Tina and I had one of those really nice unplanned but heartfelt conversations with our youngest son earlier this week (youngest meaning 33, so yeah, that stings). We talked, as we often do, about this profession we’ve all chosen and how in some ways it also chose us. He too is a passionate artist who has also chosen to be a builder as one of the expressions of his artful soul.

And we talked about how demanding this business of ours is, and the endless lists of details and questions and conflicts and coordination and crises that arise on almost a daily basis. How your employees have needs and your clients have needs and your subcontractors and suppliers have needs and how you dream of the art of building homes but often spend your days putting out fires and herding cats. And most importantly we talked about the toll it can take if you dare to really care about what you do like we do.

It’s no easy feat to build. To work directly against the laws of the universe, the law of entropy, and bring order and beauty to chaos. People often comment that it must be so satisfying to leave behind these beautiful finished products. It is. But it’s our clients, not us, who get to settle in and live in the finished product. For us it is a fleeting thing to revel in for a moment before we’re on to the next. For us it has to be all about the process, not the destination. If we don’t enjoy the process, the mess, the endless To Do list that rewrites itself as fast as you can clear it, if you can’t embrace and find rest in the unfinished and imperfect nature of things, then don’t become a builder. Building a home never comes in neat and tidy boxes.

Of course, as always, there’s a greater lesson to be learned in all of that. Because we’re all working at building something are we not? A career, a family, a life. And if you’ve spent any time working at it you’ve probably come to realize by now that those so called destinations, those milestones, those “if only I can get here, then everything will be different” fantasies, are just that … fantasies. Mirages that move and shift and evaporate the closer you come to them.

If there’s one thing you can count on in this life it’s that life itself is always moving the goalpost. And that just doesn’t seem fair. If you believe that everything will be different once you’ve reached your goal, then it’s not only unfair but maddening.

So here’s the secret to happiness in a life where the work is messy and destinations are fleeting: find a way to enjoy the process. Life will never be perfect. But it can be excellent. Perfect is a fantasy. Excellence is real, a process, a way of dealing with and living in and constantly improving a permanently imperfect world.

That’s not to say life doesn’t get better or that there aren’t real turning points. Yes, your remodel has brought you to a new place, a better place. No, it’s not done. It will never really ever be done. Remodel is just a word that means reshaping, and when exactly will you ever be done reshaping your life? So find a way to enjoy the process of building. Set new goals and priorities. Not for completion and perfection but for the process and for excellence.

Embrace the mess, plan for imperfection, and commit yourself to excellence. That is how you build a beautiful house, and also it’s how you can build yourself an imperfectly excellent but beautiful life.