere.

Now, why was I so embarrassed? I hadn't really done much drywall or plaster work at the time, and I made a bad decision due to lack of information.

Around this time I found a quote I absolutely love: good decisions come from experience, experience comes from bad decisions.

This has helped me immensely since. Like, why did I have expectations of myself to be perfect on the first try? I had no knowledge and no experience. Why would I assume it would go perfect? Why would I be upset when it didn't? Do other people experience the same thing?

Maybe we should cut ourselves a break?

Talk soon, Mitch