Learning carpentry from my father helped make me the person I am

Forty thousand hours is a long time to have dedicated to anything – especially something so seemingly menial as woodwork. Life is fleeting. There are meadows to skip through, kisses to steal and mountains to climb. There are just so many episodes of Grand Designs to watch. The very idea that, to date, I have spent close to 10% of my days on earth diligently chopping and shaping and rubbing dried plants with rough paper is frankly hard to even contemplate. And yet the more I stop and think about it, the more it makes me smile.