Over the holiday break, I took a sabbatical from all things writing and engineering.

I challenged myself to rest and relax (which I did plenty of), but honestly, that got old fast. My monkey mind needed accomplishment, so I sought out activities outside my norm that forced my brain to think differently.

One of them was painting my dining room, and man did I learn some cool shit.

1. Zoom in close enough and you can find flaws in everything

Pan out and the result is beautiful.

2. Preparation gets you 80% there

Masking quickly became my least favorite part of painting. It was tedious, detailed work that took forever to do right. But once everything was masked, the painting was actually the easy (and fun) part.

3. Most mistakes aren’t a big deal and can be fixed

You better believe my masking wasn't perfect, which led to a handful of blemishes around the edges of the walls. I panicked at first, but then started working to fix them. Yes, it was extra work but it all turned out fine in the end.

4. "One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it"

Every time (and I mean EVERY time) I came to an area where I wanted to avoid making a mistake, I ended up doing exactly what I tried to prevent. This has actually been a recurring theme in my life, and I have to laugh when it happens. Some day I'll start taking the direct path. Some day...

5. Hands-on work is wildly satisfying

For all of my adult life, I've been using my brain to engineer things, manage projects, or write words. But in recent years, mainly as I've become a homeowner, I've found satisfaction and solace in things like yardwork and (now) painting. It's a different sense of accomplishment - a more concrete one - and it activates my brain in areas once forgotten.

I'm already scheming which room I'll be painting next, with about a million color swatches fanned out on my office desk.