20 years of work. And the beginning of a new chapter.
On 25 September, it was exactly 20 years since I started working full-time.
I made a short video to mark the occasion. I tried to fit two decades of working life into a few dozen seconds. Of course, that isn’t possible. 🤷🏻
There is a separate story behind every clip. I’ll tell some of them in future posts. This piece isn’t about what happened over the past 20 years. It’s about what “Building Again” means to me and why I’m doing it.
I’m not starting from zero
“Building Again” doesn’t mean throwing away everything that came before and starting my life over. That can’t be done. I have 20 years of work, experience, decisions, mistakes, successes and failures behind me. Some things I would do again; others I wouldn’t repeat today. All of it is part of me.
For a long time, my own stubbornness kept me from changing direction. I stayed on one path—my own construction company—instead of trying something else. I know now that trying new things isn’t the risk. The risk is doing the same thing and hoping something will change on its own. I’m changing the project. I’m building again.
I’m building a life, not an online profile
Instagram, this website and the things I publish simply record the process. They aren’t its purpose. I’m not building again to become an influencer or to create an online image of someone who has everything figured out and is now going to tell other people how to live. I’m still on the way myself.
This is about real life away from the screen: more security for my family, more say over my time, and the ability to choose instead of acting only because I have no other option.
Time. Security. Choice.
Those three words probably describe best what I want to build.
Time.
Not so I can do nothing. I want more say over who and what I give it to.
Security.
To me, that doesn’t mean one “secure” job. I want to reach a point where my life and my family’s security don’t depend on a single source of income.
Choice.
Being able to say, “I’m doing this because I want to,” not because there’s no other option. Today I don’t have as much of any of these three things as I’d like. That’s why I’m building, on what I already know.
Construction isn’t the problem
I’ve spent most of my working life in construction, and the work can still give me satisfaction. It used to give me more. I built people’s homes. Later I could look at a building and think: I made something concrete, something that will last for years. My work looks different now, but I still like being able to see what I’ve done.
The problem isn’t that I hate construction and want to escape it at any cost. The problem is the price of the way I work now. It is physically demanding, takes up a big part of the day and leaves me with limited control over how I use my time. My income also depends on one employer. A job doesn’t provide complete security.
If you can be hired, you can be fired.
A job provides regular income, and that matters. But I don’t want to confuse regularity with complete security. Running your own business isn’t secure either—I know that all too well. It gives you a little more control but brings different risks.
I don’t want to look for another single thing on which everything depends. Over time, I’d like to build several independent pieces: more than one income source, savings of my own, investments, and perhaps one day a property that earns its keep. I don’t have those things now. This isn’t a description of my current life. It’s part of a project I’m still trying to make real.
I want more say over my own time
Money matters. Financial security matters too. But ultimately I want something else as well: time. Five days a week, around twelve hours of my day are taken up by work, commuting and everything that comes with them.
When I say I want more choice, I don’t mean: “I never want to work on a building site again.” I want to reach a point where I have more say in how I spend my time, with more of it for family, friends and things I genuinely want to do—not only work and commuting.
I have a project, not a finished set of instructions
“This time, according to my own plan” doesn’t mean I know exactly what every next step will look like. I want to build more security, get some of my time back and increase the number of options I can choose from. I don’t have ready-made instructions for getting there.
I’m testing different paths, learning new things, developing skills I already have and trying to use what I’ve learned. Not all of it has to work. Some ideas will fall away; others may matter more than I expect. 🤷🏻 That’s why I treat it as a project. A project can change when reality shows that something isn’t working.
That’s why I show the journey, not the result
It’s easier to tell a story online after the fact. Once you know what worked, you can connect the dots and make a simple story: problem → decision → hard work → success. Life rarely looks that simple.
I don’t want to wait a few years and only then tell people how I “built everything again.” I’d rather show it now, while I don’t know the result: what I’m learning, the decisions I make, the ideas I test, what works and what turns out to be a dead end. Not as someone who has found the recipe for life, but as someone trying to build a better life than before.
