20 years of work. And the beginning of a new chapter.

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.

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