When You Let Your Past Hold Your Future Hostage

 

Photo by Benjamin Davies on Unsplash

I used to believe that finishing what you started was always the right thing to do. No matter how long it took.

Through college, I had a personal rule: if I started reading a book, I had to finish it — even if it was awful. That same rule bled into almost every part of my life (except, maybe, the honey-do list at home). Friendships, school projects, church assignments, and every job I said yes to — even after they no longer fit who I was or what I wanted. I drank deep from the Kool-Aid of belief that quitting meant failure. That changing my mind was the same as giving up.

In a weird way, it felt noble.

That belief has cost me. A lot.

For 15 years, I’ve worked with the same business partner. We’ve built some amazing things together. Solved hard, complex problems. I’m proud of what we accomplished. But over the last year, I’ve felt a growing misalignment. Not because the business was going somewhere I disagreed with — on the contrary, I’m excited for where it’s headed. But I’ve had a vision for a long time that doesn’t belong there. One I shelved fifteen years ago when I took a “safer” path.

Five years ago, that vision started to re-emerge. I sat across the kitchen table from my best friend, his wife listening in, as we sketched out a plan for a software development company. The idea felt electric. So did the ambition. I remember how clear it all seemed — the market needed what we could offer, and we had the experience to build it. I invested time, money, and momentum. I built infrastructure. Told people what we were doing. Believed in it fully.

Then I stopped.

I took on more responsibility at my day job. I told myself I’d come back to the plan. That it was just on pause until the next project was done. I kept referencing it in conversations — enough times that my family eventually started saying, “We’ll believe it when we see it.”

They weren’t wrong.

I was afraid to let go of the stability I had, even when it no longer felt right. I let that fear hold me hostage. I told myself I was staying for noble reasons — that I didn’t want to let anyone down. And that was true. But it also made it easier to buy into the narrative that staying was the honorable thing to do.

But you know, honor that comes at the expense of growth isn’t honor. It’s fear in another’s wardrobe.

Last November, I told my partners I was leaving. I didn’t have a perfect plan. I still don’t. But I gave myself permission to say out loud: I want to build something different. I want my work to reflect the kind of life I’m trying to create.

That idea from fifteen years ago? It never really left. I’ve been dusting it off — revisiting the old plans, reworking pieces, making calls, knocking on digital doors. It’s not some massive reinvention. It’s a slow return to something I believed in long before I convinced myself to play it safe.

And here’s something I’ve had to learn: it’s natural to change. But you have to be careful not to keep forcing the new version of yourself to honor promises made by the old one. Entrepreneurship isn’t a loyalty test. And your job — any job, really — isn’t to be faithful to a vision or version that no longer fits who you are, what you believe, or what you care about now.

More often than not, the bravest move isn’t sticking it out.

It’s letting go.

This doesn’t just apply to building a business. I’ve watched people stay in jobs, relationships, even belief systems, not because they’re still aligned — but because they once made an internal promise they don’t feel free to break.

I understand that. Some of those internal promises are what keep us grounded through hard times. But some keep us stuck.

Growth doesn’t always show up like a clear goal. Sometimes, it looks like pulling the plug on something that no longer makes sense. Sometimes, it’s working up the courage to say: I’m not there anymore. Then saying it.

That used to sound like quitting to me. Now I’m learning it’s just clarity.

Because if persistence becomes a stand-in for purpose, it’s not discipline. It’s momentum.

I’ve spent a lot of time in this canyon — thinking, circling, second-guessing. These past thirty days, I’ve named things I’ve avoided, confronted fears I’ve carried, cried ugly tears, and started to move differently. I’m still building. Still unsure. But I’m no longer working to protect a version of myself I’ve outgrown.

This version — the one who let go of a job that no longer felt like home, who’s willing to take a risk on an old dream, who doesn’t need a perfect answer to keep going — that version feels more aligned than I’ve felt in a long time.

And that’s not failure.

That’s freedom.

The Hustle Ends When Identity Begins

 

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

I sat down for dinner tonight.

There are a lot of nights when I eat standing at the kitchen counter or grab something on the go. The meal was simple: macaroni salad and a chicken patty.

