Built to last

Today I built a castle. Or a rocket. Or a train. Or a cave. Or whatever the imagination of a child makes it. In reality I partook in the construction of a climbing frame. Not mine, instead for the children of a couple of friends at church. But this climbing frame is amazing, not just your standard Early Learning Centre climbing frame, this has monkey bars, a swing, a slide, a climbing rope, a climbing wall, the works! I was I was one of their kids right now!

I loved constructing this frame, it was tough works in parts, but the satisfaction of looking back at in at the end was great, even better though was seeing the excitement in the four children as they watch it go up, impatient for the work to be finished.

Hopefully, if we have done our job well the frame will last years. That frame will become so much more than the wood and screws it is made of, and knowing the children's imagination more than a castle, train and cave.

It got me thinking about what I do for a living; I build websites. They don't last. I take the attitude that, if I am lucky, what I build will last at maximum 5 years. Technology changes so fast that it will be replaced with something better, slicker, faster, newer. And that's fine. It's is one of the things you get used to when working in a fast moving industry.

I loved my work today because it was built to last. I wonder what would happen if I rook that attitude with my sites. What would happen if I built them to last longer than five years? What would happen if I extended that attitude beyond my work, if everything I worked at, I built it to last?