Doing Things the Right Way

Recently I remarked to Zac, "Gosh, doing things the right way always seems to take more time."

I can't remember what exactly I was commenting on at the time, but this line has been the theme of my life lately. For example, I can't remember how this project started, but Zac and I decided to reorganize the basement. We have some storage in the unfinished part of our basement and it seems that whenever we don't know where something should go, we store it down there. Here's what it looked like:


The shelves have gotten a little out of control, and we weren't sure what we had in some of the boxes. It was time to get organized.

We decided to go Clean Sweep style, and take EVERYTHING off the shelves and organize them into keep, sell, donate, and throw piles. That was all well and good, but when we took everything off the shelves, we decided to tear down some of the wooden shelves. They weren't very sturdy, and we wanted to make sure our shelving would safely hold our boxes.

And since we had everything out of that part of the basement, we should probably clean it.

And we happened to notice that the part of the wall behind the wooden shelves had never been painted, whereas the rest of the cement block was. Yeah, we should probably paint that while we're at it. And don't ask me what the stain is on the wall. I have no idea.


Somehow this organization project morphed into an organize and clean and paint the basement project. Yes, we could have stopped at the organizing part - and we still can - but we saw more that needed to be done and we want to do it right.

So, our finished part of the basement still sits like this:


We are waiting to do the project right before moving our boxes back in. I know that we are making the right choice, but sometimes it's hard to do extra work.

This got me thinking about my brother. He purchased a house in the fall and has been remodeling it since he bought it. Sometimes he'll start a project and then discover from that project that there are 5 more projects that should be completed to do the original project right. I'm proud of him because he is taking the time to do it right.

I think about my friends who are intentionally parenting. They are painstakingly disciplining their children in order to teach them the difference between right and wrong. Their work isn't easy, but they're taking the time to raise their children right.

I think about when people get in arguments, it might be easy to avoid talking with that person about what made them upset and just let it pass. However, to do it right, they need to talk about what's upsetting them and come to an understanding with that person.

I think it's safe to say that most of the time, doing the right thing does take more time. But in the end, it's always worth it.