My bonus mom made the macaroni salad for a family dinner last night and left some extra with me. It’s honestly one of the first things I remember her making. She made it when she and my dad were dating. It’s a simple food — some pasta, a few chopped veggies, a special sauce. It’s delicious. We joke — only sometimes joke — that her pasta salad, peanut butter and honey sandwiches, chocolate éclair pie, and her unmatched persistence were what held our family together.

I’ve asked her on multiple occasions how she managed to keep going. Her answer is always the same: “I knew I was supposed to be here.”

My bonus mom joined our family in 1994 with one child of her own and walked into a house with five more — three of us teenagers, all of us grieving. It was chaos. She married into heartbreak and a wall of teenage resistance. There was unfinished mourning and no shortage of emotional landmines.

We were often intentionally unkind. In a way — unjustified as it was — we used our anger to shout over our own pain. Teenagers can be selfish, and grief only magnified that.

We had lost our mom, and in the aftermath, none of us really knew who we were anymore.

Honestly, I’m still figuring that part out.

But she — without question — knew who she was. She wasn’t there to replace our mother but knew she was filling a void we desperately needed filled. And she stayed.

I think about that a lot. Especially now, as I juggle two businesses, a marriage, five kids of my own, and a seemingly endless stack of responsibilities. There’s a lot of noise and pressure. A lot of people chasing something.

Often, I’m one of them.

Hustle is a tricky thing. It gets wrapped up in ambition. It flatters you with words like “the grind” and “next level.” But hustle always makes you feel like if you’re not sprinting, you’re falling behind. If you ever stop running, everything will fall apart.

Lately, the people who impress me most aren’t the ones chasing the next big thing — or anything, for that matter. They’re the people who know who they are and act from that place. Quietly. Consistently. No performance. Very little recognition.

That’s what I saw in my bonus mom. No grand pronouncements. No demands for attention or thanks. Just the steady work of showing up with love, consistency, and a kind of grace that didn’t flinch, even when we tried to make it impossible.

She wasn’t hustling to prove something because she was grounded in who she was.

There’s power in that. A kind of persistent strength — endurance — that suppresses the noise.

I’ve spent too many years trying to earn my worth — working long hours to prove I’m a good dad, fixing everything to prove I’m a good husband, over-delivering (or at least over-promising) to prove I’m a good provider. Arriving early. Leaving late. Always in motion. But all that proving has taken a toll. It’s left me exhausted. And if I’m honest, split. One version of me for work, another for home. The job gets the best of me; my family, too often, gets what’s left — or even the worst of me.

And while I never question the life I’ve built with my wife and kids — I love this life — I’ve started to see the ways I’ve built around them instead of with them. Not out of a lack of love, but from years of running on autopilot. Trying to be everything for everyone, except maybe the version of myself they actually need most.

There’s a moment when you realize that the hustle doesn’t stop until identity starts. That when you know who you are — and who you’re trying to be — you stop chasing everything else.

You start choosing.

You start saying no.

You start listening more than performing.

You show up not because you’re supposed to, but because you mean it.

That’s where I’m trying to live now. Not in the race to keep up. Or win. But in the slow, deliberate effort to be someone my family can count on — not because I do everything, but because I’m grounded in who I am.

The canyon I’ve been climbing out of wasn’t built by failure. It was carved by the constant need to hustle for my value — and maybe the shadows of failure that used to scare me.

I’m not out yet. But I’m finding footholds in the quiet. In the metaphorical macaroni salads of life. In the stories I tell my kids. In the moments when I stop to sit down and eat.

I’m still figuring it out. But at least now, I’m doing it as someone who’s remembering who he is.

Keeping My Compass While I Build

 

Photo by Jordan Madrid on Unsplash

I remember when I first started this. I used to tell people I was doing it for more control. More freedom. More time with my family. And now? I have all the responsibility and none of the freedom. That doesn’t feel like winning.

Most days, building two companies feels like holding my breath. Occasionally there’s clarity — a flicker of progress, the rare breakthrough. But mostly, it’s tension. A lot of hoping everything holds together just long enough to get to the next milestone.

I didn’t start the company to get rich. I started it because I wanted to build something that mattered. Something useful. Something I could point to and say, “That helps.” But meaning gets murky when you’re knee-deep in invoices, chasing payments, managing timelines, and wondering if the thing you’re building is going to break you before it pays you.