There’s one more reason
I’m using the effect of making a public commitment on myself. I know myself well enough 🤦🏻 to know I can move a plan in a notebook to Monday, then the next Monday, and eventually January. 😅 But when I say publicly, “I’m building again,” it’s harder to pretend I never said it.
Setting up an Instagram account and a website hasn’t changed anyone’s life. It won’t change mine either. The rest still has to be done. But since I’ve decided to change something, I can use this profile and site as one more reason to get moving and actually do it. This website records my journey. It’s also a bit of a kick up the backside. 😅
This time, according to my own plan
I don’t have finished instructions. I do have a direction and I know why I’m doing this. “Building Again” isn’t a promise that everything will work out. It’s a decision not to wait and see. I want to try, learn, test and change the plan when needed. This website is meant to record that journey—not after the fact, but while it’s happening. Twenty years are behind me. What comes next is only just being built. I’m not starting from zero. I’m building again. This time, according to my own plan.
I once felt like I ruled the world. Today I see success differently.
On a kind of success that came to mean something different over time.
When I was in my twenties, I didn’t spend much time thinking about what success meant. I thought I knew. I ran a company, we had contracts worth millions of złoty, I drove a Mercedes and bought things I liked. Once I spent 18,000 złoty on a computer. I could afford it and I really liked the laptop. I don’t regret buying it; it served me well for about ten years. I liked that life: cars, parties, travel and gadgets. I liked being the boss. My friends and I knew how to have a great time. I felt like I ruled the world. All right, maybe at least the neighbourhood. And I really was happy then.
I won’t pretend that life was bad
It would be easy to retell the story now: money blinded me, cars and parties didn’t make me happy, and only after it was all over did I understand what mattered. But that wouldn’t be true. That period had good things in it. I don’t want to dismiss it just because I know what happened later.
I still like good cars. I’d still like a large, comfortable home designed exactly how I want it. I’d like to travel, buy interesting technology and have a season ticket for Borussia Dortmund. I haven’t stopped wanting money. What changed is how much I’m willing to pay for it.
The problem wasn’t that I wanted to earn a lot
When the company began to struggle, I stopped paying myself first. Later I started using my own savings to pay the employees. Then came more trouble: letters and phone calls from creditors, bailiffs and debt collectors. Low loaders taking machinery away from our sites.
I hadn’t thought much about financial security before. Money was for earning, spending and investing in the company’s further growth. I had no sensible plan for what to do if everything began to fall apart.
If I could talk to my former self today, I wouldn’t tell him to give up his ambition. I’d say: don’t put everything on one card. Even if something works for years, that doesn’t mean it will always work.
Peace of mind began to mean something different
When you have money, you don’t often think about the value of ordinary security: being able to buy groceries, knowing the bills are paid and not having to answer every call wondering what new problem has appeared. Today those things matter a lot to me.
And it isn’t only about money. I have a family and a son. I’m increasingly aware of how much of my life work takes up. I get up early, spend most of the day on a building site, come home and there isn’t much of the day left. Life shouldn’t consist only of work and getting ready for the next workday.
Can less money mean more success?
Today I can imagine earning less than I once did while having more say over my own life. I could have a quiet breakfast with my family. Take the dogs for a walk without checking the time every few minutes. Then work on my own projects. Maybe one day simply not work.
I could have time for my son in the afternoon. If he has training, a performance or something else that matters to him, I could just be there without wondering whether I’ll get time off. Would that be success? To me, it would be a big one.
There’s another side, though. I wouldn’t want plenty of free time while wondering every month whether there’s enough money for all the bills. I’m not looking for a life without money. I’m looking for a life where money provides security and options instead of forcing me to chase it constantly.
I don’t consider myself successful today
I don’t have that life yet. I still do physical work. Most of my day is still organised around work. I’m still trying to build skills and find ways to change that gradually.
But success today could mean things I might not have noticed twenty years ago: my first client in a new line of work; an eight-hour day instead of ten; a car that better fits our family; regular time with people close to me; or being able to take a day off when I really need one.
That doesn’t mean I’m giving up on bigger dreams. I just don’t want to pursue them at any cost anymore. I once believed I knew what success was. I’m no longer so sure. But I’m getting a clearer idea of how I want to live. That’s one reason I’m building again.