How painting my home looked like a hero’s journey!
It was pending for long and becoming more and more difficult to postpone it further. Every time my wife will bring this topic, I would try to make some or other excuse to push it for few more weeks. Thanks to pandemic which was coming to the rescue every time I was short of a new excuse. Not that I was not convinced that our home was in a dire need to be re-painted but there was something stopping me to start. Until one morning I got the ultimate notice from her, that if the work is not started within this week, I will have to face undeclared consequences. With no option left, we finally got our home painted last weekend, which may looks like a routine maintenance activity, but indeed gave us few life transforming lessons, which in many way sounds like hero’s journey.
For those who are not familiar with the word “hero’s journey”, it is a common narrative archetype, or story template, that involves a hero who goes on an adventure, learns a lesson, wins a victory with that newfound knowledge, and then returns home transformed. The hero’s journey can be boiled down to three essential stages:
- The departure. The hero leaves the familiar world behind.
- The initiation. The hero learns to navigate the unfamiliar world.
- The return. The hero returns to the familiar world.
The first three steps described here can be categorized as the departure, with the next three being part of the initiation and the last two steps being the return stage.
1. Breaking the inertia
As I said before that I was convinced we need to paint our house immediately but was still postponing it till death. Now I realize, it was the fear of the mess the entire process will create and not knowing how would we handle it. This is where an “outside” force, generally a mentor (here in this case my wife) is required to break free and kick start the journey being comfortable with the unknown.
2. How do you know what you want
When the “painting advisor” first arrived, he asked us what kind of theme or look we are looking for before he can suggest the colors. Now the same question when applied to organization or personal transformation would sound like, who you want to be going forward? There are multiple ways to approach this question, one being search on internet of latest trends and mix & match them to conclude what would look best. The other more authentic way could be really looking inside what themes defines you. The ad slogan of the paint company Asian paints is “har ghar kuch kehta hai (every home says something) which is so aptly describe how any transformation is such a personal thing.
3. Letting go of what you were
Before painting the walls with new color, it is required to do a coat of “primer” as a preparatory coat which help loose the old color and make the new color stick easily. This is kind of, in the air stage, where you cannot see the old color anymore and the walls looks completely messy and abstract. Similarly for personal transformation, we have to face this “in the air” stage where we feel directionless just because we have decided to let go of old patterns and yet to adopt new ones.
4. Being agile with what you really want
As the painters start painting the first layer of colors, we were so anxious of how the walls will look like. Our eyes were glued to the walls as every brush strike against the wall, as the new color was coming to life. Though many times, it looked very different than what earlier imagined, in some cases it was better and in others it was disappointing. With all these dilemmas what helped us was our clear definition of what our home say about us and so did not hesitate in making last moment changes to come closer to that vision.
5. Being flexible in defining what you want looks like
Though defining and being committed to who you want to be is the key, the end result will not always look like what you imagined it to be. This is where we have to put some efforts in striking the right balance in being agile and being flexible. To our surprise, this balance created a result much more beautiful than planned.
6. Celebrating the new you
As the painting work was coming to closure and we were appreciating the new vibes in the house, this was time for gratitude to the painters and other workers who helped us in the process and celebrating the occasion with friends and family.
7. Feeling at home
The next day, it was an ordinary day which was though usual but feels so pleasant and peaceful.
8. New problems will create new opportunities
As my daughter also thought to invite her friends to celebrate, there were new marks on the walls while they were playing. It reminds us that transformation does not mean end of problems as it is a ongoing learning and enjoying the process rather than settling anywhere.
As we are still re-organizing shelves and stuff, in nutshell, we enjoyed all the physical and mental effort and pain during the process and will probably look forward to this journey next time, hopefully with lesser inertia!