There have been more than a few days where I’ve let it consume me. Completely. Trying to figure this out — as a way to provide for my family — has too often become the most important thing in the room. And my family has felt it.

That’s the irony: trying to build something to protect them, while ignoring their other needs.

My wife and I have had our share of tense conversations — about money, time, and the emotional constipation I exhibit at regular intervals. She’s always been supportive, but the strain shows — for both of us. When I’m up at 4:00 a.m. responding to emails and still at my desk long after she’s gone to bed, it’s not subtle. It’s sacrifice, and not the good kind.

There are days when I’m not sure whether I’m building something or just burying myself under it.

There’s real tension: I want to do good work. I want to be a great provider. I want to create something valuable — maybe because of the validation I still seek outside of myself. I also want to be a good husband. A good dad. Someone who doesn’t just talk about values but actually lives them.

But it’s easy to lose your compass when you’re deep in the work — especially when the work feels endless and there’s no revenue yet.

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve told my wife, “This month is going to be crazy.” Lately her response is, “When is it not? Your life has always been crazy.”

And she’s not wrong.

Sometimes it’s easier to stay caught in the momentum of building than it is to stop and ask: Is this really the best use of me right now?

What I’m learning — slowly, sometimes reluctantly — is that what you build starts to lose meaning if you’re always absent from the rest of your life.

I don’t mean to get overly philosophical, but does the world really need another superhero founder? Or is that just a cultural script we’ve all internalized so deeply that we forget to question it?

I certainly haven’t questioned it enough.

The business matters. What I’m building will pay the bills. It gives me work I actually care about. But when it becomes the only thing that gets my full attention, everything else starts running on fumes.

It’s not the first time this has happened. I start snapping at people. I stop taking care of my body. I shortcut conversations. Even my relationships start to feel transactional.

The justification is usually the same: just one more season. Just get through this hard part. Then I’ll breathe again. But there’s always another deadline. Another launch. Another contract to land.

It’s tragic how seasons turn into years when you’re not paying attention.

And I want to pay attention. I want to be someone who notices.

So I’ve started putting small practices in place. Saying no more often — still awkward, but I’ve done it a few times. I haven’t started closing my laptop, exactly, but I’m starting to walk away from it a little earlier. Little gestures that help reorient me. Remind me of who I actually want to be.

And yet, I still think about work constantly. I still let urgency override what matters most. I still forget. But when I do remember, it’s never because of some grand realization.

It’s because I’m sitting on the floor while my youngest tells me something about African leopards. Or because I’m listening to my fourteen-year-old explain his theories on the universe. Sometimes it’s just standing in the rain, remembering how much I used to love it. Watching a show with my wife, even when part of me still itches to get something done.

Those are the things that mark north on my compass.

I’m still trying to find balance. Still overcorrecting. Still sliding. But I’m watching more closely now.

Because building something matters.

But staying someone I recognize matters more.

Success Isn't Freedom If You Hate Yourself

 

Photo by Stacey Koenitz on Unsplash

The oversized mirror in my bathroom makes it hard not to get a full view of yourself every time you pass it. Last night, I stopped to look at myself before getting ready for bed. It wasn’t a long look, but I did pause long enough to feel something I didn’t expect. It wasn’t disgust, exactly. Or shame — maybe a little shame. Recognition, maybe?

In our adult years, most of us don’t consciously choose to gain weight. I’ve gained thirty pounds made up mostly of Dr. Pepper, donuts, and too many carb-heavy meals.

I didn’t really mean to gain the weight. It just happened. Some of it’s stress. Some of it’s poor sleep. Some of it’s that strange kind of rationalized neglect that says, I’ll take care of myself when I have the time. Which, of course, I never do.

The pause in front of the mirror must have been motivated by an earlier conversation with my wife. We were talking about what it means to love your body. Since her short battle with cancer, she’s had a healthier relationship with that idea than I have. Mostly, I treat my body like a tool I don’t care for. Sometimes, it’s an inconvenience. I wake up every morning stiff from too many hours at the desk. Sometimes it’s my hip — still messed up from an injury eight years ago. Most days it’s my shoulder. Some days it’s everything.

And yet, I keep saying yes to long days and late nights, thinking I’ll “circle back” to my health when the dust settles.

