On a sunny day between the years, I took a little day trip with my Dad to a place that’s almost 800 years old. It’s called Altdahn Castle and it looks like this:
This short, 3-hour trip taught me so many things, but above all, it showed me, once again, that…
Everything in life is about patience.
When you ask “How can I motivate myself to work hard?” what you’re really saying is: “I want my results faster.”
Visiting this castle taught me to be patient again in 4 distinct ways.
Nowadays, everyone wants everything right now. Guess how long it took to build that castle?
36 years. One castle! It was built between 1200 and 1236. Today, if people build a home and it takes more than a year, they consider suing the contractor.
Worse yet, not everyone who started building that castle would ever see the finished thing. They didn’t know it was going to take 36 years. Could’ve taken 55. Or 100.
Are you willing to work on something for an indefinite amount of time, without ever being sure you’ll get the results you want?
That’s patience.
A large part of the castle rests on sandstone. The thing about sandstone is it withers away. The forces of nature, especially rain and wind, are always working at washing away the foundation.
The patterns they’ve formed in the rock over thousands of years are mesmerizing:
In 2007 some cracks were found, which put 1/3 of the castle in danger. With some support and securing, it’s been in the clear for the last 10 years.
The longer you take to build something, the longer it will last once it’s finished.
That’s patience.
As I was making my way up the central tower of the castle (called “Bergfried” in German), I had to climb a long, iron ladder.
As I was making my way up, putting hand after hand on to the cold rungs, I thought: this is a great analogy of life.
Most of life feels like climbing a ladder. It’s steep, windy and the cold iron hurts on your hands. But if you just focus on getting to the next step, you’ll stand at the top faster than you know.
Then you can wave and enjoy the view. And it’ll feel all the better because you savored the climb.
That’s patience.
Lastly, when we were returning to the car, we noticed an alternative path at the bottom of the castle. The sunlight was just breaking through the foliage, which made it look intriguing and mysterious.
I don’t know where it leads and I’ll likely never will. But I will always remain curious about it.
There’s always another path you can take. And while the sun might feel brightest on top of the tower, it shines there too.
Remembering that the sun always breaks through allows you to not fret about the decisions you made and the paths you’ve left untaken.
That’s patience.
I don’t travel a lot these days. I’ve taken one international trip in the last 3 years. I work a lot. The longer I live this way, the more value I find in little trips like this one.
Thank you Dad for taking me there. You don’t always need to go big to learn a lot.
You can do little things and then think about them a lot. Until you’ve found everything there is to discover. And then discover more.
That’s patience too.
I hope you’ll find it.
