We’re a constant work in progress 🖊️

I was in Paris recently and, as part of my trip, I went to see how the Notre-Dame was doing after its terrible fire in 2019.

A few years on and it’s looking pretty good, though most of it is covered with scaffolding and cranes.

I also went to the Eiffel Tower, which also has a lot of scaffolding up because part of it is being renovated.

In fact, everywhere I looked in Paris, there were roadworks, closures, building work, and all kinds of renovations going on.

And I kept thinking ‘this building will look really nice when it’s finished’ or ‘this area will be lovely once all the roadworks are completed’ or ‘Paris will be perfect when all this scaffolding and construction debris is cleared away’.

And guess what?

It reminded me of what we tell ourselves on a daily basis:

Things will be great as soon as I get that promotion. If I could just lose twenty pounds, I’d be happy with how I look. My life will be perfect as soon as I meet the right person. I just need to earn more money and then I’ll be happy.

But here’s the thing.

Just like Paris (and any other major city), we are all a work in progress. We will never be 100% happy or feel 100% complete. We need to be constantly working on ourselves, constantly working towards new goals, constantly improving.

Our lives are never going to be perfect, and that’s OK.

There’s always going to be a little scaffolding around, and there will always be ongoing construction.

And that’s OK too.

While I was in Paris I also visited L’Atelier des Lumières (which translates to The Workshop of Lights), which was an amazing immersive art experience that is so good it’s difficult to describe.

It’s basically a huge room where the walls and floors are made of screens. They then take the artwork of a famous artist and display it on these screens, taking separate elements of the paintings and bringing them to life as you essentially ‘walk through’ the artwork. It’s incredible.

The main exhibition was on Cézanne, who was not exactly celebrated as a great artist for most of his life. In fact, he was often misunderstood and discredited while he was alive. Like many greats, he didn’t become wildly successful until after his death.

And now he’s part of an innovative new exhibition where people from all over the world come to experience his art in a way he probably would never have thought possible.

That is an incredible legacy to leave, an incredible way to impact millions of people – even long after you’re gone.

So what am I trying to say?

💜 Basically, we’re all a work in progress, and that’s fine.

💜 And we never know who we’re going to impact, both in our lifetime and hundreds of years after our deaths.

So, keep going with whatever work lights you up – whether you’re currently seeing your ‘name in lights’ or not.

You never know who you’re going to impact, or when. And that scaffolding? It might look ugly, but it’s going to help you achieve all your goals.

That’s it for now – until next time, I’ll catch you on the flip side!