I used to run. A lot. In 2023, I logged more than 1,400 miles — 200 of those in December alone. Running was never about performance for me. It was how I cleared my head, how I remembered what was mine and what wasn’t. There’s something about the rhythm of running — feet hitting the pavement, breathing matching its cadence —that’s always helped me quiet the noise that filled every waking hour.

But somewhere along the way, I rationalized away exercise — the one thing helping me keep stress and anxiety in check — because I didn’t have time. I told myself the work I was doing was more important than lacing up my shoes. That rest, movement, and care were luxuries for people not trying to build something.

And I believed it.

The hard truth I’m coming to grips with is that I’ve spent years chasing what looked like success, giving far too much of myself in pursuit of what I was building. I’ve built things, fixed things, led teams, taken risks, and worn more hats than a closet can hold. I’ve been called reliable, impressive — genius even. I’ve sat at the table and been involved in all the projects, big and small.

And it’s not that I regret those things.

But I’ve also ignored the aches and pains that come from not moving my body in a way it craves. And I’ve spent a lot of time in my head wondering why I don’t feel better — about myself, about the work, about the pace.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped treating myself like someone I cared about.

And I didn’t even notice — or when I did, I actively ignored it.

And really, that’s what’s so insidious about this version of self-neglect. It doesn’t come with a dramatic rock bottom. It looks like “crushing it.” It looks like showing up. It looks like inbox zero. But it feels like trading away the most basic forms of kindness for the illusion of accomplishment.

I don’t hate myself in the way that word usually means. I don’t berate myself out loud or spiral into self-loathing. But there’s a version of self-hate that looks more like indifference. That rationalizes every bad meal, every missed run, every ignored ache as part of the cost of doing something that matters.

But success shouldn’t cost me my relationship with myself.

I’ve told a version of this story a hundred times — that I’m building to provide for my family. That the work means something and is for something greater. That short-term sacrifice equals long-term gain. And there is truth in that. I’m not dismissing it. At least not completely.

But when I think back on those times telling my kids stories at bedtime, or watch the lo-fi “Daddy Movies” I made while traveling — those homemade DVDs with me singing songs and telling silly stories and using poorly crafted maps to show how far away I was — I realize that being there matters a lot more than being impressive.

Success is only freedom if it allows you to live well. And I haven’t been living all that well lately.

Sometimes I wonder what it would take to come home to myself a little more. Not in some guru-on-a-mountaintop way. Just… the basics. More water. Less soda. A walk in the morning before my inbox dictates my mood. A moment to stretch before sitting for fourteen or sixteen hours straight. A lot less scrolling. A little more stillness.

I’m not saying I need to flip a switch and suddenly become the kind of person who posts gym selfies and meal preps on Sundays. Really, I don’t think that’s possible for most people. What I am saying, though, is I need to start being the kind of person who doesn’t always come last on his own list.

Because this is what I know: You can’t outwork your way to peace.

And I’ve tried. For two and a half decades, I’ve tried.

I’ve tried to feel better by accomplishing more. I’ve tried to outrun insecurity by being the guy who never says no. I’ve tried to manufacture meaning by staying busy. But meaning doesn’t live at the bottom of your to-do list. And it definitely doesn’t live in a mirror you avoid making eye contact with at 10 p.m.

The weight I’m carrying is more than physical. It’s emotional. Mental. Spiritual. And while I know thirty pounds isn’t the end of the world — I ran 37 miles (slowly) a week ago — it’s definitely a signal. It’s a quiet knock. A reminder that something’s out of sync.

I’m still working too hard. Still pushing forward. Still building something I believe in. But I’m trying to remember that the point of all this is not to become someone who’s admired from a distance — but someone who can look in the mirror and feel peace. Someone who lives a life that feels kind and sustainable. Someone who treats himself with the same care he gives to everyone else.

Some mornings, that might mean running again. Some evenings, it might mean stopping before everything is finished. Some days, it just means pausing long enough to say: I deserve better than this version of burnout.

Because success isn’t freedom if it comes at the cost of self-respect. And self-respect, I’m learning, starts with the important decision to be on your own side again.

I’m not there yet. But I’m starting to listen. And I’m just beginning to see the sky beyond the canyon rim.

And maybe that’s enough for now.

Workaholism Disguised as Integrity

 

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

It was 2:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning when we finally wrapped up the inventory audit. A new store, already in disarray. A manager hiding more than poor performance. Three employees in tow, every box counted, every adjustment logged.

