Meditation and the Lost Art of Working with Our Hands

When the intangible meets the tangible.

I am horrible at meditating. I want to be good at. I really want to be the type of person that meditates. I even completely redecorated my spare room to have an area dedicated to meditation.

I have not used it once.

Today, I’m going in there and meditating for a long time. For hours. Not in the way you would think. I’m not lighting candles. I’m not turning on calming music. I‘m not burning incense. I’m not focusing on the same spot on the wall while sitting on a comfortable cushion.

I’m building shelves.

There is something incredibly therapeutic about building something with your own two hands. Last year was a difficult one for me and I needed something to do with my time, my energy, and my hands.

The first thing I built was a set of industrial shelves. It was unbelievably easy.

The hardest part of it was that I had lost all the power tools, that once took up space in my garage, in my divorce.

It felt so good to go out and buy my own tools. Ones that I will have forever. Ones that would be mine.