This week I forgot some household tasks. Simple things I normally wouldn’t forget. I have a good memory, usually.
And instead of worrying, I understood something. I’m renovating. Not the house. Myself.
And in a house under renovation, it’s normal not to find the glass.
The house metaphor
Renovating. We often don’t think about how this term, seemingly distant from our mind, actually connects perfectly to our cognitive component.
In recent times this word has come up more frequently. And as I always do, I’ve analyzed it, understood it, made it mine through similitudes.
For me, the house under renovation has three rooms. Three areas of my life, three planes of my transformation.
The kitchen: cognitive abilities
The kitchen represents my cognitive, work, and operational abilities.
And it’s complete. Sparkling. Everything modern, functional, performant. Metacognition, reticular thinking, analytical capacity, all ready to use. More efficient than ever.
The kitchen was there before, to be clear. But it wasn’t like this. It worked, but not well. There was the oven, the sink, the dishwasher. But they weren’t efficient.
With renovation everything becomes better. And maybe we add new pieces. The stand mixer, for example. Things that weren’t there before but now complete the picture.
Like in our mind. Some abilities were there, but not very efficient. We fix them up. And then we add other tools to improve.
And in a way, fixing the kitchen first makes sense. Because it gives us water, food, coffee always useful for working on the other rooms. Right?
The living room: relationships with the world
The living room represents relationships. Society, people, friends, even non-immediate family.
Here it’s in full renovation. Objects boxed up, furniture and sofas covered with tarps. Some walls are done, others aren’t, others half-worked.
I’m working on it. But it’s not finished. It’s in progress.
The bedroom: my deep self and close family
The bedroom is me. The deep part. My close family, the core.
Here I started with more difficulty. But now everything is boxed and covered. The first works have started.
It’s the most delicate room. The one that requires more time, more attention. The one you can’t rush.
Why this order?
Kitchen first, living room and bedroom after. Does it make sense?
Yes. Because the kitchen is the tools. The basic cognitive abilities. Metacognition, reticular thinking, ability to name biases.
If you don’t fix the tools first, how do you work on the other rooms?
Living room and bedroom are delicate. They impact the more emotional parts, relationships, our actions and implications in society. It’s normal they take longer and sometimes start later, especially our part, the bedroom.
Because once we have new tools, once we start putting them into practice in relationships, it’s at that moment we discover the deep biases. The ones that have maneuvered, and often damaged, our lives.
But with the strength to renovate the house, everything can take that different turn.
The glass you can’t find
And here we arrive at the point. The one we often don’t think about, me first.
In a house under renovation you need a simple object. A glass. And you can’t find it.
Why? You’ve boxed everything up. Maybe you didn’t put a name on the box. Maybe you put it in the wrong box. You haven’t lost it. It’s just temporarily unreachable, or reachable with difficulty.
And this happens in the mind too.
In a phase of cognitive renovation, we might forget objects or activities we normally wouldn’t forget.
This week, for instance, I forgot household tasks. Trivial things. With my memory, it shouldn’t happen. Yet it happened.
And instead of worrying, I understood. I’m renovating. Cognitive energy, if you think about it, goes elsewhere. To more important work. To the living room, to the bedroom.
The glass is boxed. Not lost. Boxed.
It happens. It’s not a problem. We must accept it, not agonize over it. Because we’re renovating everything. Later everything will be better.
Maybe once we find the glass, we put it back in a box. But in the right one. And in the correct way.
The unexpected: broken pipe, power cut
Just this? Absolutely not.
If you renovate a house, unexpected things happen. Objects break, create obstacles. A pipe breaks accidentally. You have to cut the power for a moment to do an operation.
It seems like absolute chaos.
But are we sure? Is it really chaos? Or are they simply elements of the process?
If the renovation proceeds with the right approaches, those unexpected events are nothing but elements of the whole. They’re not chaos. They’re part of the transformation.
It’s up to us, again, to accept them. Not submit to them. Know how to navigate them.
Orchestrating chaos
Perhaps later I’ll talk better about chaos and how its orchestration makes the difference.
But in the meantime I’d like you to think about these things. Think about how they seem like chaos on the surface, but in reality often either they’re not, or they’re easily navigable.
Chaos isn’t always the enemy. Sometimes it’s just temporary disorder. And if you know how to orchestrate it, it becomes part of the process.
But about this, as I said, we’ll talk.
Looking at what I leave, what’s created, what will be created
In the most complex moments, thinking about renovation has helped me.
I look at what I leave. The old, inefficient kitchen. The disordered living room. The avoided bedroom.
I look at what’s been created. The new kitchen, sparkling, ready.
I look at what will be created. The finished living room. The complete bedroom. The entire house, at the end, better than before.
I don’t give up. I move forward. With patience.
This journey is key. But not unique. There will be other renovations. Always. Because growing means continuing to fix things, add new pieces, improve.
Writing this helps me first. It makes it real, tangible. And it stimulates the rhizome effect. Because as I told you, I see it as useful and applicable on various planes.
Conclusion
If you too are renovating, and can’t find the glass, that’s okay.
It’s boxed. You’ll find it again. In the right box. At the right moment.
If you forget things you normally wouldn’t forget, that’s okay. You’re renovating. Cognitive energy is elsewhere. On more important work.
If unexpected things seem to happen, chaos, obstacles, that’s okay. They’re part of the process. And they’re navigable.
Kitchen, living room, bedroom. Three rooms. Three phases. One complete, one in progress, one just started.
And the glass? It’s there. Boxed. Not lost.
That’s okay.