I should have gone back to the hotel for a decent night’s sleep. I should have come home later in the day, rested and sane. But — and I’m not making this up — I wanted to make it home in time to attend church with my family. Plus, we had a new baby at home, and I had already been gone too long.

My three bleary-eyed companions rolled out of their rooms — none of us having slept more than a few hours — and at 5:00 a.m., I was behind the wheel.

We stopped at a convenience store. I grabbed two cans of my go-to energy drink: Superman. I knew plenty about it — how conceptually bad it was for me. I’d been drinking them for months, always while in motion. I knew the 16-ounce can was a powerhouse of energy. I downed the first one in the parking lot. Cracked the second one before I even started driving.

Each can had about 200mg of caffeine. I drank both in under thirty minutes.

By the time we reached home hours later, my heart was racing. I was sweating, shaking, feeling like I needed to sprint a marathon or have a heart attack. The caffeine and other stimulants, without the buffer of constant movement, hit me like a truck.

I missed my family — they were gone before I got home. I missed church. I sat on the bathroom floor for nearly an hour, trembling, sweating, trying to bring my body back from whatever I’d just done to it. And somewhere in the middle of it, I realized something: I had long since crossed the line between commitment and compulsion. What started as responsibility had twisted into something else.

This was just dumb. Downright stupid.

I walked into my boss’s office the next day and said the schedule was going to change, or I was done. We were working 20-hour days. I wish I were making that up. That went on for fifteen weeks. It wasn’t a badge of honor. It was malpractice.

Unfortunately, I have to be honest — the absurd imbalance wasn’t just a company problem. It was me. I let it settle into my bones and take over. I convinced myself I was doing the right thing — that because I was a salaried employee, the company somehow had claim on my time that way. I also believed in working hard, being reliable, showing up no matter the cost.

I called it integrity.

But it wasn’t.

What I allowed — what I’ve allowed, time and again — was something closer to workaholism dressed up as devotion. Hero complex. Proving myself. Taking pride in being the last one standing. The one who fixes everything. All the time.

This, perhaps, is one of the hardest realizations I’ve had on this journey so far: that’s not integrity. That’s ego.

I used to believe that to have character meant never letting up. But the pressure and the pace didn’t keep me ahead — they just frayed everything at once. Deadlines, sleep, relationships, clarity — each thread pulled tighter until things started to unravel. Fast.

I repeated the lifeless mantra to myself that I was doing it because I was providing for my family. But my family barely saw me.

And I’ve done this more than once. In other jobs. In other seasons. It creeps in slowly — the belief that showing up for work in extreme ways is the same as showing up for people in real ways. That if I just push hard enough and long enough, I can make everything better.

But work doesn’t love you back.

Never has. Never will.

I don’t know when I forgot that real integrity isn’t about proving your value by what you can endure. Real integrity is being honest about what you can’t. It’s not about arriving early and staying late out of loyalty — it’s about having the courage to say, “This is too much,” before your body or your family says it for you.

That moment on the bathroom floor didn’t make me a martyr — even though I walked into my boss’s office with the self-righteous air of a misguided one. It made me a man who needed to make some different choices.

I still wrestle with it. All the time. I still tell myself I’ll slow down next week. I still have days where I chase exhaustion like it’s a virtue.

Little by little, I’m learning that saying no doesn’t mean I’m less reliable. In fact, saying no — the few times I’ve said it — has already shown me I can be more reliable.

I’m trying to practice a version of integrity that includes letting myself rest. That includes my health. That includes my wife and my kids.

That tells the truth about what it costs to be the guy who never says no.

The canyon I’m climbing out of wasn’t made by hours and deadlines. I made it. I carved it myself through years of thinking that my worth was tied to how hard I work. And, weirdly, that integrity meant always saying yes.

But I’m trying something different now.

I’m trying to show up in my life the way I say I will in my values.

And I don’t need a Superman to do that.

Do I Need Rest - or Boundaries

 

Photo by Gary Bendig on Unsplash

The phone rang at 3:00 a.m., jerking me out of deep sleep.

It was 1998. I was living in Guatemala, in one of the very few apartments that even had a telephone. My companion and I both scrambled out of bed to answer.

