This week I began building a new hen house. I think it’s going to be pretty nice as hen houses go, but in the end it’s just a hen house.And it is not lost on me that as time clicks ever forward in the countdown of my brief life I have to reconcile how I chose to spend some of those precious, irretrievable moments building a hen house.Meanwhile and elsewhere, far greater people with far greater talent were doing far greater things while I built my hen house.Artists made art, captains of industry made millions, nations made war. I … made a hen house.No journalist will write about it. No historian will ever make mention of it. Not even the chickens who will live in it, safe and warm and dry, will give it or me much thought. Not even the chickens.In a few more days I will be done building our hen house. And for a while it will be shiny and new. But as with all things, in the course of time it will be gone, and so will I, and no one will remember it or me.In the course of time someone else will own this property. I wonder, will they build a hen house here too? In a hundred years? In a thousand years? I wonder if someone who was here before me ever built a hen house. A hundred years ago? A thousand years ago? Or is this the first and last hen house that has ever or will ever be built in this place?Wouldn’t that be something? No, not really. It’s just a hen house.There are perhaps ten thousand things you can do in this life to make yourself feel more important. Building a hen house is not one of them.But the truth is it doesn’t need to be. I’m building a hen house to feel more important. I’m building it because I want to. Because it pleases me. Because it pleases my friend, Tina—the person whose existence and happiness and approval means more to me than time or riches or greatness, or all other people who have ever lived or will ever live. Our little hen house makes Tina smile. And it makes me smile. So, I’m building a hen house.I hope you are building something too. Something that makes you or someone you love happy. Yes, whatever it is will one day be forgotten. Just as we have forgotten all those who came before us. But none of that needs to matter. Because we are here, now. We are alive and this moment is our moment. This time is our time. It is not a tragedy that the future will not remember my life. The only tragedy is if I do not live it.I am not interested in building fame, or fortune, or immortality. Those things are not worthy pursuits of one who will not be remembered anyway. No, I am building a hen house.I’m building my own smiles. I’m building my own memories. I’m building what need not matter to anyone else but Tina and me. So for a few precious, irretrievable days I am building a hen house. I think it’s going to be pretty nice as hen houses go, but in the end it’s just a hen house.That’s ok, because what I’m really doing is building myself a beautiful life.