On the other end of the line was our group leader. He needed help.

With urgency in his voice, he told us his briefcase was missing — and we needed to help him find it.

Still half-asleep — maybe even three-quarters — we got dressed in our work clothes and made our way to our car. No briefcase. We were about to drive 25 minutes across the city to the office when I suggested he double-check the back seat of his car — behind the driver’s seat on the floor — where he usually kept it.

He set the phone down, and for five minutes we waited.

I heard the slow scrape of the phone across the counter in his apartment when he picked it back up.

“It was in my car. Good night.”

No apology. No acknowledgment that maybe a 3:00 a.m. call for a lost briefcase was a bit much. At least before checking the usual spot.

To be fair, he was all-in on the work we were doing. He was the kind of leader who would give everything — including sleep, boundaries, and maybe just a touch of perspective — for the cause.

I love the man to this day. He became like a second father to me. He’ll be at my son’s wedding in a few weeks.

But that experience was 27 years ago, and the lesson has stuck.

One of the themes I keep encountering on this journey is that somewhere along the way, I absorbed the idea that being dependable meant being available. That loyalty meant readiness. It also meant rarely standing up for myself. That if something was urgent to someone else, it had to become urgent to me too.

That got me thinking about the difference between needing rest and needing boundaries. They often get mistaken for each other — and they often show up at the same time.

There’s no surprise why I’m physically tired all the time. I never sleep enough. But I’m also mentally, emotionally, and sometimes even spiritually tired. I blame most of it on work. Big projects, long hours, late-night emails. All of that plays a role. But it’s more than that.

The exhaustion isn’t just from effort. It’s from access.

It’s been decades since I gave myself permission to be unreachable. I’m the guy who replies to everything. I show up early and stay late. I say yes to things even when they don’t make sense, because I was afraid of letting anyone down.

I honestly thought that’s what integrity looked like.

Recently, I’ve started asking a hard question: Is this tired feeling something I can sleep off, or is it something that needs a boundary?

To be honest, I can’t ever sleep things off — even when I go to bed on time. I wake up in the morning, and I pick up the same burden I carried the day before.

Over and over.

A few weeks ago, I took note of how many times I checked my email in a single day. It was more than fifty times, and that didn’t feel unusual. That wasn’t just scanning. It was checking. Opening. Reading. Reacting. Responding. Rechecking. For weeks, there’s been no actual emergency — nothing that needed resolution right then — just a persistent itch that something might need me.

And of course, that’s where the fundamental problem lives: everything starts to feel like an emergency when you never say no.

I’ve been an adult for 25 years, and I’m learning — perhaps remembering — that part of being a healthy, functioning adult is knowing when to protect your energy from the endless stream of “just one more thing” and “Hey! Real quick.” Because no matter how much you care — and I do, to a fault — you can’t run on integrity alone. Especially not when you’ve equated integrity with self-abandonment.

There’s a massive gap between devotion and depletion, but if you willingly close your eyes, you’ll never know it’s there.

The older I get, the more I realize that being a person with integrity doesn’t mean trying to be a superhero. It means being honest — even when the truth is, “I can’t do that right now.”

My younger self — the one who got out of bed at 3:00 a.m. for someone else’s briefcase — might have called saying no weak. He might have said I was making excuses.

But now I see the strength it takes to name your limits and stick to them. To build a wall around what matters most. To say, “I want to help, but not like this. Not at the expense of my health, my marriage, my family, or my sanity.”

Most days, I still fall into the same old patterns. These awakenings are pretty new. I catch myself checking messages on a Sunday afternoon (I literally just did before sitting down to write this), or mentally rehearsing the schedule for the coming week while my youngest tries to show me his latest YouTube creation. But I’m trying to be better. I’m learning to want to pause. To breathe. To remember that rest isn’t weakness, and boundaries aren’t selfish.

Sometimes what I need isn’t a break. I need a door that closes after 9:00 p.m. A door that protects being home — and actually being there.

There’s a version of me that will probably still climb the mountain, meet the need, and burn the candle at both ends. But he’s not the man I want to be most of the time anymore.

That guy? He built a canyon with all his yeses.

Now I’m trying to build a path out of it. A quiet one with fewer detours, more guardrails, and plenty of room to rest. Enough room to say no.

Enough room to live.